EV Incidence and Political Party Registrations by City

As this is being written on Election Day, and with an enormous chasm between the environmental/climate change plans of the two presidential candidates, we thought it a good time to look at how EVs fit into the CT political landscape based on voter registration in Connecticut.

I do not have data at the individual person level. I am working with counts at the city level – of EVs, median household income, and voter registration.

The most highly-correlated factor with respect to EVs is income. With Tesla the dominant, and pricey, make, EVs still carrying a higher cost than ICE generally, and limited supply of affordable used EVs, that isn’t surprising. Also, there is still a significant lack of access to charging in our more urban areas with many people living in multiple unit dwellings. For that reason, in the charts below, I have filtered out the roughly one-third of cities with a median household income of <$75K in order to obtain a sharper focus on the political registrations.

The chart at the top shows EV incidence and voter registration counts by party by city. The bars are all the same size because they total back to 100%. The variations in proportions by each color are driven by the proportion of voter registrations, which come from CT.gov, by party. Red and blue are obvious. The gold represents both independents and minor party registrations. Minor parties are a very small part of that grouping. The line shows EVs as a percentage of all vehicles within each city.

This screengrab is an excerpt. The full chart has been added to the EV Dashboard.

Bipartisan presence of EVs

There is not a significant correlation between voter registration profile and EV incidence. The two top EV cities, Westport and Weston, are Democratic redoubts. The next two cities are New Canaan, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by 2:1, and Greenwich which also has a Republican skew. This is followed by Wilton, which is evenly divided, and then Darien, which has a similar profile to New Canaan. We regard this bipartisan profile to be encouraging and feel that this, and the environment in general, shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

2016 Election Profile

CT is a blue state and voted for Clinton in 2016. The two charts below filter the chart by which cities voted for Clinton vs. Trump.  The hypothesis was that the profiles might be more extreme than overall registration, and that turns out to be the case. (The income filter remains in these two charts.)

Looking at the data this way, as presumably, Trump won the most conservative cities, a clear difference emerges with much higher EV incidence in Clinton cities, including Republican-dominant cities that voted for Clinton.

Clinton Cities 2016

Trump Cities 2016

Looking at the data this way, as presumably, Trump won the most conservative cities, a clear difference emerges with much higher EV incidence in Clinton cities, including Republican-dominant cities that voted for Clinton.

Spike in Model 3 Rebates leads to Slightly Stronger Rebate Activity in September

The September data were published on Friday, Oct. 30th, and show 84 rebates awarded with a $104,000 spend. Also, August was restated with rebates increasing from 40 to 44. A restatement of the prior month is common with these data releases.

The base-level trim of the Model 3 can still qualify for a rebate, even under the lowered $42,000 MSRP cap, and when those numbers are up, it raises the overall level. There were 37 Model 3 rebates, followed by 15 from the Chevy Bolt, possibly driven by some significant discounting. The spend level was $104,000, still pacing well under the allocated budget.

Rebate awards total $402,000 for all of 2020 through September against an annual budget of $3,000,000 (less admin and dealer incentives).

Pending Vote

CHEAPR changed the size of the rebates and the MSRP eligibility cap in 2019, which led to a large drop in the number of rebates awarded and the dollar amount spent. This was done at the time out of concern for the possibility of funds running dry late last year. Ever since then, there has been an announcement on the CHEAPR home page that revised rules will be coming in 2020. New rules were finally proposed in July. There was much disagreement about the proposal. Subsequent meetings in August, September, and October failed to resolve differences. No proposal has yet to be brought up for a vote. No meeting date is posted as of Nov 1. The CT EV Coalition does not like the incentive structure as originally proposed.

DEEP has asked their consultant, the CSE to go back and model additional scenarios. There are a number of variables in play, including an income-limited used EV incentive, an income-limited supplemental incentive, temporary stimulus incentive during this period of a weak economy, size of the rebate, and MSRP budget cap. We have blogged about a number of these issues before – here and here most recently.

The biggest sticking point, in my opinion, is the MSRP cap. At $42K, it is lower than neighboring states – NJ ($55K), MA ($50K), NY ($60K). More to the point, there just aren’t many BEVs that qualify. Below is the count of rebates by BEV model for 2020 to date.

