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Do you want a light tailwind or a full-on hurricane?
“The only thing better for the climate than buying an EV over a gasoline-powered car is buying no car at all,” the climate scientist
Rob Jackson has written. But for many Americans, not having a car at all is the stuff of logistical and cultural nightmares. The average person living in the U.S. covers more than 1,000 miles per month in their vehicle, and nearly 45% of people don’t even have the option of opting for public transportation. Ditching your car? You might as well ask people to give up their cell phones.
But across the country, transportation advocates and e-bike warriors are looking for solutions to go, if not entirely car-less, then at least car-light. Heatmap has put together a comprehensive guide to help you make a decision that best fits your lifestyle, whether that’s becoming a superpedestrian, a committed e-bike user, or just trying to replace a couple of short-haul drives a week.
Doug Gordon is the cohost of “The War on Cars,” a podcast about the fight against car culture. He is also a writer, TV producer, and safe streets advocate, and he advises nonprofits and mobility companies on communications strategies to promote better streets and public infrastructure through his Brooklyn Spoke Media consulting business.
Alexa Sledge is the director of communications at Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit organization that has worked to promote non-polluting, safe, and quiet travel in New York City since 1973.
Bryan Deanis the sales manager at The eBike Store in Portland, Oregon, which opened in 2008 as the city’s first e-bike-only retailer. He’s spent over six years helping customers pick out their perfect bikes and is also the creator of the #eBikeAnywhere hashtag.
Kevin Lau is a product specialist at REI with more than 20 years of experience. He is based out of Marlton, New Jersey.
Only 8% of U.S. households currently get by without owning a car, and less than 1% of Americans commute to work by bike. The U.S. is so driving-centric that we’re home to one-fifth of all the cars on the planet despite having less than 5% of the global population.Eleven states have more registered vehicles than people.
But just because driving has always been your default doesn’t mean it makes the most sense for the kind of travel you do — even if you live somewhere without great public transportation. Over half of all trips Americans make in a car are for a distance of less than three miles — perfect to convert into a bike ride.
“I think of mobility like a Swiss army knife: You have to use the right tool for the job,” Gordon told me. “If I just need to pick up a carton of milk, does it make sense to do that in a 6,000-pound metal box on wheels that is powered by dinosaur juice? Not so much.”
On average, commuting by bike in the U.S. saves an estimated $2,500 per year, and it has been found to have massive benefits for one’s mental health, cardiovascular health, and even productivity at work. Yes, even e-bikes!
“If you go to places like Copenhagen or Amsterdam — places where there are huge numbers of cyclists — and you poll those people, concern for the environment barely cracks the top five reasons why they cycle,” Gordon said. “The reasons why people cycle in Denmark and the Netherlands are because it’s safe and convenient, and it’s often the fastest and cheapest way to get where they’re going.”
Transportation is the most significant contributor to climate change in the United States, with nearly 60% of the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from cars alone (another 23% comes from trucks). Replacing a quarter of your total driving with walking, biking, or e-biking could save 1.3 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, according to our friends at WattTime — about the same as forgoing burning 1,433 pounds of coal or three barrels of oil. If every American drove even a mere 10% less per year, it’d be like taking 28 coal-fired power plants offline.
You can still make a significant impact without ditching your car, in other words: You simply have to drive less. And the upsides are enormous. More Americans die of car pollution than in car accidents every year. Additionally, commuting by bike or by foot makes us healthier and happier.
It also helps us realize what our community priorities should be. “Individual action is not always what we need to focus on,” Gordon said. “We need to focus on institutional change. But my philosophy is that lots of individual action actually adds up to the political will to get the institutional change you need.”
A survey of studies from five countries (including the U.S.) found that the main barriers to cycling were low perceived safety, bad weather, lack of cycling infrastructure (including “shower facilities” at one’s destination), and distance and perceived effort.
Safety is a valid concern. Riding a bike is about 500 times more likely to be fatal than riding a bus, according to a 2007 study; even with the success of programs like New York’s Vision Zero, collisions with cars remain a real danger for people on bikes. The car-related pollution inhaled while cycling can also shorten a cyclist’s life by an estimated one to 40 days. But the benefits of cycling on average far outweigh the risks: Riding a bike adds an estimated three to 14 months to your life, even when the possibilities of collisions and air pollution are considered. The health benefits are so significant that a separate study by Swedish researchers found that cyclists had a 47% lower risk of early death and a 10% lower risk of hospitalization compared to car and train commuters.
