Panelists at a climate conference in Colorado said electric vehicles are not at a tipping point of being widely adopted in multiple states due to the lack of charging stations and vehicle models that meet more of consumers' preferences and needs.
"I don't think we're quite at the tipping point that we couldn't slide backward," said Britta Gross, General Motors Co. director of advanced vehicle commercialization policy. "At least I think we could easily stagnate in where we are in the marketplace. It needs a constant push from every one of us." Gross made her remarks at a Climate Leadership Conference in Denver hosted by C2ES, The Climate Registry and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The transportation sector is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S, overtaking the power sector in that regard in 2016. Experts say the Paris Agreement on climate change that aims to slow global warming cannot work without curbing those emissions.
"If we don't solve the transportation problem, we're not going to solve the greenhouse gas emissions problem," said Parina Parikh, San Diego Gas & Electric Co. clean transportation business development manager. She reported that the transportation sector accounts for more than half of the emissions in the SDG&E control area.
The California Public Utilities Commission in January gave SDG&E and two other large utilities the green light to spend about $43 million to launch a host of pilot projects largely centered around the electrification and grid integration of midsize and heavy-duty transport vehicles.
Parikh and others working in the electric vehicle sector maintain that more needs to be done. The costs of an electric vehicle need to come down, Parikh said. Parikh and Gross said the sector will continue to need federal and state incentives until about 2024. Charging infrastructure continues to be one of the greatest barriers to adopting the technology among consumers and the automotive industry, the panelists said.
"For us to reach a tipping point ... you have to deal with the perception of infrastructure," Gross said. "We're just not going to get there until most Americans can check off that item that they see stations running from East Coast to West Coast and from the Canadian border to Mexico."
California Gov. Jerry Brown in January set a new target of putting five million zero-emission vehicles on the state's roads by 2030 and pitched a new $2.5 billion, eight-year program to support electric vehicles and charging infrastructure to help make it happen. California's zero-emission passenger vehicle stock has jumped to more than 350,000 from roughly 25,000 in 2012, accounting for about half of the nation's zero-emission vehicles, and the state hosts about 14,000 public chargers and 31 hydrogen refueling stations.
However, Anne Smart, ChargePoint Inc. vice president of public policy for North America, contended that California leading the charge on the electrification effort is not enough. "To be really at the tipping point, we need to really see this beyond California," Smart said, asserting that Utah, Oklahoma, Vermont, Colorado, Idaho and Canada are likely areas for potential growth.
Smart also suggested that customers need to see more vehicle model options. Referring to the Chrysler Pacifica, Smart said "Having a minivan that's a hybrid helps but you also need all-wheel drive, we need pickup trucks. We need something that's out there for every single type of driver. Not everyone wants a small all-electric vehicle even if it's really fun to drive."