There are only 7 models receiving rebates and just 4 that received more than single digits. If we exclude the Model 3 as our estimates are that ~75-80% of them are not eligible, and the eGolf, which is being discontinued, that leaves only 5 that are eligible, 3 with more than single digits. The eGolf is being replaced with the ID4, which will be ineligible. A loaded Bolt or Leaf Plus will exceed the threshold. The new Ford Mach-E begins at $43K. And, of course, the base trim level of the Tesla Model Y is over $42K. We feel CHEAPR needs to support the new generation of EVs, which include popular SUV or crossover form factors. Let consumer choice dictate where the rebates go and not put a thumb on the scale.

Polestar 2 to Spend an Afternoon in Westport for Test Drives

A jazzy new entry in the luxury EV space, the Polestar 2, is being brought by Manhattan Motors to Westport on Saturday, November 7th at 12:00 PM. Test drives will be offered on a first-come-first-served basis.

Judging by the form-factor, it looks like a sport sedan. But it has a hatch and ample cargo space so that it feels like it is fitting in-between a sedan and a crossover. It is clearly targeting Tesla, along with the Jaguar iPace and the Audi eTron.

Location: TecKnow in Bedford Square, Westport

The location will be outside the TecKnow store at Bedford Square, 12 Elm Street in downtown Westport. If you come to the event, please leave the circle area for the Polestar. There is free parking across the street in the Baldwin lot.

Polestar is not exclusively an EV brand. The Polestar 1 is a sporty ICE vehicle Porsche competitor that starts at $155,000. The vehicles are manufactured in China by Geely, which is also the parent company of Volvo. The car shares some architecture with Volvo but is a more futuristic, high-tech brand.

A Polestar 2 base trim level will set you back $59,900, and a loaded vehicle gets to about $72,000. According to the manufacturer website, the EPA rated range is 233 miles delivered from a 78 kWh battery pack.

We have had one club-member do a test-drive to this point. His succinct evaluation: “Impressive.”

Center for Latino Progress presents Multimodal Transit Summit on November 23rd, 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM

This worthwhile summit explores sustainable and equitable transportation policies for a post-pandemic world. It is a full-day deep-dive. Local leaders, legislators, transportation professionals, engineers, among others come together for this program. There will be some EV-related content, specifically a panel in the evening portion on the CT CHEAPR purchase-incentive program.

This is the link to register: Multimodal and Transit Summit – Registration

Individual registration fees are $45/professional, $25 student/non-profit.

Upcoming Meeting to Feature a Speaker From FreeWire

There is a virtual club meeting via Zoom scheduled for October 27th. John Erdman, Head of Strategic Accounts for FreeWire, will be speaking to us about their latest charging solutions. John joined FreeWire this past August after having spent 9 years with ChargePoint.

One of the new mousetraps developed by FreeWire is a level 3 charger with a self-contained 160 kW battery that continuously draws power at the rate of 20kW per hour. This avoids the power consumption spikes typical of level 3 chargers, which are what cause facility owners to be subject to utility demand charges. We have seen first-hand in CT how that has become a major obstacle to expanding EVSE infrastructure.

We will also be providing an update on the latest information regarding proposed changes to the CHEAPR EV purchase-incentive program. Some of the proposed changes, which we have blogged about numerous times, such as here and here, are controversial and, as of this writing, have still not been resolved. It is possible they will be by the 27th.

If you are interested in joining us and do not receive the club emails, please fill out the website contact form.

We look forward to virtually seeing many of you.

Numerous EV Models Appear in Parade

30 EVs participated in this parade, a joint effort between the EV Club of CT and the Sustainable Fairfield Task Force. Parade participation was capped at this number to avoid being overly disruptive to local traffic

There was one novelty vehicle, a 1903 Baker replica. In its day, the Baker was quite the speedster, topping at about 48 MPH. It is a reminder that electricity was the dominant mode of energizing cars around the turn of the previous century.

The parade followed a roughly 25-mile route, beginning at the Westport Metro-North Depot, where the proceedings were kicked off by Westport First Selectman Jim Marpe. The route headed north up Imperial Avenue, jagged over Jesup to then proceed up Main Street, looping around Avery and Myrtle, and taking a left onto the Post Rd. heading East. There it stayed until hitting downtown Fairfield, where it veered off to Old Town Hall and concluded with  a second brief ceremony with Fairfield officials.

Throughout the event, masking was required and social distancing was observed.

