Once you purchase an EV, you’ll ‘never go back’
Recently, the Albuquerque Journal published an editorial in opposition to the proposed Advanced Clean Car and Truck rules.
I’m writing as a citizen who is very concerned about climate change. I love my electric vehicle and I know it is helping create a future with a livable planet. So I’ll never go back to an internal combustion engine — ICE — vehicle. We absolutely must transition away from ICE vehicles to EVs as an essential step to reduce greenhouse gases in time to preserve the future livability of the planet.
At a recent hearing, a number of people remarked that it is difficult to purchase an EV in New Mexico. I agree. I had to go to Colorado to purchase mine back in 2018. By requiring dealers to have inventories of EVs, these rules will ensure that EVs are readily available for New Mexicans to purchase. And once people start to purchase them and influence their friends to purchase them, I predict that just like me, they’ll never go back, reducing future demand for ICE vehicles. So the idea that there will be reduced inventory of ICE vehicles shouldn’t have to be a problem — there should also be reduced demand.
The editors say, however, that EVs are too expensive for most New Mexicans. Moreover, the editors have assumed that the cost of an EV today will always be the same. That’s unlikely. Prices on EVs are predicted to come way down in the near future. Moreover, tax credits will bring the price even farther down on qualifying models.
Additionally, when we think of the “cost” of driving an ICE vehicle, we need to take into account not just the sticker price, but also the staggering cost of the health problems they cause, the deaths, health emergencies, and chronic diseases from breathing ICE tailpipe emissions. EVs cut these costs to zero — a huge savings for all of us.
The editors also argue that EVs have limited range. I respond that I’ve taken my EV twice to Yosemite, California, and routinely travel back and forth from Albuquerque to Taos or Gallup, with no problem regarding range. They further say that places like Española have only one charging station. Yes, we certainly need to get more charging stations in all areas of our state — and available to apartment dwellers — but at the same time it should be clearly understood that most EV owners routinely charge at home, not at public charging stations.
The editors also complain that, “Government mandates and tax rebates wouldn’t be necessary if people actually wanted EVs. They’d sell themselves.” They should have heard the enthusiasm of EV owners at the hearing and the press conference following the meeting session. People tend to love them.
Furthermore, it seems to me that we as a society have, for example, encouraged water conservation and electricity conservation by offering rebates for water- and power-efficient appliances and fixtures. Rebates are a common way of achieving a necessary or desirable change. They are all the more needed to leverage a major change, such as moving to EVs, a technology unfamiliar to many people.
So I’m in favor of the proposed Advanced Clean Car and Trucks rules, which, contrary to the opinion expressed in the editorial, could be modified should that become necessary.