What about concerns about shower availability and the “distance and perceived effort” of riding a bike? That’s where the advantages of an e-bike’s pedal assist come into play. “E-bikes are great at blasting through any concerns you have about sweat,” Gordon told me. Even in hot weather or on difficult terrain, pedal assist can keep you looking fresh when you arrive at the office.
The first step to driving less is thinking about when and where you can replace specific trips with walking, cycling, or public transportation instead. Lau told me his general rule of thumb is that if a trip is less than a mile and he can safely walk (i.e. if there are sidewalks or safe paths), then he’ll walk. “If it’s more than that, I’ll take the bike if I have a place to lock it or can bring it into my workplace or store,” he said. For trips where he might need some extra assistance — that are farther, longer, hillier, or will require carrying “more cargo without working as hard,” he’ll opt for an e-bike instead.
You can do a lot of this reconnaissance from your couch. Apple Maps and Google Maps can take a lot of the guesswork out of finding the best bike paths to and from your house and the other places you frequent, including informing you ahead of time if the route will require riding on major or minor roads or ones with protected bike lanes. Google and Apple Maps can also give you real-time information about public transportation options in your area (as well as allow you to plan for trips when service might be reduced, like late nights or weekends), and many transit systems now have their own apps to make tracking delays or alternative service simpler.
It’s funny how you don’t realize where the long, slow inclines are in your neighborhood until you’re huffing up them on a bike. Google Maps and Apple Maps can show you what elevation to expect on a walking or cycling route. If you live in a hillier area, an e-bike might be better than a traditional bike since it can take some of the ouch out of the ups.
“Something really, really important that people don’t always think about is gear,” Sledge told me. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, but if you can only ride your bike when it’s 80 degrees and sunny, that’s not the best scenario.”
If you live somewhere where it gets hot, rainy, snowy, windy, or the weather can change unexpectedly, think ahead of time about the sort of gear you’d need to make cycling or walking more comfortable. (We have a checklist of ideas below.)
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Vermont all have statewide tax credits or rebates to encourage e-bike adoption.
Live somewhere that isn’t on that list? Here is a super handy tracker from the Transportation Research and Education Center at Portland State University of more than 100 counties, cities, and municipalities that offer e-bike incentive programs. Also, look for e-bike lending libraries that might be in your area.
If you’re having trouble learning about the programs available to you, head into a brick-and-mortar e-bike shop in your area or connect with your local transportation advocacy group — they’ll know what programs you can take advantage of and be happy to point you in the right direction.
Do you know what bike enthusiasts love more than anything? Creating new bike enthusiasts. If you’re still feeling intimidated by the idea of getting on a bike — or even if you’re not — “find a friend who’s already doing it,” Gordon suggested. Bike people are “an evangelical bunch, and if you tell a friend who you know is into biking or bike commutes regularly that ‘Hey, I’m thinking of doing it,’ I can guarantee that person will be more than happy to hold your hand and help you through your first ride.”
There are dozens of emissions-free or emissions-light transportation options, from using your own two feet to digging the old beater bicycle out of your garage to going full Steve Wozniak with a Segway. The most important thing is to something you’ll actually use.
That said — “What’s really going to be the best option for most Americans is an e-bike,” Sledge told me. “That’s a true car replacement when so often a [traditional] bike can’t be a true, true, true car replacement.” E-bikes are simply more practical and comfortable for longer rides or daily commutes, and if you need to haul things like groceries or children, they can’t be beaten.
I’ve looked at all my options and don’t think I can drive any less than I already do. What can I do instead?
There’s no way around it: E-bikes are pricy. “An e-bike is going to be a big purchase — nowhere near as much as a car, but still, it’s a major purchase,” Sledge said. Even with incentive programs (more on that below), you’re likely to spend more than $1,000 out of pocket.
It is tempting to look for a bargain. But Dean stressed that manufacturers and bulk retailers are “sacrificing a lot” in terms of quality and service to make a profit at lower price points. As a rule, “If you’re spending less than $1,000 on any bike, it’s landfill,” he said. “And that waste is toxic — odds are, it isn’t going to be recycled properly.”
Gordon suggested that if you’re concerned about how often you’ll use an e-bike, it makes sense to get “a cheap regular bike” initially. “Then you can figure out if this is something you want to do in the long term, and after a few weeks, or a month, or a year, you can go, ‘Okay, I’m ready for the $1,000, $2,000, $5,000 bicycle.’”
