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The weekend before last, I was at the Edmonds Museum Summer Market talking about EV charging stations. Almost everyone who wants to talk about charging stations at the market wants more charging stations.
One person mentioned a concern about when a parking lot is full. The lot at the Public Safety Complex parking lot has two charging stations and fills up during the market. If you look for a spot there after the market starts, you might see the EV charging spaces empty, when there’s no place to park your gasoline car. That’s annoying.
It’s not just an issue where there are already EV chargers. The lot at the Edmonds Center for the Arts gets completely full when there are popular shows, and the Mountlake Terrace park-and-ride lot fill up almost every weekday. The Edmonds QFC lot fills up completely now and then. None of these lots have EV charging spaces yet. Even so, people show up and can’t park. That’s annoying, and adding EV chargers would make it extra annoying.
The core issue here is that we have places that, now and then, have more vehicles trying to park than parking spaces.
That’s why car drivers need more bicycle riders, or people walking, or taking public transportation. As you drive to an event at Edmonds’ Frances Anderson Center field, or to a park-and-ride, you may see people on bikes or walking. Those bikers and pedestrians aren’t going to take any parking spaces you might want. The same goes for public transportation. As a car driver, you can be grateful for every bike rider, every walker and every public transportation rider for leaving parking spaces for you. Thank you, bike riders, for making car driving easier. We need more of you.
Just like we need more bicycles, we also need more electric vehicles. When people switch to electric vehicles, they stop buying gasoline. If you’re getting gas at Costco on a Sunday afternoon, you have to wait quite a while for an open pump. You might see a Tesla or Rivian drive by. You can thank those Teslas and Rivians for not making the lines even longer.
You may have noticed that demand for gasoline goes up in the summer, and higher demand drives higher prices. Electric vehicles don’t burn gasoline. Their road trips don’t push gas prices up in the summer. If you drive a gasoline car, you can thank the electric vehicles for reducing those summer price hikes.
Luckily, the number of electric vehicles in Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace is increasing. Electric vehicles are up 44% over last year. At the start of July 2023, there were 1,658 electric vehicles registered in Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace. By the start of July 2024, there were 2,384, according to data from the Washington State Department of Licensing.
How fast new electric vehicles are purchased has plateaued. In the second quarter of 2024, 1,082 new vehicles were purchased and registered in Edmonds, Lynnwood and MLT. Of those, 16.36% (177) were electric vehicles. A year earlier, in the second quarter of 2023, 16.53% of new-vehicle purchases were electric vehicles. The EV percentage of new-vehicle purchases has held basically steady.
This plateau in electric vehicle purchasing happened all over the United States. New-car buyers are just as enthusiastic about electric vehicles as they were a year ago. At the same time, it’s news that they are not moreenthusiastic. Throughout 2023, the portion of new-car buyers buying electric vehicles increased dramatically. This holding steady in 2024 is a change.
What is driving this plateau? It could have to do with Tesla’s cutting the model Y price from $67,000 in 2022 to $32,000 now. That teaches buyers to wait for better prices. Tesla sales are about half of the market. Inspiring Tesla buyers to wait a couple years makes a big difference for the entire industry.
Update on natural gas
I’ve been sharing news about Edmonds natural gas burning each quarter. This quarter’s update is that Edmonds continues reducing its natural gas burning. From April 2022 to March 2023, Edmonds burned 1.39 billion cubic feet of natural gas. In the next 12 months, from April 2023 to March 2024, Edmonds burned 1.04 billion cubic feet of natural gas, according to tax data published by Edmonds. That is 26% less in one year. Last winter was warmer than the winter before, but not enough warmer to bring down gas burning 26%. Edmonds gas burning is changing.
I’m sorry I can’t report on Lynnwood or Mountlake Terrace. I don’t have access to natural gas burning data from Lynnwood or Mountlake Terrace.
— By Nick Maxwell
Nick Maxwell is a certified climate action planner at Climate Protection NW, teaches about climate protection at the Creative Retirement Institute and serves on the Edmonds Planning Board.
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Does your EV data include plug-in hybrids?
It does. I’m not including those. They are less common than fully electric vehicles. Mostly, I don’t include them because, if you’re still driving a plug-in hybrid when the electricity supply is completely based on hydro, wind, and solar, you’ll be the one burning gasoline and releasing carbon dioxide when most people have gotten completely away from global warming pollution.
