Gas Guzzler Owners Won’t Convert Until This Happens

Electric cars don’t impress the pickup crowd. But don’t blame them.

Findings (via Green Car Reports) from Coltura, a clean vehicle advocacy group, said that superusers guzzle up about one-third of U.S. of gas consumed by light duty vehicle in the U.S. The top 20% users consume 48%.

Coltura says those gasoline superusers:

• Are more likely to drive pickups and SUVs
• Use more than 1,000 gallons of gasoline a year,
• Drive three times more miles than the average driver
• Are more likely to live in rural areas

One way to win over rural owners

Provide incentives to “lower-income gasoline superusers,” the Coltura report says. Currently, the EV incentives (federal and state) are being used by higher-income drivers who don’t consume much gasoline, according to the report.

“Many lower-income gasoline superusers spend upwards of 20% of their household income on gasoline…It’s more equitable as well as more efficient to give these drivers the biggest incentives to switch to EVs,” the advocacy group said.

But don’t forget the charging infrastructure

Not addressed in the report is charging infrastructure. Incentives will help but what rural pickup owners need to see are lots of public charging stations right alongside all those gas stations.

That will convince rural owners that EVs have arrived and are not just an exotic car driven by the privileged few. And this is self-reinforcing because pickup owners will immediately recognize that they can save gobs of money on recharging instead of refueling. (Not to mention the convenience of charging at home.)

Though you can already see the beginnings of a robust charging infrastructure on the coasts — especially in the northeast and in California — that doesn’t impress rural America.

And most of that infrastructure is Tesla. Its large, sprawling Supercharger stations in the northeast and California (see image at bottom) are examples what needs to happen from other providers like Electrify America.

The good news is that electric vehicle price does not seem to be a big roadblock anymore.

The cost of the Ford F150 Lightning electric pickup with federal and state incentives, for example, makes it competitive with F150 gas models.

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Notes:

*I save from $100-$200 a month with my EV compared to the gas SUV I used to own. Many pickup owners would see much more substantial savings.

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