Bipartisan group of 350 US city mayors commit to electrifying fleets and broadening EV charging infrastructure

All cars, including electric vehicles, have many negative externalities in lots of places due to their inherent space-inefficiency and weight-inefficiency (relative to the people they're transporting). However, EVs are way better than gasoline-powered cars for the environment. It's not even a question.

We need more EV infrastructure and we need it faster. Simultaneously, we can and should work on ways to reduce car dependency by enhancing public transportation, densifying near transit lines ("transit-oriented development"), and improving active transportation infrastructure like bike lanes and sidewalks. But we definitely need to get municipalities, companies, and individuals off of dirty gas and diesel vehicles.

Four percent of Americans own an electric vehicle. That’s twice as many as in 2021, but the pace needs to pick up to meet state and federal adoption goals. A bipartisan group of 350 mayors hopes to lead by example, committing to collectively electrify at least half of their fleets by 2030 and increase EV chargers by at least 500 percent by 2035.

Five hundred percent??? That's what I'm talking about. We're already looking at year-over-year increases in EV charging infrastructure of 40% in some places in the US, so 500% in 11 years everywhere else sounds reasonable.

Giles has a head start on expanding charging infrastructure thanks to a $12 million grant from the Department of Transportation, awarded in early 2024. The city should be able to increase charging stations by 40 percent with these funds, says Giles. This will be a step toward keeping ahead of an anticipated 1,000 percent growth in the number of EVs in Mesa between now and 2030. The city has made light-duty vehicles the first priority for fleet transformation. It has acquired about 70 Ford Lightning trucks and is looking for more.

1000%. That's another number I like to see. I think these figures are very reasonable too - lots of these cities don't really have EVs at all yet, so that's super achievable. Quite likely that that grant came from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021, by the way.

It's good to see this stuff taken up by "Republican mayors in 'notoriously conservative'" cities. Climate and public health shouldn't be a partisan issue. Having pretty much 100% new EV sales by 2035 is totally possible.

Maintenance isn’t the only thing that costs less; a recent analysis by the think tank Energy Innovation found it’s cheaper to fill an EV than a gas-powered vehicle in every state. Satya Rhodes-Conway, the Democratic mayor of Madison, Wis., and chair emerita of Climate Mayors, agrees that has bipartisan appeal.

Efficiency speaks louder than politics.