Electric vehicles are changing how America goes camping - CNN

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One sound could go missing from the symphony that greets campers at dawn. Besides bird chirps, owl hoots and racoons searching for food, the rumble of car engines firing up as campers head home may be strangely absent.

It will at least be less common as electric trucks and SUVs start arriving at more campsites. While still a small minority, campers are more likely to own an electric vehicle than those who don’t go camping, according to a survey by Kampgrounds of America, the nation’s largest campground operator. Only about 1% of Americans currently have an electric vehicle, according to KOA, but about 4% of regular campers do. People who use them extoll their virtues while expressing the need for some infrastructure improvements out in America’s vast open spaces.

Meanwhile, trailer companies are working to make their products easier to tow while EV makers are trying to make the whole experience better, from camping to charging.

Towing worries

Electric motors have distinct advantages when it comes to towing camper trailers. They can pull strongly at low or high speeds, without straining or needing to shift gears.

“I’m not constantly sitting there watching transmission temps climb, I’m not watching motor temps climb on hills, and we live in the [Texas] Hill Country,” said Matt Linn, who goes camping with his Ford F-150 Lightning and a camper trailer every few weeks.

One major concern campers share when towing with an EV, of course, is range. Any vehicle – whether powered by gasoline, diesel fuel, or electricity – will lose significant driving range between refills when towing a trailer. But liquid fuel tanks are quicker to refill than battery packs and pumps are easier to find than chargers.

Linn says his truck can go roughly half as far on one charge as it usually does when pulling his Rockwood Mini Lite trailer. That still leaves him with more than 150 miles of driving range, though, which puts the campsites he frequents easily within reach without needing a charging stop.

Aerodynamics

Mike Kowal, who goes camping with an Airstream trailer pulled by his Rivian SUV, said his R1S automatically adjusts the range estimates it displays because it learns how the trailer impacts it. It can go up to about 200 miles with the trailer. Still, he said, he learned to be careful when the return trip from a campsite, facing strong headwinds, drained power more quickly than the journey to the campsite had.

“We learned our lesson, a little bit, about cutting it a little close especially when it’s windy,” he said

It’s wind resistance, much more than weight, that pulls down a towing vehicle’s range. Especially at highway speeds, moving a trailer through the air takes more power than pulling its mass.

Thor Industries, the camper and RV manufacturer that owns Airstream and other brands, has been doubling down on aerodynamics research, said McKay Featherstone, the company’s head of product development. They’ve been running models through wind tunnels to find ways to smooth things out, even just a little. Designers and engineers found tricks to, for one thing, keep things like vents and air conditioners from sticking out.

“As we specifically target electric vehicles, it just becomes doubly important,” he said.

Airstream competitor Bowlus, a small ultra-luxury trailer manufacturer known for its shiny bullet-shaped trailers, also emphasizes aerodynamics. Besides that, Bowlus has enough lithium batteries in one of its models that it can be used to charge an electric tow vehicle in an emergency. Another Bowlus trailer can drive itself for short distances – pulling itself into a campsite location – with an on-board electric motor.

“We’ve had customers cross coasts, all the way up to Canada, all the way across Canada and back down, all with an electric vehicle,” said Bowlus CEO Geneva Long.

Plugging in

Charging can also be a major issue, both at campsites and on the road. When he gets to a campsite, Linn said he plugs into the same power outlets that are usually used to provide household power to run lights and small appliances in trailers and RVs.

It’s a controversial move since, technically, those power pedestals aren’t generally designed to charge EVs. Linn said he always asks the campground operator and, so far, has never been declined but he can see why it could become an issue.

“If they’re at 90% capacity and all of a sudden there’s 15 or 20 EV trucks that roll in you could be exceeding the campground’s capacity,” he said. “So, I think that’s a challenge for campground operators that they’re going to have to address.”

KOA is working to install more actual EV chargers while also trying to let campers know that just plugging into those regular outlets might not be OK.

“Particularly, a lot of these campgrounds across the country have older infrastructure that can’t support that,” said Toby O’Rourke, president and chief executive of KOA.

Currently, KOA has dedicated EV chargers at about 5% of its campsites, O’Rourke said, but she thinks that could probably expand to about 50% within the next five to 10 years.

Out on the road, electric truck and EV maker Rivian – which makes vehicles designed to go off-road – is enabling its customers to use Tesla’s charging network, as are most automakers, but it’s also been building out its own network of chargers. That’s because it understands Rivian owners might want to go places other EV owners don’t. So Rivian has been putting chargers in places like Yosemite National Park and along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The physical layout of most EV chargers can be a challenge for campers. The vast majority of EV chargers are placed at the ends of parking spaces so vehicles have to either pull in, nosing the front bumper up to the charger, or reverse back in. That makes charging with a trailer attached almost impossible or, at best, extremely awkward.

