THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR By Art James
Electric Vehicles
In the summer of 2008, the price of regular gasoline exceeded $4 per gallon in Oregon for the first time in history. I work in ODOT’s Office of Innovative Partnerships where we have a unique statutory authority to enter into public/ private partnerships for transportation projects. The phone rang and it was a fleet operator in the Portland area who said the fuel prices were going to put him out of business. He was thinking about converting to electric drive vehicles, but was concerned about their range and not having places around the community to charge them. He had heard about the Innovative Partnerships program and wondered if we could use that authority to install charging stations around Oregon. This started a process where ODOT began to take an active role in facilitating deployment of electric vehicle charging stations. The first-ever statewide request for proposal for EV-charging equipment was issued in 2009 and a subsequent RFP for fast chargers went out in 2010. We obtained an American Recovery & Reinvestment Act ARRA grant of nearly $1 million in 2010 to install fast chargers along Interstate 5 in southern Oregon and an additional $3.4 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2011 to put chargers along the coast, out in the Columbia River Gorge and over the Cascades. A remarkable transformation has taken place since these early efforts. Oregon
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April 5, 2013
has over 800 charging stations in operation and more are being installed daily. More than 2,000 plug-in EVs are driving on Oregon roads and the rate of adoption is outpacing hybrids when they were first introduced over a decade ago. EV Charging facilities are popping up at malls, grocery stores, restaurants, theaters and even at ODOT office buildings! For some people, the argument for EVs is all about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Nissan made a classic TV ad for the LEAF that featured a polar bear who leaves a melting iceberg to go to the city and give the owner of a Nissan LEAF a hug. While I get this, what has kept me working on this for the last five years is the economic impact the transition from imported fossil fuels to domestically produced electricity will have on this state. Oregonians spend more than $8 billion every year on gasoline and diesel. Since there is no production or refinement in this state, all of that money leaves the state, some of it even going to countries that don’t like us very much. If we can convert a significant portion of our transportation fuel from petroleum to electricity, that will all be money that will stay in Oregon to grow the economy and create jobs. That argument to me is like mom, apple pie and the flag. And for consumers, consider that if you drive a car that gets 20 miles per gallon and gas costs $4 per gallon, you are
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