By Kate Sargent, Senior Associate + National Practice Leader, Electrification + Oakland Office Leader

There is an increasingly clear public mandate for transitioning to zero-emission vehicles as soon as possible. This promises potential benefits for our environment and the health of our communities—but also involves significant infrastructural, logistical, and organizational challenges. These require careful planning around when, where, and how to invest in the necessary infrastructure. For transit and transportation operators at every scale, modeling current and future scenarios is essential to a successful electrification strategy.

In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered that, by 2035, all new cars and passenger trucks sold in the state must be zero-emission vehicles. It was the latest of several steps taken by the Golden State to hasten the transition away from the internal combustion engine. In 2018, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) set a requirement that all transit bus purchases must be battery- or fuel cell-powered starting in 2029; earlier this year, CARB declared 40% of medium and heavy truck sales must be electric by 2032.

California is far from alone. From New York State’s commitment to install 10,000 charging stations by the end of this year, to zero-emission bus fleet goals in Austin, Seattle, Portland, and Chicago (among other cities), jurisdictions of all sizes are advancing plans for a zero-emissions future. Consumers are also demonstrating a desire to go electric; despite a lack of federal action, and while electric vehicles (EVs) are still just a small percentage of total vehicle sales in the US, the electric car fleet alone grew from approximately 270,000 vehicles in 2016 to 570,000 in 2019. With an incoming administration promising to expand tax incentives for EVs and create a nationwide network of 500,000 public charging stations, electrification is very likely to accelerate in the next few years.

While the trendlines are promising, major challenges stand in the way of a switch to electric vehicles. For transit agencies, these include navigating battery and charging technologies, ensuring battery capacities are sufficient to accommodate existing bus schedules, siting charging facilities, and securing funding for capital needs. All involve complex trade-offs in up-front costs, operating costs, operational flexibility, and bus facility capacity.

For personal vehicles, the principal barrier has remained, in a sense, a chicken-and-egg problem, with lack of charging infrastructure preventing EV adoption, and lack of broader EV adoption cutting into the case for expanding charging infrastructure. Identifying a strategy to facilitate widespread electrification is about more than just the quantity of stations; it requires decisions about which kind(s) of charging (Level 1, Level 2, DC Fast Charge) to provide, siting (on-street vs. off-street, public vs. private parking), pricing, and how to structure public-private partnerships with charging infrastructure companies.

Modeling is an invaluable tool for navigating these uncertainties. We’ve developed models for numerous transit agencies, including TriMet in Portland, the Chicago Transit Authority, and SEPTA in Philadelphia, to understand what services are compatible with which technologies and test different approaches to charging on-route and at garages. We have developed solutions for projects involving underperforming electric buses, constrained bus garages, and hydrogen fueling infrastructure. Scenario analysis has provided an understanding of how advances in technology could impact potential investments and dynamic transition plans, allowing agencies to select a strategy that will still be relevant as technology improves over time. Additionally, cost modeling has allowed agencies to see when and how they could potentially “break even” on their investments.

This approach can also be used to support effective rollouts of public and residential charging stations and electrification of other vehicle fleets. Working with the Tampa Downtown Partnership and the City of Tampa, we benchmarked Tampa’s EV charging infrastructure against peer cities and learned from stakeholders across government, the business community, residents, academics, and advocates; this helped us identify an EV infrastructure deployment approach that can equitably distribute the benefits of new infrastructure investments while catalyzing broader adoption of personal and shared electric vehicles in the region.

In order to facilitate a shift to zero-emission trucking, we are also adapting our fleet electrification model to identify electric charging and hydrogen fueling networks required for full electrification of trucking networks.

With the policy environment shifting and new technologies becoming available, the prospects for electrification have never been brighter. Detailed modeling, informing plans that encompass a range of potential future scenarios, can ensure that we make the right investments to capitalize successfully on this pivotal moment.

For inquiries about Sam Schwartz’s electrification consulting services, please contact Kate Sargent at ksargent@samschwartz.com.

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