Then there’s the hassle of driving through a parking lot to the charger while towing a trailer, said Sara Eslinger, who’s in charge of Rivian’s charging network.

“We do a lot of studies around turning radiuses and things like that,” she said. “And the goal is that you should not have to unhitch your vehicle at one of our trailer-friendly chargers.”

Powering the campsite

One nice thing about EVs, though, is that they also bring power with them thanks to their hefty batteries. An F-150 Lightning truck, for instance, has 11 power outlets including those in the bed of the truck and in the “frunk” – or front trunk – under the hood.

“We use the frunk almost as an outdoor kitchen because it takes a lot of electrical strain off of the camper to be able to run coffeemakers and ice makers in the frunk,” Linn said.

And he can do it without having to fire up a gas-powered generator, which keeps the campsite a little quieter.

“As more people switch to EVs and go camping and explore, those spaces don’t have to have as much noise pollution,” said Rivian’s Elsinger, who likes to go camping in her own R1T pickup.

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Gas vs. Electric Cars: Pros and Cons of Each - Car and Driver

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With EVs quickly spreading across the automotive landscape, your electric propulsion choices are no longer limited to small, efficiency-minded cars or Teslas. All-electric options now include a variety of trucks, crossovers, and SUVs, as well as sporty and luxurious models. With this expanded selection and the help of government incentives, EVs look more attractive to more buyers. But important differences remain between electrics and their internal-combustion counterparts.

Advantages of an Electric Vehicle

EVs have a battery that feeds at least one electric motor that sends torque to the wheels. Like the gas tank on an internal-combustion car, the battery pack limits how far an EV can travel in one go. Available range varies as much as the sizes and shapes these cars come in, from 160 miles in a Nissan Leaf Plus to 410 miles with the Lucid Air Grand Touring, the current leader in our 75-mph highway range test.

How and where you use an electric car determines the kind of range you’ll need, but regardless, range anxiety can sometimes be a thing because you’ll need to recharge at some point. For a lot of folks, charging at home overnight is sufficient, but those who travel long distances with some frequency may still prefer the flexibility of something with an engine, be it a straight internal-combustion machine or a hybrid or plug-in hybrid.

An EV can allow you to break your dependence on petroleum to power your car, but this depends on the source of the electricity you feed it. If sustainability is important to you, check with your power utility on the mix of fuel sources they use to produce electricity; there are those who go so far as installing solar panels to provide their own artisanal roof-to-charger energy.

Marc Urbano|Car and Driver

There are practical advantages to EVs too. The instant torque of electric motors makes even the cheapest EVs feel sprightly, and their operation is silent and vibration-free. Nearly all operate using direct drive, which means they don't have a geared transmission that can fail. There are no oil changes, and the strong regenerative braking system means the traditional brakes may never need service in a typical ownership period. Keep the tires aired up, rotate them on schedule, swap in a new cabin air filter every so often, and keep an eye on the washer fluid and wiper blades, and that's about it.

Advantages of a Gas-Fueled Car

The majority of new cars and trucks sold still have an internal-combustion engine, fueled by either gasoline or diesel. That engine combusts dino juice and translates lots of tiny explosions into rotational forces that are passed to a transmission and then on to the wheels to make the car move. Archaic, maybe, but it’s tried and true, and automakers continue to make this process more efficient.

These vehicles can generally travel farther than EVs and don’t have the same limited refueling infrastructure. There are simply a lot more gas stations than there are charging points—if you can’t find a gas station, chances are you won’t find a place to plug in nearby either.

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Gas cars also refuel more quickly than even the fastest-charging EVs, reducing downtime and overall trip length on longer journeys. Fixing a gas car tends to be less expensive as well, despite the greater number of moving parts, because an EV’s battery pack makes up a large part of its cost and, again, we’ve been dealing with internal-combustion vehicles for much longer. That said, new-EV high-voltage battery packs are covered for at least 8 years or 100,000 miles, with some makers stretching that to 10 years and more miles. The issue of replacement cost mainly applies to older out-of-warranty EVs.

Deciding between Gas and Electric

As we’ve discussed, range and the ease of refueling away from home is the main differentiator between gas-fed cars and EVs. Because of this, making the transition to all-electric motoring can be intimidating, but with a little preparation and planning it’s definitely doable for many buyers. If you live in a two-car household, one way to help ease into EVs is to replace just one gas vehicle for now, allowing you to keep the gas-powered one for long trips and use the electric car around town. As battery and charging technologies improve over time, this limitation will become less and less important.

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Are electric vehicles better for the environment than gas cars? - Quartz

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Many folks believe the myth the process of mining metals for thousands of brand new electric cars to replace internal combustion engines causes more harm than good. The debate surrounding the true environmental impact of producing electric vehicles is seriously complex, but this video does a great job of summarizing it. While this video doesn’t provide a final, definite answer, it definitely contextualizes the bigger picture. That bigger picture in this debate is the widely unseen polluting circus necessary to extract fossil fuels from their resting place deep underground and get them to the pump.