Escorting the parade was the Westport Police Tesla Model 3 that has been fully outfitted as a police cruiser.

Deliveries of the newest Tesla Model, the “Y”, have been coming into CT, and this was one of 4 appearing in the parade.

This Toyota Prius Prime, a plug-in hybrid, is one of four plug-in vehicles currently in use by the Westport Police and it was the rear bookend of the parade.

Few CHEAPR Rebates Given in August

Another tepid, desultory, underwhelming (I’m running out of adjectives – feel free to help in the comments) month for the CHEAPR program with only 40 rebates given out and a total dollar amount of $28,000. This is the second-lowest month of the year and continues the dispiriting (another adjective!) trend we have seen since November 2019. One interesting item: there were 9 rebates for the new Toyota RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid. Between the RAV4 Prime and the Prius Prime, Toyota vehicles dominated the rebate activity. The reporting has been that the plug-in RAV4 Prime is a severely supply-constrained vehicle at present and there was some doubt that any would make it out of California, but apparently, they have.

Note: CHEAPR often restates the prior month when issuing new data. In this case, July has increased from 57 to 62 rebates and it is incorporated into the title graph.

Decision Time

The next CHEAPR meeting is scheduled for October 9 at 11:00 AM.

The Center for Sustainable Energy (CSE) presented a set of proposals for program revisions in July. The agenda includes a vote on the new program. The meeting is scheduled for only one hour, so we don’t expect much discussion. We do not know if this will be an up or down vote on the package or if the items will be considered individually. We know that despite 3 meetings and public comments, there isn’t a consensus on all the items.

This is what we know to the best of our information.

The package that will likely be presented to the board in October will have no differences relative to what was proposed in July.

• No e-bike incentive or even a pilot test. Ix-nay on this from the DEEP attorneys.
• A used-EV income-limited (lower/middle income, or LMI) incentive (non-controversial).
• A supplemental LMI EV incentive (non-controversial).
• No changes to base incentive levels or to the MSRP cap.
• No changes to the much higher fuel-cell vehicle incentive, which stands at $5000 with an MSRP cap of $60,000.

UPDATES as of 10/25/20

Modeling scenarios include:

• Maintaining the current (since 10/19) MSRP cap of $42K or raising it to $50K.
• Base BEV incentives of $2500 or $1500.
• A possible temporary “stimulus” additional sample of $1750 for BEVs and FCEVs, and $500 for PHEVs.
• $500 increase to $2500 for the LMI incentive.
• Possible inclusion of scenarios with base-level incentives less than $1500.

Incentive Levels and MSRP Cap

Much commentary, from board members, public attendees, and public comments, was in favor of raising the base incentives and the MSRP cap to at least where they were before DEEP lowered them in October 2019. These currently stand well below comparable incentive programs in nearby states. The CSE was tasked with modeling scenarios and they forecasted that there was a possibility that demand would exceed available funds, thus risking disruption. This blog doesn’t buy that line of argument for several reasons.

• A pandemic and recession of unknown duration make for a difficult environment in which to model. There is a lot of guesswork here, exacerbated by the fact that there are no empirical data on the take-rates for the new LMI incentives. A disruption would likely only occur if the economy roars back and the participation rates are at the high end of estimates.
• The dealership contingent spoke out for a higher MSRP cap. They argued that leases have grown in popularity to about half of all new car sales, and people can manage a lease payment on a vehicle they can’t afford to buy. Also, we are soon to see a wave of crossover and SUV EV launches, and these popular form factors are more expensive than sedans.
• Based on our analysis, and comments from the dealers, there isn’t much of a used EV market at this time. The incentive will help, but it will take some time for auction bids to be influenced such that inventory can build. Also, used Teslas are probably too expensive for an LMI limited buyer (and we don’t know how the rules will work for them – they may not qualify – something we will seek to find out).
• At the July meeting, when CSE proposed this incentive regime, they advised that the LMI system development would cause it not to be available until Q1 2021. We don’t know if they have been able to work on it during this period when the program isn’t finalized, but there could potentially be a delay.
• There is more money available – DEEP has indicated that the unspent funds from 2020 (they have only given out $398,000 in consumer rebates), as well as unspent bridge financing from 2019, will be rolled over into 2021. This will yield approximately $4.9 million in available funds (compared to the $3 million budget).
• The CHEAPR mission seems to be increasingly skewed towards the equity part of the mission. This blog supports the LMI incentives (and e-bikes, for that matter), but also sees the mission as just getting more EVs on the road. The program has fallen seriously short of that in the past year.