Seems strange this suggests that gas prices are market driven but in a recent comment section some seemed to suggest that if the cca was repealed that gas suppliers wouldn’t reduce prices but instead pocket the extra profits. So which is it? I do see more walkers but I think it is mostly a healthy trend not a means of getting place to place bike riders are about the same few and far between and those buses ride around largely empty. I almost never have to wait to fill the tank or have trouble finding a place to park. I guess the things I like to do don’t involve crowded places. Question when I go to Costco and have to stand in line for 20 minutes to check out my cart full of goodies will walking biking or taking transit reduce my time in the checkout line? And if I was to do/use those things how many trips back and forth to Costco would I have to make to get the same amount of goodies home? Another question if you have a EV and the lot is full can I use those charging spaces to park even if I don’t need a charge I mean couldn’t I just pull in hook up and walk away for a few hours?
Jim, those two things are the same.
Prices are set by supply and demand. When costs rise or drop, that does not change supply or demand. So when the costs of gasoline production dropped at the end of COVID, gas prices stayed up and gasoline company profits went through the roof. (This was very annoying to people who thought that gas prices are affected by costs.) Similarly, when summer demand goes up, the cost of producing gas doesn’t go up, just the prices.
Here in the Northwest, we used to buy a lot of oil from Russia, but that stopped not long ago. Our supply is still limited by the refineries we have in Washington State. As long as no new refineries are added, the only way supply can go up is for more gasoline to be trucked in from out of state. Those are the kinds of issues that limit supply.
Check out the EPA site explaining gasoline prices: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/gasoline/price-fluctuations.php
Nick, discovering something new daily is truly captivating. When did the Northwest start purchasing substantial quantities of oil from Russia? I was under the impression that for decades, our oil mainly originated from Alaska and Canada. Did this occur before World War II?
Nick, after doing some searching of my own, I was able to find out that there were just a few years the NW was getting a small percentage of Russian oil (5 to 10%) until Biden had to cut it off, so we were not helping Putin destroy the Ukraine. Fortunately, with the Canadian Trans Mountain expansion pipeline the oil is flowing again with the help of our good friends and neighbors to the north, which helps also First Nations Tribes thrive.
You are correct. In 2022, the news reported:
“Pacific Northwest States Paid $700 Million for Russian Oil Last Year Alone… Russian crude made up almost 7 percent of all crude refined at the Tesoro/Marathon Anacortes refinery from 2009 through 2021… Oregon and Washington get 90 percent of their petroleum from these refineries” (https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/04/pacific-northwest-states-paid-700-million-for-russian-oil-last-year-alone/)
“Loss of Russian Oil Leaves a Void Not Easily Filled, Straining Market” (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/business/energy-environment/russia-oil-global-economy.html)
“If global supply declines, the global price will increase,” Wheeler said. “As global and U.S. crude prices increase, U.S. gas prices will also be driven higher.” (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ban-russian-oil-mean-americans-pump-mean-russia-rcna19151)
At a high level, it’s not super complicated to understand: When the supply goes down, the price goes up.
Not that it matters to the local climate much or to global CO2 emissions, but China happily picked up whatever the US and others don’t purchase from Russia. The political reasons are what they are; not that I object to the Biden Admin’s sanctions on Russia. However, the Biden Admin did relieve Venezuela of its oil sanctions that surely funds the Maduro regime in an effort to keep US prices down. The Canadians are doing well with the new pipeline; Trudeau helped assure its completion, one of the few things PM Zoolander has done that I approve of. BTW, it may interest you all to know who helped to fund the protests to the TransCanada Pipeline? Buffet and Berkshire, which owns what? BNSF. And what does BNSF make a great deal of money shipping through Edmonds? Bakken and Canadian heavy crude oil for refining and export. Not much Edmonds can do about it due to Federal preemption. These are complex systems and trade systems not at impacted by local environmental advocacy. At least no opponents are gluing themselves to works of art at the Cascadia Art Museum yet.
Oops==>Availability of electricity??
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/power-hungry-how-the-data-center-boom-drained-wa-of-hydropower/
…just sayin’
https://www.pse.com/en/pages/grid-modernization/battery-storage/battery-storage-projects
Just sayin’ 😉
Nick we have a experimental sewer treatment system, how is that working out? Fossil fuel prices are based on future demand so sometimes there is a lag in price movement, do you think the price won’t go down if the CCA is repealed? The act caused increased cost to producers so price went up without it price should go down but obviously other market factors could come into play like war or government policy around exploration and production. Why are our prices about 1.00 more than many other places 3 reasons off the top of my head road taxes higher than many states the CCA and our cost of living, places that are more affluent tend to have higher prices in general. Our prices before the CCA were about 50 cents cheaper than California and since then are about on par even higher at times.. but I am sure you know plenty well yet continue to support policy the adversely effects those that can least afford the policies you campion. Your answer to our problems are what? A energy credit that doesn’t even come close to how much it has cost us.