EV or Gas, What Pollutes More?

This video offers a simple and relatively comprehensive look into where our energy comes from and what it takes to get it to your local gas pump or EV charger. There is heated debate surrounding the true environmental impact of mass producing hundreds of thousands of new battery electric vehicles, but this opened my eyes to a more wholistic understanding of how humans produce and use energy. According to studies performed in 2019 by the Swedish Environmental Research Institute, 

According to new calculations, the production of lithium-ion batteries on average emits somewhere between 61-106 kilos of carbon dioxide equivalents per kilowatt-hour battery capacity produced. If less transparent data is included, the upper value will be higher; 146 kilos carbon dioxide equivalents per kilowatt hour produced. The large emissions range primarily depends on production methods and the type of electricity used in the battery manufacturing process. Current figures for climate emissions are lower than they were in the 2017 report where the average was 150-200 kilos of carbon dioxide equivalents per kWh of battery capacity.

“That emissions are lower now is mainly due to the fact that battery factories have been scaled up and are running at full capacity, which makes them more efficient per unit produced. We have also taken into account the possibility of using electricity that is virtually fossil-free in several of the production stages,” says Erik Emilsson, researcher at IVL.

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Using the median of 61-106 kilograms of carbon dioxide produced per kWh of battery capacity at 83.5 kilograms according to the Swedish Environmental Institute’s numbers, an 80 kWh battery would produce about 7.4 tons of CO2 during mining. According to the EPA, the average car on the road produces about 4.6 tons of CO2 per year just from driving, so it takes less than two years on the road for the EV to make up for its mining emissions. A 2021 Ford F-150 with a 5.0-liter V8 produces almost 8 tons of CO2 per year from driving alone, and when you calculate the carbon footprint of an F-150 Lightning with the 131 kWh extended range battery pack, mining for the Lightning’s battery produces just over 12 tons of CO2 emissions. Even at 12 tons of CO2 emissions, the F-150 Lightning produces fewer emissions than the Coyote powered F-150 in under two years, and it will continue operating emission-free for the rest of its on-road lifetime with renewable electricity.

These annual CO2 emissions statistics don’t include the pollution caused by the process of producing the gasoline we need to refuel ICE cars which, as the video explains, causes a ton of pollution at each step, not to mention the devastating effects of leaks and oil spills. These numbers also fail to include emissions released during either ICE car or EV shipping, production, and manufacturing, so real-world impact varies based on a variety of factors.

As we transition to more renewably sourced electricity through implementation and expansion of wind, geothermal, solar, and other renewable energy technologies, powering all these new EVs results in lower and lower carbon emissions. 

While mining for the materials necessary to produce a modern EV battery is a dirty process, electricity doesn’t need to be pumped out from under the ocean or shipped across the globe on oil tankers that spew irresponsible levels of pollutants into our atmosphere with every nautical mile covered. Electricity doesn’t get spilled into the oceans causing environmental degradation, and when responsibly sourced, electricity doesn’t produce any greenhouse gasses.

A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik.

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California Regulators Propose Significant Changes to Electricity Bills - KQED

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State utility regulators have proposed reducing the cost of residential electricity bills for lower-income Californians and those living in parts of the state most impacted by extreme weather — mainly heat. The changes would also incentivize electrifying personal cars and in-home appliances.

A big reason for the proposal is how California’s largest power companies currently calculate rates. The more power you use, the more money you pay — not just for electricity but also for things like maintaining the grid and reducing wildfire risk. When the temperature spikes, so do electricity bills, leaving some customers with monthly payments over $500.

What is the proposed change? 

The proposal applies to large investor-owned utilities like PG&E. It would divide monthly energy bills into two parts:

1. A “flat rate” that covers infrastructure costs like wires and transformers. That rate would be $24.15 and less for income-qualifying customers in the California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) (the rate would be $6) or Family Electric Rate Assistance Program (FERA) programs (the rate would be $12).
2. A “usage rate,” which is how much you pay for a unit of electricity. This rate would be 5–7 cents per kilowatt hour lower than the current electricity rate.

Whose bills would go down? 

The changes are designed to bring down the bills of lower-income Californians, especially those living inland where it is hotter and the need for air conditioning is higher.

During peak hours, when electricity is in the most demand and the most expensive, rates for customers of the state’s big three utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — would fall between 8% and 9.8%. That means the average customer in Fresno, where temperatures were at or above 100 F for 17 days last July, would save about $33 during the summer months, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.

There would also be a reduction in bills for customers who electrify their homes or vehicles, regardless of income or location.

