The Bigger Picture

                                                                 Have fun! 

EVs are fun. Quiet and quick. What a hoot! Hide in plain sight and then spring into action. That’s the electric go pedal. Primitive hunter-urge maybe. You silently sneak up on an unsuspecting victim and then warp-speed away when the light turns green. He’s left in your dust and wondering. “What was that?”

                                                                Save money!

Save $38,157 in Vermont, $36,657 in Massachusetts and $35,657 in Connecticut.

• Initial purchase. The median price for new vehicle purchases in the US is $47,000 plus. Some quite capable electric cars with 200-mile range are now available for $40,000 or less. Actual EV end-price to the consumer is even lower, thanks to incentives meant to give you a nudge.  
• Maintenance. Federal Government vehicle data shows ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) costs at about ten cents per mile, electric vehicle, six cents. The Government Confirms Obvious: Electric Cars Cheaper to Maintain Than Internal Combustion Vehicles (motortrend.com)   
• Energy. When crude oil is $100/barrel, gasoline is $4.50 at the pump. For an ICE car going 12,500 miles per year at 25 mpg, goodbye $2,250 for fuel. (And... three quarters of that, almost $1,700, leaves the state--your state.) With electricity at $.20/kWh, your electric car driving 3.5 miles/kWh will give you those 12,500 miles of service for $714.)
• With back of the napkin precision, and a "wag" 10% of original value at the end of 10 years, and all other prices in current dollars, a car buyer today could save $26,657 ($77,300-$50,643) by choosing electric. With incentives, savings could be as high as $38,157 in Vermont, $36,657 in Massachusetts and $35,657 in Connecticut. (In Vermont, the $7,500 federal credit plus $4,000 from the state, $2,500 in MA, $1,500 CT.) 

                              10 years          ICE         EV 

                               Depreciation $42,300    $36,000 

                               Maintenance $12,500    $7,500 

                               Fuel                $22,500    $7,143 

                                   Total        $77,300    $50,643 

The neighborhood saves a bundle!

• Mentioned above, but often overlooked, or intentionally hidden by the guys who want you to keep buying gasoline, is the negative cash flow for places that don’t produce it. Connecticut loses approximately $14,000,000 a day. (Four million gallons imported at $3.50/gal.) For Massachusetts, on the order of $21,000,000 leaves the state’s economy every day to buy gasoline. Stupid... or what, if you don't have to do it? 
• An EV can go about 3.5 miles on a kilowatt-hour of electricity, more than 25 miles on 8 kWh. At $.20/kWh, that’s $1.60. But half that cost is for stuff (like wires and storm repair crews) other than the natural gas that produces the juice. About half, $.80, leaves the state’s economy to buy fuel, instead of $3.50. EV power one fourth as expensive to your economy as gasoline! 
• If all that daily imported gasoline was replaced with electricity, Connecticut could save something like $10,000,000 a day. Massachusetts close to $16,000,000. A ton of money staying home in your state’s home economy.

                                                        Save the earth! 

Battery electric drive for everyday transportation may be the lowest hanging fruit for getting a handle on our greenhouse gas problem. Low cost, arguably a no net cost strategy, that can be implemented now...with modest investment. 

Roadways are a big, important piece of existing infrastructure. Alternative ways for moving people and goods may ultimately prove superior but implementing them on the scale required by the climate change mandate will take time. Building a rail-based system, is an expensive, decades-long project. For now, and the near future, we have to use our streets and highways. A switch to BEVs on existing infrastructure will significantly reduce CO2 emissions. Because...

Factors, including the basic physics, compound to make the ICE car terribly inefficient, 15% a likely real-world number.  Electricity is way better, maybe 80% efficient when you carefully consider all the losses. Even if you charge the battery with grid power from natural gas, your trip will contribute a whole lot less CO2. Less than half. Of course, charge with renewable energy and you can feel good about zero into the air. 

Not slowing GHG-caused global warming will impose burdens on multiple future generations, not the gift we want for our grandkids...and their grandkids. We must do this.  

                                                             Why the workplace? 

                                                                     The Nudge. 

Imagine! You’re at the top of the hill, looking past the tips of your skis down the run. It's steep. Then a tiny push from your partner and the race is on. Or how about when you were ten years old, standing at the edge of the pool, dipping a toe. The fun was the water and soon everybody was in it. Just a nudge. 

Looking down that hill, your brain was saying. “Yeah. Do it!” The legs. “Don’t wanna!” By the pool, it was the skin. “It’s cold!” But you jumped in. Fun! 

Now it's kind of the same, literally millions of us, workers mostly, standing at the edge, the brain saying. “Yeah. Do it!” Or. “Hell yeah, dummy!” “Look at the money you’ll save, and that climate thing...” But millions hesitate. Here is the nudge.

Free! Nothing as satisfying as getting something free. How about free for the worker-bees, all of us, no matter what our job-title, a free ride to work. Let everybody charge their fun new car in the company parking lot…for free. Fifty miles of electricity every workday. From the bee’s perspective, never stopping at a gas station, and the company giving it to me free? What a perk! And I won’t even have to charge anywhere else.

                                                     The Company’s Perspective?

It really is a pittance, $3 worth of electricity. A perk as expensive as a cup of coffee. And the cost of the hardware not very much either. In many cases a couple thousand dollars for each plug would be enough. Capital investment good for twenty years and it buys a thousand dollars a year of good will (and probably more honey) from employees and the neighbors. And to make it an even sweeter deal, a good chunk of that up-front investment won't even have to be your money. 

There's more to the value proposition, beyond worker good will. What is the public image as a responsible and forward-thinking corporate citizen worth? And what would the HR Director say about the reaction of people outside your organization, the kind you want to recruit?

                                                        And One More Thought.

For some, it is just a matter of a nudge, nothing fundamental holding them back. There’s a garage at home, already an easy place to plug in and charge in the middle of the night. For others, plug at home is not an option, no easy way to get off the gasoline, a long extension cord out the window to the street is not okay. Not having a place to plug in really is a constraint. An apartment or townhome complex is where a lot of the workforce lives. They drive ten or fifteen miles to work and park in the employee lot every day, all day long. For them, plug at work would mean leaving for home with plenty in the tank, enough for the commute and some errands and probably enough to make it around for the whole weekend. A bunch of folks. Nice perk, and a big nudge!   

                                                                 Have Fun! 

                                                               Save Money!  

                                                              Save the Earth!