For these reasons, we think the best course is to raise the incentives and collect data. There will be plenty of time to course-correct if necessary. CHEAPR has an important role to play in moving people to drive electric. This is attested to by consumers, dealers, and our data. Let’s allow it to fulfill its potential.

Closing Pet Peeve

The $5000 fuel-cell rebate has never been given out in the 5+ years of the program’s existence, and there is no sign it will be anytime soon. You can’t buy one of these vehicles at present, and there is only 1 public hydrogen refueling station in the state. And yet, DEEP continues to use this as its headline incentive. It is misleading. It can be seen in the first sentence of the first paragraph on the CHEAPR home page. It was spoken out loud by Tracy Babbidge during the Sustainable Fairfield Webinar on September 28th. It was said by Victoria Hackett when she spoke at the Tesla leasing kickoff in February. Those are the occasions we are aware of but this is clearly not inadvertent. They are not helping themselves.

Editors Note: The October 9th meeting did not yield a resolution. A letter from the EV Coalition was debated that proposed a different structure. No vote was taken.

Meeting Details

We encourage members of the public to listen in! This is the Zoom info:

Webinar Information:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://ctdeep.zoom.us/j/99938032925

Meeting ID: 999 3803 2925

One tap mobile

+16468769923,,99938032925# US (New York)

Meeting ID: 999 3803 2925

Find your local number: https://ctdeep.zoom.us/u/adlDH6PJuC

EV Parade to be Part of Green Wheels Expo

The EV Club and Sustainable Fairfield Task Force have partnered for National Drive Electric Week events, including an EV Parade. (The parade is currently fully subscribed.)

Parade Details:

Date: Sunday, September 27th

Time: Check-in is at 9:30 AM. The parade begins at 10:00 AM. It will last for approximately 1 hour.

Route: It begins at the Westport Metro-North Depot, New Haven-bound side. The route goes north through downtown Westport, then east on the Post Road, and ends at Old Town Hall in Fairfield.

We wish to thank all of the public officials who are supporting this event. Westport First Selectman Jim Marpe will give remarks pre-rally at the train station. Fairfield Selectwoman Nancy Lefkowitz will speak at the parade terminus at Old Town Hall. Westport Chief of Police, Foti Koskinas, will provide the parade escort in the Tesla Model 3 police cruiser. Two other WPD cars, a BMW i3 and a Toyota Prius Prime, will also be along for the ride. WPD and the Fairfield PD have worked together to coordinate.

There will also be virtual events, including an interview with EVangelist Jay Leno (yes, that Jay Leno!).

If you have solar and would like to expand it because you are buying an EV

Or if you are starting from zero, this is the process for determining how to size a system and obtain necessary approvals from the utility.

This content was provided by Ron Nelson of Apex Solar

If you have a new construction home or are adding an addition to your home………

ConnectedSolutions program at Eversource

Net Metering

Net Metering is the law of CT for now.

This will be the last CHEAPR post prior to the CHEAPR board meeting on Thursday, September 10.

Stats Update

The July stats have been published and rebate levels increased slightly over the desultory levels where they have been. There were 57 rebates in July, up from 46 in June. The numbers last year were 179 and 142 for June and July, respectively.

CHEAPR has spent $362,500 through July, plus another $40K or so on dealership incentives, out of an annual budget of $3 million.

9/10 Board Meeting

The published agenda does not include a vote. At least that’s what it says. Some key points:

• Despite DEEP’s not soliciting public comments on the MSRP cap and base rebate levels, many spoke up about them. The CSE was asked to scenario model and are expected to present their work. It is hard to think of a more difficult modeling environment than the present. The big question, of course, is that while the program has underperformed ever since the levels were changed in October 2019, there is an unknown with respect to the take rate for the supplemental LMI and used EV incentives that are likely to be adopted.
• DEEP’s position was that e-bikes cannot be statutorily defined as vehicles for the purposes of inclusion in CHEAPR. However, there is an agenda item about e-bike rebates.
• During the July meeting, there was a gap of roughly $800K between funds spent on rebates and available funding. A more detailed report on the CHEAPR budget is due. If any preliminary information has been released, we have not seen it.