People who own electric cars and charge them at home would save about $25 per month on average, while people who have fully electrified their homes — including replacing gas-powered stoves — would save about $19 per month. Other customers whose bills are not impacted as much by the weather would likely see an increase.

Whose bills would go up? 

Some non-lower-income customers may see an increase in their bills, and people who have rooftop solar may also see an increase in their monthly bills.

Mohit Chhabra, who works on electricity pricing at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the average non-low-income customer’s bills will either stay the same or go up by around $10 a month.

“Wealthy solar customers are the most likely to pay more. In our estimate, they’re likely to pay between $10 and $20 more a month,” Chhabra said.

Why do we need this? 

Proponents of the changes say customers with low income are paying more than their fair share of the costs of maintaining the electricity grid, and this will change that.

California is one of the only states that doesn’t already have a fixed charge for its largest utilities, and the state Legislature ordered regulators in 2022 to implement one by July 1 of this year. Since then, power bills have only gotten more expensive. Regulators approved an average increase of $32 per month for Pacific Gas & Electric Company customers just last year. The average price per kilowatt hour of electricity for California’s big three utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — is about 36 cents, compared to the national average of 17 cents.

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California regulator takes income-based electric bills off the table - Canary Media

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The controversial plan to require California’s three biggest utilities to start charging their customers based on how much money they make has been shelved by state regulators — at least for now.

Instead, the California Public Utilities Commission is proposing a less radical — if not necessarily less controversial — approach to complying with a state law demanding that it examine new rate structures to reduce the burden of rising electricity rates, a problem that will only deepen as the state further embraces electrification.

That proposal? Reduce per-kilowatt-hour rates but institute a fixed charge of $24.15 per month for most customers of utilities Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

The proposal would add smaller fixed monthly charges of $6 per month or $12 per month to customers who are signed up for two different special rate programs for low-income earners. This carveout for low-income ratepayers is distinct from the income-graduated proposals that were under consideration.

Fixed charges are common features of utility bills across the country, the CPUC noted in a fact sheet accompanying the release of its proposed decision on Wednesday. That’s because utilities pay for a lot of fixed costs that aren’t tied to how much electricity customers use, and fixed charges are one way to recoup those costs.

In California, these fixed costs, which include the maintenance and expansion of distribution and transmission grids, energy-efficiency programs, low-income bill-assistance programs and more, account for roughly half the costs paid by customers. But California’s big three utilities have been barred from instituting fixed charges under previous CPUC decisions, forcing them to recover those costs by increasing the rates that customers pay for the electricity they consume.

CPUC’s proposal would reduce these rates, known as ​“volumetric” charges, by 5 to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour. That will make electricity cheaper for California residents. But the CPUC hopes it will also make it easier for customers to afford the increased electricity consumption of electric vehicles, electric-powered heat pumps and household appliances, which Californians must start buying en masse to meet the state’s clean-transportation and building-decarbonization policy goals.

This fixed-charge proposal will now be open to comment before the CPUC decides either to approve it or alter it. If approved, it would start going into effect for Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric in 2025 and for Pacific Gas & Electric in 2026.

The CPUC’s Public Advocates Office, which is tasked with protecting consumers, issued a statement in support of the proposal. ​“It allows for the implementation of a flat rate, which will reduce electric bills for low-income customers and cut the price of electricity for all customers,” Linda Serizawa, the agency’s interim director, said in a prepared statement.

But the new proposal is already drawing fire from some groups who say it’s the wrong approach to dealing with California’s skyrocketing electricity costs — and those critiques are coming from both sides of the debate over income-based rates.

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The Coming Electricity Crisis - WSJ - The Wall Street Journal

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Bonds Got Relabeled. Now Millions of Americans Get Higher Electric Bills. - The Wall Street Journal

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Bonds Got Relabeled. Now Millions of Americans Get Higher Electric Bills.  The Wall Street Journal

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DTE to ask for electric rate increase of $11 monthly, on average - Detroit Free Press

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Detroit-based DTE Energy will file an electric rate increase request with the Michigan Public Service Commission on Thursday for $456 million, which, if approved, would be about an $11 increase for the average monthly residential bill. The utility says the funds are needed to improve reliability.

The rate increase request, which was announced Wednesday at a roundtable interview with several members of the media, will go to making the grid "smarter," meaning it will install devices that can pinpoint more accurately and quickly locations of power outages. The utility said the devices will reduce power outages by 30% and cut outage time in half over the next five years.

"This case is incredibly important for us to continue to do the work we need to do to build a grid of the future, and continue to improve reliability in the state," Matt Paul, president and COO of DTE Electric, said.

The rate increase request comes about four months after the MPSC approved a $368.1 million electricity rate increase for DTE in December. The company had initially requested an increase of about $620 million, which was later adjusted downward to a little over $580 million.