All PSE projects are demonstration only…not large scale reliable projects.
…Just Sayin’ 😉
Nick, I’d like to see a comparison of the different brands of EV charging stations. How much does it cost to hook up and charge up? We know it’s more costly than charging at home where all you pay is the regular PUD rate per kilowatt hour, but how much more costly?
Roger,
That’s a great question! And a really big deal. Several times, I have charged at hotels where the charging is free. My wife recently stayed at a hotel in Astoria and didn’t read all the fine print. The result was a $50 bill for charging. $50 might not seem like a lot to people who drive gasoline cars, but it’s a lot compared to what we have paid before. My wife was so angry, she went to the hotel desk to demand that they refund most of it. (No luck there.)
I charge at home probably 99% of the time, so I’m not a charging-station maven. Maybe readers here can share the best deals on charging that they know about.
I had three Prius cars over 14 years, and they were great, then I thought I should move to a Leaf for full electric mode.
Never again! you can hardly go anywhere worrying about where to charge up, and in the winter with headlights, wind shield wipers, heat in the car, radio the miles dwindle and dwindle. HAD to go back to a hybrid car and now I can travel again with no worries. By the way not to mention the batteries are as dangerous to the world (mainly third world countries) as gas, so no winning any way. The batteries have to seriously improve.
Where DO the dead batteries go and the consequences. Isn’t that worth reporting about?
Here are resources to get you going:
https://www.gm.com/stories/batteries-recycling-ev
https://li-cycle.com/
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/27/nx-s1-5019454/ev-battery-recycling-us
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling
And remember that we can have great recycling in America. Our systems for recycling catalytic converters are so efficient, people will come to your home to recycle yours without your even asking.
(My apologies and condolences if you have had your catalytic converter stolen. The point is, that theft shows we can recycle when we want to.)
Not so fast. Little if any lithium recycling is happening yet as it is hard and very expensive. The plastic these batteries (usually 8-inch cells all packaged to appear as unitary system – but it functions as one) isn’t recycled yet. Most plastic isn’t and that is a problem other than to understand that if landfilled, it does sequester the carbon contained therein. In Hawaii, OPower the plastic incinerated to produce power is deemed renewable under state law as the overall emissions are much less than doing what used to be done with it – shipping in containers to Washington for landfilling in Kittitas County. No pat answers yet.
I hear you. You got a Nissan Leaf to help stop climate change. It turned out to be inconvenient.
Thank you for doing your part to reduce gas prices.
And yes, a 2023 Toyota Prius, which listed for $27,500, had a 627 mile range on a tank of gas that would cost about $47 to fill up at a gas station.
Compare that to a 2023 Chevy Bolt, which also listed for $27,500. The Bolt has only a 260 mile range that you can add at home. It would cost $19 to charge 3 times to go 627 miles. For me, it’s more convenient to charge at home, but everybody’s different.
If you drive a Chevy Bolt to Spokane, you have to stop in the middle for a half hour to add charge. You couldn’t do the whole five-hour trip without getting off your seat. Driving the 28 hours to Wisconsin would be even more inconvenient. For a trip to Wisconsin, I would want to be in a Model 3, with its longer range and faster charging.
I’m very curious. You got a Nissan Leaf because you want to help stop global warming. How are you feeling about global warming now?
Although I appreciate the need for reducing fossil fuels and all those steps we could take to reduce our impact on the planet, I have to point out that it is nearly a half mile walk thru a park from my home to a bus stop (and I live on a major thoroughfare.) I have a husband with limited mobility. I am retired and on a fixed income so I pray my gas vehicle lasts until I do not drive anymore (so no new electric vehicles in my future!) Telling people to walk, bike, or take the bus or purchase an electric vehicle is not always feasible. Building denser housing and not providing any parking is ridiculous.
This column is about the gratitude car drivers can feel towards the people who can walk or bike and do so. They are leaving parking spaces for you.
In reply, yes I want to help every day, cleaning and cutting up recycling, no bags when shopping, no large plastic containers but sheets in cardboard small containers, any way I can, and I know I am one person but every person makes a difference. Climate warming? That is a big subject and so small things make a difference from each of us.
I think we all need to be concious of what we do, I don’t drive much but drive a diesel truck, I have gas heat but no AC but keep heat in the winter at 65 and put on a sweater. I eat at home mostly for a couple of reasons one being the impact restaurants have, I don’t buy single serving beverages and drink tap water, I rarely fly on a plane but yet Nick makes me sound like the scourge of the planet because I won’t use my limited resources to do even more. Seen a giant boat being towed by a Tesla cyber truck today sure the EV saves a little but I bet that guys carbon footprint is way higher than mine but nick supports policy that punishes me and makes no difference to the guy with the cyber truck who can afford government regressive government policy. Bet that boat uses 30 gallons a hour to run at cruise and he probably flies around the world on a regular basis but because he has a EV and possibly a heat pump system he is considered doing his part. But I digress this about people walking, biking and taking transit saving me a parking space.
