19th
#ElectricCar — Getting Legislative
With the inevitability of electric vehicles becoming a more regular presence in our lives, a few modest accommodations are warranted.
As a prospective electric car owner, here are a few items you want resolved sooner than later.
1. Legislative safe harbor for required EV infrastructure
My new charging station is ensconced in my home garage, away from the elements and public view. But the device itself is rated for outdoor use. My car dealer has a charging station just like mine mounted on a monopole in the elements.
To date, Nissan and Ford are ‘strongly discouraging’ non-garage owners from buying their electric cars. This means that, for the near term, when you see a Nissan Leaf or Ford Focus Electric plying the streets, its driver started their day from a single family home garage bay. That can’t persist for very long. Eventually condominiums, public parking garages, apartment parking decks and homeowners associations with street-side parking will all need to get comfortable with pole-mounted charging stations sprouting up like so many mushrooms after a warm rainstorm.
You can imagine the legislation will be similar to what you find for personal television satellite dishes and solar panels—you can’t be forbidden from acquiring these necessities, but your local fiefdom can play a role in where it can be situated.
But so far, that legislation doesn’t exist yet in most places. That will change after a very public spat between a ruthless condo board and a prospective EV owner results in legislation. Until then, caution and diplomacy remain the watchwords.
2. Regulatory reciprocity
In my home state of Maryland, I can request a bumper-mounted sticker from the motor vehicle administration that permits use of the electric car in high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes even when driving solo. I spend quite a bit of time in neighboring Virginia, and Virginia has a similar law. But these rules aren’t reciprocal—Virginia clean vehicles get no free pass on Maryland’s HOV lanes and vice versa. It’s high time that states permit their residents to cross borders and enjoy the same privileges.
I’ve engaged a member of the Maryland House of Delegates on the issue. I am seeking a tracking bill in the Virginia legislature in the current spring 2012 session. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to speak with my Virginia-based readers about helping push this important legislation.
3. Getting real on the federal electric vehicle tax credit
For cars purchased in 2011, the federal government offered an up-to $7,500 tax credit for plug-in electric vehicles. Many states offer their own tax credits or deductions.
But the party may soon be over. Absent an extension of the federal tax credit—which is no sure thing in the current climate—all of the electric vehicles on the market are too expensive at their current price points (Nissan Leaf starting at $37,000 and Ford Focus Electric at more than $40,000) to be cost effective in the long term, or affordable for financing for all but a very few car buyers.
Likewise, the vultures are circling a generous federal commercial tax benefit for companies investing in major infrastructure projects supporting EVs.
We’ve all heard the rhetoric from the auto makers: as soon as EV sales volume starts picking up, economies of scale for the battery packs will start kicking in and prices for EVs would ease. The proof is in the pocketbook: electric car manufacturers need to stand up and match price cuts to offset the federal tax breaks that are going the way of the dodo.
For electric vehicles to become more than a fringe offering, their drive-off-the-lot cost needs to be in the realm of internal combustion cars of the same class, and the economic benefits for total cost of ownership need to be made clearly and prominently. I think I have the contact information for those Infographics guys around here somewhere…
This is the eighth in a series on the state of electric vehicles in 2012.
« Part 1 of the Electric Car Series: “On the Bleeding Edge”
« Part 2 of the Electric Car Series: “A Recent History”
« Part 3 of the Electric Car Series: “Nissan Leaf Test Drive”
« Part 4 of the Electric Car Series: “Charged Up”
« Part 5 of the Electric Car Series: “Mindfulness”
« Part 6 of the Electric Car Series: “Difficult Conversations”
« Part 7 of the Electric Car Series: “Secret Message: Like Really Cheap Gas”