Perspective is important, too. Yes, e-bikes are expensive — if you compare them to regular bikes. “If you compare them to cars, they’re a bargain,” Gordon said. “E-bikes are a replacement tool; they’re not an upgrade from other bikes. So if you’re a family with two cars and are going down to one, getting a $2,500 or even $5,000 e-bike is a relative bargain.” Additionally, many retailers — including The eBike Store in Portland, Oregon, where Dean works — offer installment plans to help make the purchase more manageable.
Conversion kits are a popular way to convert an analog bike you already own into an e-bike by attaching a motor to the front hub, rear hub, or mid-drive. Many of these kits can be found cheaply on websites like Amazon, though The Washington Post warns that it is still a “very Wild West market” and to only buy batteries from reputable e-bike battery brands (low-quality batteries are more likely to start fires). While converting to an e-bike might be a good option for you if you want to dip a toe in the e-bike water, you’ll still need to spend several hundred dollars to get a kit that gives you the same oomph as an actual e-bike. That said, whatever option gets you on a bike is the best one, and if you’re converter-kit curious, here’s a good guide for learning where to start.
“Buying a bike at a brick-and-mortar store from competent, kind people who love their job — customers are going to have a fantastic experience,” Dean told me. “They’re going to get a great taste for the bike, which means they’ll be riding it a lot. We’re not in the business of selling bikes that sit and rot in someone’s garage.”
It is especially important to go to a store with e-bike specialists on staff (rather than a bulk retailer like Costco — or worse, anything online) because the mechanics will have checked the bike over and adjusted the safety points so it’s ready to go. “You’re going to get educated and get a strong appreciation of the beautiful tool that you are buying, and learn how to operate it and make it last,” Dean added.
Most importantly, though, ensure you take the bike for a test ride before handing over your credit card. Any retailer worth its salt will offer this as an option; the best retailers will take you on a guided test ride, where they’ll teach you how to use the e-bike you’re trying out. But the bottom line is, “Don’t buy a bike that you haven’t ridden,” Dean said. “Ride the bike before you buy it; that’s in all-caps with smiley faces and exclamation points. Don't buy the bike if you can’t ride it first.”
“Buy the bike that’s going to put the biggest, dumbest smile on your face.”
Dean said he points riders looking to log miles to the Specialized Como. “When you’re commuting long miles, you want something comfortable, something that’s reliable, something that has a strong enough motor that will get you where you’re going and a big-enough battery that you’re not going to sweat it,” he said. The Specialized Como is also an excellent choice for people who want to “show up to work not sweaty” but maybe get a little bit more of a workout on the way home.
If you prefer commuting on a traditional bike, Lau suggested REI’s ADV 1.1, a road touring bike, or the CTY 1.1 bike, a less-expensive hybrid built for logging longer distances and enduring the daily wear-and-tear of a commute. His e-bike pick for commuters is the CTY e2.2, a popular, well-reviewed, and accessible commuter bike specifically marketed to “replace car trips.”
Dean loves to recommend Tern bikes to people who want to make trips with their kids. “They’ve been doing this for a long time, they have tons of great accessories, and they use Bosch power systems,” he said — all points in the bike’s favor. That customizability and reliability make it a good fit for families who want to be able to tailor the bike to their needs and price point while also not having to worry about it breaking down in the middle of a toddler’s meltdown.
But there is one other primary reason why Dean points parents to Tern. “All of their bikes are rider first, cargo behind” — versus bucket bikes that put the cargo in front of the rider. While the latter design is also popular, it also means that if you’re trying to squeak out into traffic, you’re nosing your most precious cargo ahead of you, into potential harm’s way.
Lau offered three options for e-bikes that won’t make you miss the trunk of your car, starting with the Cannondale Cargowagen, which can lug up to 440 pounds — that is a lot of Chili & Lime Flavored Rolled Corn Tortilla Chips. Its range isn’t quite as good as some other bikes on the market — the battery is 545 watt-hours — so it’s probably a better fit for people who live in higher-density areas or near their preferred market. (You can always buy a second battery if you want a little more range.) The Cargowagen is also a class 3 bike, meaning you won’t have to worry about the ice cream melting before you can get home.
Like Dean, Lau loves to recommend Tern bikes for handling heavy loads, especially the Tern GSD S00, which conveniently folds up so it can even be stored in an apartment or transported in an elevator while still being compatible with Tern’s line of cargo-carrying products — but at almost $6,000 before add-ons, it’ll likely be out of many first-time e-bikers’ budgets. Tern’s Vektron S10 is a less expensive option and still has the power to handle hilly roads with six Trader Joe’s bags in tow. (Note that both Terns are class 1 bikes, meaning the pedal assist tops out at 20 miles per hour.)