Jenny,
That’s great to see.
Over the next 10 years, electric vehicles will get more convenient. You charge them at home, so you don’t have to deal with gas stations. Already, they can go about five times farther on a single charge than your old Leaf, and ranges will get longer, and charging faster.
You don’t have to run out and get another EV today. Drive your car as long as you like, but when the time comes to replace it, I hope you’ll replace it with an EV. It will be much easier than your last go around with that Leaf.
Perhaps the publisher can publish an article on the lawsuit brought against Sect. of State Hobbs to that State Supreme Court shut down unanimously (one Justice absent) yesterday. The suit challenged the Sect. of State’s signature counting for initiatives, including that seeking to overturn the CCA. It all happened very quietly. The funding of this effort is well buried behind certain donor groups; no transparency there.
Personally, both my husband and I have had several near misses with our vehicle and bikers. These have been completely the bikers’ fault. Example; running stop signs from side streets into oncoming traffic. It happens all the time on 9th Avenue. I avoid 9th as much as possible, and fortunately for the bikers, my husband and I are careful drivers. So no, I’m not particularly thankful for them. If our roads were PROPERLY built to accommodate autos, bikes, and pedestrians, I would be appreciative of bikers and would get a bike myself.
Thank you, Nick, for making the case that we can all do something to help put our lifestyles in western Washington on a more environmentally sustainable footing. I read that you were not saying that everyone can walk or bike, but you did say that you appreciate those who can and do so. You did not say that everyone can buy a hybrid or electric vehicle, but I do understand you to say that those who do should understand the trade offs versus a gasoline automobile.
While driving around Edmonds I fortunately never nearly hit a cyclist breaking a rule of the road. As with car drivers, they should be ticketed. I see lots of drivers violating traffic laws. Sure there are not as many bikes as cars on the road. That’s not the point. Anecdotal information is important but it should not dictate policy.
Criticism of uncrowded public transport probably comes from those who haven’t been on a Rapide Ride E Line bus from Aurora Village to Pine St, or from SEATAC to Northgate on the Light Rail. Yes, they are not as full as they could be. Let’s fill them up and unclog I-5 and Aurora Ave.
Personally I think Nick Maxwell does a pretty good job of not being too judgmental. He knows that many simply can’t afford Tesla’s or a whole new furnace system. I think he appreciates anything we can do here to help He knows too probably that since its a world thing and not just a WA thing that it doesn’t look great and hasn’t for that community to have much hope in saving our planet. I hope they think of something. Sometimes they do just when we are at the wire. Nick is pretty nice as this climate deal is his gig in work and all that he does. So, he is passionate about it and try’s offering suggestions. He is excited to find the numbers excited as he thinks it will help. It may I personally as Nick knows don’t drive much at all. He knows that with a two-story house and no existing ducts for my upstairs heat pumps would be expensive as heck. He knows it’s harder for the elderly as they do need to save so they can die in a more pleasant circumstance! I like Nick. But I drive a gasoline powered car and I heat with gas. Too bad the gov doesn’t just give everyone a car like a chicken in every pot.
Yes. Thanks! All I have asked for it that you vote NO on 2117 (2117 drives us to more global warming pollution) and buy only electric appliances and cars.
Keep driving whatever you’re driving now as long as you want to.
Electric vehicles will get more and more and more convenient: longer ranges, faster charging, easier to charge at home, and more charging stations. When the time comes to replace your car or your furnace or hot water heat, buy something electric.
That way, when the electricity is all hydro, solar, and wind, you won’t be the last person making global warming pollution.
EV chargers==> ChargerHelp Annual Report Puts A Spotlight On EV Charger Challenges https://cleantechnica.com/2024/08/05/chargerhelp-annual-report-puts-a-spotlight-on-ev-charger-challenges/ via @cleantechnica
…just sayin’
Unfortunately, Donald, what you’re sayin’ I’m not followin’! Is it the 78% reliability rating that you are trying to point out in the article that you reference? That is not too bad for new technology. The first TVs and radios were probably fairly unreliable. I know our black and white in the 50’s was sketchy. We still loved it at the time. Those choosing to be pioneers in the EV market should be applauded for their fortitude. A neighbor put his name on a list for a new Tesla. We other retirees asked why he was taking the risk. He replied, “When my kids tell me I can’t drive any longer, I can tell them I have a Tesla and it can drive itself.” That is cool!