Paul said pinpointing where the outages are, using the devices, will get crews to outages faster. The devices also allow DTE to reroute power when there is an outage, and they make the grid safer, automatically cutting power to a line that falls to the ground, for example.

More on DTE:Trenton Channel power plant stacks demolished, toppling one at a time

DTE is planning to install about 10,000 of the devices, which can cost up to $100,000 each, including the cost of installation.

He said another rate increase request is needed because "we have a lot of work to do."

"We have a vast system," Paul said. "It's aging, and the weather is getting worse and we have a lot of work to do to upgrade it."

More on DTE:DTE offers buyouts to 30% of its workforce, primarily to those in corporate and staff roles

Paul said an increase, if approved, also would support DTE's plan to rebuild the oldest parts of its grid, building entire substations and circuits from scratch.

Another way to improve reliability is undergrounding, which Paul said is expensive. He said DTE is figuring out how to bring the costs down through its undergrounding pilot program in the Davison and Buffalo-Charles neighborhoods in Detroit.

“It seems like a really simple thing to do but it is expensive,” Trevor Lauer, vice chairman and group president for DTE Energy, said. “We need to make sure that all of the stakeholders agree with us that we should be undergrounding our system. Not everybody agrees with us that we should be undergrounding pieces of our system today.”

Another piece of the rate increase request would help fund clean energy projects that were approved in the integrated resource plan DTE Energy filed with the MPSC. One project is converting its coal-fired Belle River Power Plant in St. Clair County to natural gas.

Paul also said that DTE Energy is also getting the site of the Trenton Channel power plant smokestacks — which were demolished earlier this month — ready for a new project around energy storage.

“We're building a battery project there and we're really excited about it,” he said. “It's going to be a significant project.”

The rate filing kicks off about a 10-month process during which stakeholders provide feedback. Any increase would not go into effect until January 2025.

Contact Adrienne Roberts: amroberts@freepress.com.

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Taming the beast: Researcher controls voltage response for safer electric grid - Tech Xplore

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March 26, 2024

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This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

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by Trisha Radulovich, Florida State University

V–I characteristics of a voltage source. Credit: Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-53452-y

When FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Professor Fang Peng was a boy, he saw the power and peril of electricity firsthand. He was in middle school when his remote Chinese hometown first received electric service. His family shared a single portable, 15-watt light bulb attached to a cable. It was his job to replace the bulb.

"One night, the bulb went out and I tried to change it in total darkness," Peng said. "I accidentally stuck my left thumb in the socket and was immediately shocked. I got knocked off balance and down to the dirt floor, trembling as the electricity seared through my body. Luckily, my right hand got tangled with the cable and pulled the socket off my left hand, otherwise I would not have survived."

After that near-death experience, Peng saw electricity as a challenge. He made it his life's work to study the phenomenon and "tame the beast" that put him in danger but also allowed his family to see at night.

Peng's latest research continues that mission. In a study published in Scientific Reports, he shows how a semiconductor device he created, named a Z-source inverter, can rapidly reduce voltage and current in the case of a short-circuit or open-circuit fault.

Existing safety mechanisms that stop electricity during a fault work quickly, but not always quickly enough. A typical circuit breaker could take around 50 milliseconds to activate—still long enough to kill a person or spark a fire. Peng's digital Z-source converter/inverter can protect in 5 microseconds or 1,000 times faster.

When a circuit is operating normally, power lines and cables carry electrical current over a long distance from generators to end users, whose use is called the load in an electric system. Engineers typically want it to be running as strong as possible to provide power to end users. But the current travels through the object when something breaks or shorts the circuit, such as a downed tree. Electrical flashes that reach 35,000 degrees Fahrenheit can cause objects contacting the circuit to heat up fast and burn with intensity.

Peng's electronic switch detects short circuits faster than existing methods. It can also handle a wide range of input voltages without needing extra components. This flexibility makes it useful in situations where the power supply isn't constant or when you need to work with different voltage levels efficiently.

Fang Peng, Distinguished Professor in Engineering In Electrical and Computer Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. Credit: Mark Wallheiser/FAMU-FSU College of Engineering

"We developed a way for the power source to be more responsive to the load," he said. "Without end users noticing, we can immediately bring the power grid back to normal without a surge current."

Downed power lines spark hundreds of wildfires every year in the United States. The 2023 Maui wildfires were some of the deadliest in U.S. history. According to the National Fire Protection Association, that fire started when a tree that had toppled onto a power line ignited.

"The purpose of our study is to make the energy source (voltage) more responsive to the loading condition," Peng said. "If there is an unexpectedly large current, we want to reduce the voltage to a safe range to prevent fires. Traditional generators keep generating a constant voltage regardless of the current."

Peng's solution can be used to retrofit existing infrastructure to make it safer.