“Lightweight e-bikes are out there,” Dean said, and can be had — for the right amount of money. “They’re usually going to start around $3,500 to $4,000 and then go up from there,” he told me, pointing to Specialized as one of his favorite lightweight brands.
Keep in mind that you may not need a lightweight e-bike. “No one has ever come in and said, ‘I want a heavy bike,’” Dean pointed out. Electric motors are, by necessity, heavy, so getting a lighter bike can mean sacrificing half the motor and battery. There are workarounds: “If you have stairs to go up, almost all of these bikes have a walk assist mode,” which gently turns the tires so you’re not fighting gravity on your own, Dean told me. Likewise, if you’re trying to load your bike onto a car rack, “you don’t have to Hulk it up there; you can be a little smarter about your efforts by picking up the front wheel and putting it in the rack behind your car. Then pick up the back wheel.” If you’re really struggling with your bike, you can always pop off the battery — one of the heavier components — and carry it separately.
The best new commuter bike you can get away with is the CTY 1.1, the analog bike Lau recommended above, but for an e-bike option, he points customers to the Co-op CTY e2.1, an easy, accessible, no-frills class 1 bike that won’t run you more than $2,000. It might be a little light on features for a serious urban commuter, though.
Dean told me that the Gazelle Medeo and some of the bikes from Electra Country will have price points that could be more acceptable to customers on a budget. Gazelle uses the reliable Bosch power system, and the Medeo is “really good” and comes in “multiple versions.” (I found one for less than $2,000). Electra Country is a subsidiary of Trek and is a “one-size-fits-all, beach cruiser-looking bike” that comes in super fun colors.
Congratulations! You’re the proud owner of a bike or an e-bike (or skateboard or e-scooter or a really good pair of walking shoes). What happens now?
While the benefits of riding a bike (or any other form of active transportation) still outweigh the risks, cars are getting bigger, their blindspots are getting larger, and pedestrian and cyclist deaths nationwide are at a 40-year high. Even electric vehicles might be a small part of the problem since they’re so much heavier than regular cars — and that much more dangerous if you get hit.
I asked Sledge how newly carless commuters could become better pedestrians, and she quickly corrected me. “There is no such thing as being a good pedestrian,” she said. “So often, in the United States, when we have groups of people that are consistently harmed by other groups of people, we’re like, ‘How can the victims be better?’ And the real answer is, ‘How can we create systems and designs that protect those people?’”
We’ll get into that. But the bottom line is: be safe when you’re out on the road. Learn how to navigate intersections safely, and don’t take unnecessary risks. Especially if you’re on an e-bike, “You’re traveling faster than most cars are expecting you to,” Dean said. “To remember that, imagine you are not only invisible, but they’re all trying to kill you.”
“Riding a bike is a really good entry for a lot of people into larger political conversations about climate, the design of their cities or towns, and a host of other issues,” Gordon told me. It might only be a short amount of time before you start to wonder why there aren’t more protected bike lanes in your town or city, or why mass transit isn’t reaching your neighborhood or destination, or why lousy road design is making your commute more dangerous than it should be.
There’s some good news, though: There has never been a better time to become a transit advocate. “It could be as small as your block, or your neighborhood, or your city, but there are tons of groups all over the country that focus on working to make them safer and better for the people in them,” Sledge said.
One of the best places to start is by making your voice and your values heard. As Sledge reminded me, car companies already have — and continue to spend money and time lobbying policies that are better for drivers (and their bottom lines) than others on the road. But where to begin? “First, I would look for any kind of organization in your community, your neighborhood, or your city that focuses on safe streets or fighting climate change, and see if you can get involved with them,” Sledge said. “And if you don’t have that kind of organization, start to go to your city council meetings, making your voice heard with your local representatives — those kinds of things really make a difference.”
Another great resource is Transportation for America’s Transit Advocate Guide, which takes you step-by-step through building a movement in your community. Transportation Alternatives also hosts occasional activist trainings to help you learn how to organize successful campaigns in your neighborhood.
Maybe you bought an e-bike or a monthly metro pass … but you’ve been unable to quit your car the way you thought you would. That’s okay! This is not an all-or-nothing activity. “Don’t feel guilty if you’re still driving,” Gordon stressed. Remember that “you’re operating within a system that is built for you to drive, so starting small is really good.” Every fit and start of progress helps.
Remember also that better, low- and zero-emissions-friendly infrastructure and a pedestrian-first culture aren’t going to be built overnight. Even the most hard-core among us still need to use cars occasionally. Just “reimagining how we’re going to truly allocate our public resources — our public dollars, our public services — to serve everyone, and radically rethinking how to do that, is so important,” Sledge said.
