The Real Deal #11

Welcome to the Real Deal - the newsletter for climate/energy newbies, like us!

Quick note: We’ve done away with the complicated color theme. If you’re reading this in email, it should now appear with a white background and black text: UNLESS you use dark mode, then it’ll appear the way you probably like it. The custom dark mode was messing readability, so we made this change. Thank you for your feedback (you know who you are)!

In Issue #1 of this newsletter, we profiled Elon Musk. This was about one to two weeks before many new pieces of information about him came out. :)

There’s not a lot to add except that it is clear that he is not going anywhere and will become a larger (not smaller) part of the American landscape.

And neither will electric vehicles (EVs).

An Industry Breakdown

Let’s not make this about “a guy.” There are many EV companies out there. Tesla has made a lot of traction in the US and is familiar to most of us because of that. Let’s talk about data.

And boy do I love data. I mean, LOVE. I spent my entire first half of my career swimming in it. As an “IT Guy,” I was forced to - and we always had a saying when I was running tech services and dealing with outages or issues: “Let the data tell the story.”

And then, without fail, someone’s awful experience would make us take a look at what happened and - even though things looked great for most users, it was the few who needed our services the most who we focused on when improving things.

So, data in the aggregate helped us know if we we were doing alright, but individuals helped us get better.

EV adoption at a glance

Whether my love of data came from studying Economics (business, not theoretical) in college, or whether the data-driven discipline drove my interest in Econ is unclear. Either way, I am always seeking data. Numbers can be manipulated, but they do not lie - it depends on its source, and the person who’s using the data.

I took a screen-grab of a chart about EV adoption and annotated it to boil it down. Look at where the US is on the right. We are lagging.

I guess I just had no idea. I believed the US was adopting EV’s at a much higher rate. Granted, we really don’t have the infrastructure for fast growth (yet - I’ll get into this below), so on the surface, this does make sense. I was still surprised at just 10% of US vehicle registrations is 2023 were EVs.

On a positive note, the growth in share percent seemed to be steady by the end of 2023 over four years. Something is working (maybe it’s just the IRA?).

Barriers to Entering the EV Game

Let’s talk a little bit about powering these EVs.

If you buy a battery (not hybrid) EV, you obviously have to charge it. There are many more options out there than there used to be. Case in point:

Note: Full disclosure: I don’t have an EV (yet). I’m holding off a bit longer - partially due to reasons outlined later in this issue. I simply don’t trust it enough yet. That said, my research five years ago indicated that you were looking at at least $2,000 layout to buy and install the kit. The kits were niche items and the electricians just did not know as much as they do now.

That’s the easy part. Step 2 is range.

With a home charger topping off your car every night, you are leaving the house every morning with a “full tank.” This may not be relevant for renters or those in condos, but the point is, you cannot do that with a gas (ICE for internal combustion engine) car.

So you need a charger at home to make it practical. If not, you’re out there trying to get a charge from some station in the “wild,” and EV’s just aren’t the same as gas-powered cars.

So, where can you charge them?

What does the US EV charging infrastructure look like? Again, I turn to my old friend friend, Mr. Data. I found a Pew Research article that outlays a comprehensive analysis of EV public charging facilities in the US, and relationships between attitudes toward EV’s among US drivers.

FYI - this is a really cool article (it just came out in May of this year, and there is a lot more than I have time or space to get into). Here’s a quick summary of notable findings:

• The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 both contributed to EV Charging Station growth since 2020…the number of stations doubled by February 2024.

• There are over 61,000 charging stations in the US - up from 29,000 in 2020 - vs 145,000 gas stations.

• Proximity to a charging station (within 2 miles) contributes to an American’s interest in owning an EV.

• Attitudes toward EV’s are also influenced by age, urban vs suburban vs rural residency, education level, and - yes - political affiliation.

The bottom line on EV fueling is that it’s NOT THE SAME as ICE vehicles. You have to think differently, prepare, and equip your home or pay higher rates and deal with “range anxiety) and finding public stations. Like late 19-the century early automobile adopters, who had to scavenge for gasoline at drug stores and wherever else they could find it, people who have adopted EV’s earlier are seeing and loving the infrastructure improvements. It truly is getting better.

Production — of power and cars

There are many more pieces of the puzzle, but the final two sections are EV producers and the grid. I have an interview with someone to discuss the grid this week, and I will begin bringing more to this space on that topic. For now, I want to share something I learned recently about General Motors.

DO NOT believe what you hear. GM, a publicly traded company, announced in October that it’s Q3 revenue exceeded analyst estimates for the fourth quarter in a row (although unit sales dropped year on year). It sold 32,000 EVs in the US (second only to Tesla) and is leaning more into the space. Here is a quote from CEO Mary Barra when discussing the EV sales training they’ve been rolling out to their dealers:

Meanwhile, I try to ignore things like this, which are outright but polished lies. What’s missing? DATA.

What will 2025 bring?

The IRA might very well be a thing of the past by this time next year - and likely sooner - and much of the government’s investment in EV infrastructure will likely decrease or disappear.

But… the free market will drive where this all goes. Energy independence is a high priority - the rare bit of agreement between the incumbent and entering administrations.

On top of that, the carbon footprint an average EV is still dependent on a largely “dumb” grid.

With all that in mind, I’m looking forward to digging into this more.

Thanks once again for your readership! I am so excited about the growth of this and I’d love to hear back from you. If you read this on the web you can post comments and “like” any post.