Diversifying the power grid with renewable energy sources like wind turbines, photovoltaic cells, and fuel cells is one way to regulate increases and decreases in voltage.

"Besides renewables, another way we can prevent surges in power is to regulate the system with a power converter artificially," Peng said. "Whether natural or artificial, we want to create something that works autonomously with self-protection, resiliency, and redundancy. One idea is to use a virtual resistor implemented by power electronics and control to provide the damping and stabilization of the circuit system."

Much of the electric grid in the United States was built and expanded in the 1960s and 1970s. Along with fires from downed power lines, aging infrastructure poses other problems, such as power outages or vulnerability to cyberattacks.

"It is time to remake our grids and 'tame the beast' with power electronics, a new power technology which started flourishing in the 1980s when I started my research career," Peng said. "I was truly lucky to become a protégé of several power electronics pioneers and world leaders. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes the whole society/world to make this new grid happen."

More information: Fang Zheng Peng, Impedance sources (Z sources) with inherent fault protection for resilient and fire-free electricity grids, Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-53452-y

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Citation: Taming the beast: Researcher controls voltage response for safer electric grid (2024, March 26) retrieved 26 March 2024 from https://ift.tt/Armohc9

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

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Taming the beast: Researcher controls voltage response for safer electric grid - Tech Xplore
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China to challenge Biden's electric vehicle plans at the WTO - The Associated Press

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BEIJING (AP) — China filed a World Trade Organization complaint against the U.S. on Tuesday over what it says are discriminatory requirements for electric vehicle subsidies.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry didn’t say what prompted the move. But under a new U.S. rule that took effect Jan. 1, electric car buyers are not eligible for tax credits of $3,750 to $7,500 if critical minerals or other battery components were made by Chinese, Russian, North Korean or Iranian companies. The credits are part of U.S. President Joe Biden’s signature climate legislation, named the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

A ministry statement didn’t mention the specific restriction. It said, though, that under the act and its implementing rules, the U.S. had formulated discriminatory subsidy policies for new energy vehicles in the name of responding to climate change. It said the U.S. move excluded Chinese products, distorted fair competition and disrupted the global supply chain for new energy vehicles.

Member countries of the Geneva-based WTO can file complaints about the trade practices of other members and seek relief through a dispute settlement process.

The real-world impact of the case is uncertain. If the United States loses and appeals the ruling, China’s case likely would go nowhere. That is because the WTO’s Appellate Body, its supreme court, hasn’t functioned since late 2019, when the U.S. blocked the appointment of new judges to the panel.

China is the dominant player in batteries for electric vehicles and has a rapidly expanding auto industry that could challenge the world’s established carmakers as it goes global. Its strength is in electric vehicles and its companies have become leaders in battery technology.

The European Union, concerned about the potential threat to its auto industry, launched its own investigation into Chinese subsides for electric vehicles last year.

Under the new U.S. rule, only 13 of the more than 50 EVs on sale in the U.S. were eligible for tax credits, down from about two dozen models in 2023. Automakers have been scrambling to source parts that would make their models eligible for the credits.

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China to challenge Biden's electric vehicle plans at the WTO - The Associated Press
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Inside the Republican Attacks on Electric Vehicles - Yahoo! Voices

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The electric vehicle, a breakthrough achievement in automotive technology, has driven into this year’s presidential election, inflaming partisan fights that have come to define much of American culture.

One reason is that President Joe Biden has made electric vehicles central to his strategy to combat climate change. This week, his administration announced the most ambitious climate regulation in the nation’s history: a measure designed to accelerate a transition toward electric vehicles and away from the gasoline-powered cars that are a major cause of global warming.

The political war over electric vehicles has been fueled by an incendiary mix of issues: technological change, the future of the oil and gas industry, concerns about competition from China and the American love of motorized muscle. And in the rural reaches of America, where few public charging stations exist, the notion of an all-electric future feels fanciful — another element to the urban-rural divide that underlies the nation’s polarization.

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Biden’s opponent, former President Donald Trump, has for months escalated attacks on electric vehicles broadly and the new regulation in particular, falsely calling the rule a ban on gasoline-powered cars and claiming electric cars will “kill” America’s auto industry. He has called them an “assassination” of jobs. He has declared that the Biden administration “ordered a hit job on Michigan manufacturing” by encouraging the sales of electric cars.

Within minutes of this week’s announcement of the new rule, similar talking points — albeit not as violent — flooded the Republican ecosystem.

“The Biden administration is deciding for Americans which kind of cars they are allowed to buy, rent and drive,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment Committee, in remarks that were echoed across the Capitol and on Fox News. A Fox News headline falsely claimed “Biden mandates production of electric vehicles.”

In many ways, Biden’s new rules on auto pollution combine elements that conservatives love to hate: government regulations and the notion that Democrats want to force Americans to give up comforts in the name of the environment.

