More with Less - EVs of the Future - Climate Optimists

Opportunities to Make a Difference

Option #1

If you live in the U.S. or Australia, call on your representatives to put a price on carbon

Pricing emissions is essential to a transition away from fossil fuels

Potential talking points

We need rapid cuts to emissions to achieve climate targets
A price on carbon is an effective and transparent way to achieve those cuts
Canada's approach of a carbon fee and dividend helps shield consumers

Option #2

Go electric

Transportation is the largest source of U.S. carbon emissions

Switching to an EV is often the most effective way for an individual to reduce their carbon footprint

Try to avoid large SUVs and trucks since they can require nearly twice the resources to build and operate

If you want to maximize your emission reductions, switch to an e-bike

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Show Notes

Intro

Vehicle Efficiency

Average US passenger car - 33 mpg
Toyota Prius - 57 mpg
Tesla Model 3 - 132 mpge (miles per gallon equivalent)
Projection for EVs in 2050 - as high as 250 mpge

Sources

Explore the Automotive Trends Data | US EPA

2023 Toyota Prius (fueleconomy.gov)

Every New Electric Vehicle For Sale In 2024 - Car and Driver

Valuing Improvements in Electric Vehicle Efficiency (epri.com)

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Reason for Hope

Global EV market continues to expand rapidly

Highlights from 2024 International Energy Agency Outlook

Globally, more than 1 in 5 cars sold this year are expected to be EVs
By 2030, 1/3 of cars in China & 1/5 cars in both U.S. & E.U. are expected to be EVs
EV adoption by 2030 expected to shrink oil demand by 6M barrels / day
Two and three-wheeler EVs quickly catching on in places like India and SE Asia (nearly 60% of three-wheeler EVs last year were sold in India)

Sources

The world’s electric car fleet continues to grow strongly, with 2024 sales set to reach 17 million - News - IEA

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Main Topic

Global electricity demand forecast to grow by 150% between 2022 - 2050 to achieve net zero

Federal tax credit in U.S. now available at time of purchase ($7500 new / $4000 used)

Tesla has opened up 15K out of its 17K super chargers to non-Tesla EVs

15,000 vehicles studied by the U.S. Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office, failure rates went from 7.5% of the fleet in 2011 to only 0.5% of the fleet by 2021.

‍Source

Outlook for electricity – World Energy Outlook 2022 – Analysis - IEA

It Just Got a Whole Lot Easier to Claim the Federal EV Tax Credit (caranddriver.com)

Most Automakers Are Now Able to Use Tesla Superchargers - Consumer Reports

Modern EV Batteries Rarely Fail: Study (insideevs.com)

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