The U.S. government is moving ahead with a $2.5 billion plan to install electric vehicle charging stations across the country. It’s a great plan, but it’s also missing the mark.
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The funding will be split, half for “alternative fuel” in community areas, and half for charging stations along interstates, highways, and other major roads. The idea is to get half a million chargers in place as quickly as possible, to cut vehicle emissions in half by 2030. That’s great, but it really should go hand in hand with a plan to reduce or eliminate private car use in cities. And not just to reduce pollution, but to make life better for everyone.
“Electric vehicles represent the greatest opportunity this country has ever had to ‘clean up’ our transportation sector. With mass adoption comes measurable reductions in air pollution and fewer asthma-related ER visits (according to a recent USC study). Nowhere are these effects felt more than in urban environments where air pollution from vehicle emissions is amplified by high population density,” Aaron Luque, founder and CEO of Georgia-based EV charging infrastructure company EnviroSpark, told Lifewire via email.
Americans love their cars, so it seems obvious that the best way to reduce carbon emissions from cars is to switch to electric vehicles while simultaneously increasing the capacity of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydropower. No one has to change their habits, and all the disastrous effects on the environment disappear.