Over the years, Trump has sharpened Republican opposition to environmental rules by attacking everything from non-aerosol hair spray to low-flow toilets. He has bashed energy-efficient dishwashers and LED light bulbs, and falsely claimed that wind turbines cause cancer.

In pitching his EV policies to Americans, Biden has sought to present himself as a “car guy,” talking about his upbringing as the son of a car dealer and test driving a Ford F-150 electric pickup truck to pronounce “This sucker’s quick!” He was the first president to join autoworkers on the picket line.

Still, policy analysts say that Trump’s attacks on the government’s efforts to clean up cars are likely to resonate with voters.

“When you get into personal vehicles, you’re touching a huge portion of the United States,” said Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “The majority of Americans have little or no familiarity with EVs. When you get into the question of what you drive, how you drive, how reliable it is and what it signifies about your identity — that’s where the culture wars come in.”

Especially potent is the false claim that the new rule is a “ban” on conventional cars, analysts said.

The EPA regulation is not a ban. Rather, it requires carmakers to meet tough new average emissions limits across their entire product line, starting in model year 2027 and ramping up through 2032. Automakers could comply with the emissions caps by selling a mix of gasoline-burning cars, hybrids, EVs or other types of vehicles, such as cars powered by hydrogen.

The EPA estimates that compliance with the rule would mean that by 2032, about 56% of new passenger vehicles sold would be electric and another 16% would be hybrids. Car companies that exceed the new restrictions could face substantial penalties. The new standards would not apply to the used car market.

Cars and other forms of transportation are, together, the largest single source of carbon emissions generated by the United States, pollution that is driving climate change and that helped to make 2023 the hottest year in recorded history.

The new limits on tailpipe emissions would avoid more than 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the next 30 years, according to the EPA. That’s the equivalent of removing a year’s worth of all the greenhouse gases generated by the United States, the country that has historically pumped the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

It would also provide nearly $100 billion in annual net benefits to society, according to the agency, including $13 billion annually in public health benefits like avoided hospitalizations and fewer premature deaths thanks to improved air quality.

And it would save the average American driver about $6,000 in reduced fuel and maintenance over the life of a vehicle, the EPA estimated.

The country’s major car companies have grudgingly accepted the new regulations, after winning some concessions from the administration, in the form of a more gradual compliance schedule that pushes back the most stringent requirements until after 2030.

“The future is electric,” said John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents 42 car companies that produce nearly all the new vehicles sold in the United States, in a statement this week. He said the rules “are mindful of the importance of choice to drivers and preserve their ability to choose the vehicle that’s right for them.”

But other industries that will be affected by the rule have launched attacks — particularly oil and gas companies that see the rise of electric vehicles as an existential threat.

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a lobbying organization, has begun what it says is a “seven figure” campaign of advertising, phone calls and text messages against what it calls “Biden’s EPA car ban” in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, as well as in Ohio, Montana and the Washington, D.C., market.

Also fighting the rule are more than 4,000 of the country’s 18,000 car dealerships, which wrote to Biden urging him to “tap the brakes” on the rule. Auto dealers — business owners rooted in communities who directly interact with motorists as they choose what to drive — could be particularly persuasive to voters, analysts said.

“It’s really surprising that it just got rammed down our throats,” said Duane Wilkes, chief financial officer of the Berge Auto Group in Arizona, which owns six dealerships in Phoenix and Tucson that sell vehicles made by Toyota, Lexus, Ford, Volkswagen and Mazda.

“What we sell isn’t determined by us, it’s determined by the customer, what they really want to buy,” Wilkes said. “And the EVs are just sitting on the lots.”

In the Phoenix metro area, electric vehicles represented 11.6% of new car registrations last year. “It’s trying to get votes,” said Wilkes, who described himself as an independent voter. “It won’t get mine. They want to enforce a change I don’t think a typical American is ready for.”

He added, “We have skin in the game and this is a direct shot to our profitability and maybe even our existence in some cases.”

And yet, electric vehicles are the fastest-growing segment of the auto industry. Sales of electric vehicles, trucks and SUVs hit a record last year, reaching 1.2 million for the first time, bringing the share of electric vehicles in the United States vehicle market to 8.5% of new auto registrations. While growth is slowing, this year is expected to set another record, analysts have said.

But the boom is not happening everywhere. In California, which leads the nation in terms of the number of charging stations, 40% of new cars registered in San Jose last year were electric. But in Detroit, the country’s automobile capital, they accounted for only 3% and even less in Buffalo and Bismark, North Dakota.

Michael McKenna, a Republican strategist and energy lobbyist who worked in the Trump White House, said Republican polling has found attacking electric vehicle mandates to be an “amazing” issue for the party. He called Biden’s regulation a “shadow ban” on gas-powered vehicles. “If you make something unavailable it’s the same as banning it,” he said.

“It’s a solid second tier issue, with a special salience in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio for obvious reasons,” McKenna said, referring to swing states that Biden is hoping to win. “Are people going to vote on it? Probably it’s not going to be their main driver. But is it going to be a secondary confirmation thing? Yes.”

Stefan Hankin, a Democratic strategist and founder of Lincoln Park Strategies, who has warned the party about “pushing voters too hard” on electric vehicles, said he believes the car rule will help Biden.

“It’s not a ban, and that’s encouraging,” Hankin said, adding that the rule “sends a signal to environmentally-minded voters and younger voters, which the Biden campaign is definitely interested in.”

A 2023 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found half of American adults, and 70% of Republicans and those who lean Republican, said they were not likely to consider purchasing an electric vehicle as their next car. In the same poll, 56% of Democrats and those who lean Democratic said they would consider buying an EV.

Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican operative, saw the same partisan split in a November poll conducted by the EV Politics Project, an advocacy group he founded.

“It’s a tribal issue,” said Murphy, who has worked for Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and other moderate Republicans. Murphy, a fan of electric vehicles, founded the EV Politics Project to try to get Republicans to stop bashing them — a lonely struggle.

“If you can’t crack the Republican problem there is no way you can get to these targets,” Murphy said, referring to the EPA’s emission goals. “They are going to run out of Democrats.”

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, which accounts for half of electric vehicle sales in the United States, has aligned himself with many hard-right views, leading analysts to wonder whether he could change conservative attitudes about the cars. “He could soften up the Republican opposition if he chose to,” Murphy said. But there is little evidence that is happening.

Republicans and Trump have argued electric vehicles help China, America’s economic rival, because minerals critical to battery manufacturing such as graphite and manganese often originate in China.

Trump’s opposition to electric vehicles has created a dilemma for political leaders in several Republican-led states where new electric vehicle and battery plants are being built, thanks to federal incentives overseen by the Biden administration.

Henry McMaster, the Republican governor of South Carolina, was asked about that quandary during a ceremony in February to mark the construction of a $2 billion plant to manufacture electric pickups and off-road vehicles under the Scout brand. The factory is expected to create as many as 4,000 jobs.

McMaster insisted that Trump is not against electric vehicles.

“What President Trump is opposed to, as most people are, are mandates — federal mandates,” McMaster told reporters. “We do understand electric vehicles are a part of the future of South Carolina. We’re following the market.”

The political and social messages that consumers absorb about EVs could significantly shape the success of the new regulation, said Stephanie Brinley, an analyst for the Auto Intelligence service at S&P Global Mobility. That’s because the rule depends so heavily on whether motorists buy the cleaner cars.

“That is part of the wild card about consumers,” Brinley said. “It’s an emotional thing. It’s reflective of the either/or mentality that dominates social media. It could have an impact on how fast or how slow this transition goes.”

c.2024 The New York Times Company

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China to challenge Biden’s electric vehicle plans at the WTO - The Hill

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BEIJING (AP) — China filed a World Trade Organization complaint against the U.S. on Tuesday over what it says are discriminatory requirements for electric vehicle subsidies.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry didn’t say what prompted the move. But under a new U.S. rule that took effect Jan. 1, electric car buyers are not eligible for tax credits of $3,750 to $7,500 if critical minerals or other battery components were made by Chinese, Russian, North Korean or Iranian companies. The credits are part of U.S. President Joe Biden’s signature climate legislation, named the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

A ministry statement didn’t mention the specific restriction. It said, though, that under the act and its implementing rules, the U.S. had formulated discriminatory subsidy policies for new energy vehicles in the name of responding to climate change. It said the U.S. move excluded Chinese products, distorted fair competition and disrupted the global supply chain for new energy vehicles.

Member countries of the Geneva-based WTO can file complaints about the trade practices of other members and seek relief through a dispute settlement process.

The real-world impact of the case is uncertain. If the United States loses and appeals the ruling, China’s case likely would go nowhere. That is because the WTO’s Appellate Body, its supreme court, hasn’t functioned since late 2019, when the U.S. blocked the appointment of new judges to the panel.

China is the dominant player in batteries for electric vehicles and has a rapidly expanding auto industry that could challenge the world’s established carmakers as it goes global. Its strength is in electric vehicles and its companies have become leaders in battery technology.

The European Union, concerned about the potential threat to its auto industry, launched its own investigation into Chinese subsides for electric vehicles last year.

Under the new U.S. rule, only 13 of the more than 50 EVs on sale in the U.S. were eligible for tax credits, down from about two dozen models in 2023. Automakers have been scrambling to source parts that would make their models eligible for the credits.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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China to challenge Biden’s electric vehicle plans at the WTO - The Hill
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