I will leave you with one last instruction for ditching your car. When you discover the bike that lets you “follow your joy, follow your bliss,” and puts a “smile on your face” — as Dean likes to say — don’t keep it to yourself.
Someone else in your community is beginning to think about ditching their car, too. It’s your turn now. Go forth. Become someone else’s enthusiastic bike geek.
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There is no dearth of advice on the internet about how to lower your personal carbon emissions, but if we had found any of it completely satisfying, we wouldn’t have embarked on this project in the first place.
Our goal with Decarbonize Your Life is to draw your attention to two things — the relative emissions benefits of different actions, as well as the relative structural benefits. (You’ll find everything you need to know about the project here.) For the first, we needed some help. So we shared our vision with WattTime, a nonprofit that builds data-driven tools to help people, companies, and policymakers figure out how to reduce emissions, and lucky for us, they were excited to support the project.
“So many people out there feel helpless when it comes to addressing the climate crisis, but we believe that anyone, anywhere should have the tools and information they need to make a difference,” Henry Richardson, a senior analyst at WattTime, told me as we were wrapping up this project. “So we love the idea of helping average consumers understand which actions actually available to them can meaningfully contribute to reducing climate pollution. We want to help people prioritize those higher-impact activities that can mitigate climate change faster.”
WattTime’s claim to fame is building an API that calculates the emissions impact of using the grid at a given time and place. Users can then shift their energy consumption to times when the grid is cleaner or to build renewables in places where they will reduce emissions the most.
In an ideal world, we would have taken a similar time- and place-based approach in calculating the emissions savings of each energy-related action on our list. Switching to an EV if you live somewhere with very clean power will reduce emissions more than if you live somewhere with lots of coal plants, and likewise, getting rooftop solar if you live somewhere with coal-fired electricity is more effective than in areas with a cleaner grid. But when we started to game it out, we realized that level of exactitude would be, if not exactly impossible, certainly insanity-inducing.
Instead, WattTime helped us calculate the effect of each action if it was undertaken by an “average American household” — that is, one that consumes an average amount of electricity per year, drives an average number of miles in an average car per year, uses an average amount of energy for space heating, et cetera. WattTime also pulled data from publicly available sources like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Energy Information Administration, to estimate the baseline emissions and savings of a given action. We ultimately made two calculations for each action to account for two different ways of estimating the emissions from using the electric grid:
While the first method gives us a picture of how much good each action can do in an immediate sense, the second gives us a picture of how much good it can do over time. For example, using the first method, buying clean power came out on top, with rooftop solar offering the potential to cut CO2 by about 5.7 metric tons per year, while switching to an electric vehicle would cut about 3 metric tons per year. But using the second method, car-related actions won out, showing EVs cutting CO2 by 4.6 metric tons per year, and rooftop solar cutting 1.4 metric tons per year. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
To calculate the emissions savings from dietary changes and food waste management, we turned to two more partners: HowGood, a data platform for food system lifecycle analysis, and ReFED, which collects similar data for food waste. As with energy, we used federal data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to estimate the average American diet and ReFED’s estimates for the average American food waste mix (though note that those are for an individual, not for a household). From there, WattTime helped us determine that, for instance, just by replacing the beef in your diet with chicken, you could save nearly 2.5 metric tons of emissions each year — almost as much as you could save by going vegan.
Because we used averages and sought to simplify our list with actions like “electrify your space heating system,” rather than estimating the impact of every permutation like “switch from a propane furnace in Colorado with X efficiency to a cold climate heat pump with Y efficiency,” our estimates of emissions reductions are rough approximations and not reflective of real-world scenarios.
You’ll see that while these calculations certainly informed our ranking, they were not the sole metric we used to arrange this list. A quantitative analysis alone could not answer our question about the most “high-leverage” actions, so we used our reporting and expertise as climate journalists to fill in that last, crucial gap. Car-related actions and rooftop solar were neck-and-neck by the numbers, but we are confident that getting an EV (if you need to have a car) is more unambiguously necessary for the energy transition than getting rooftop solar. Similarly, while eating less meat can hugely reduce the carbon tied to an individual’s diet, the ripple effect it has on agricultural carbon emissions is less direct and harder to parse than the effect you can have by electrifying all your appliances and shutting down your natural gas account.
Getting an EV:
WattTime — 2.9 mtCO2/yr
Cambium — 4.5 mtCO2/yr
Structural benefits: Destroying demand for oil; increasing demand for charging stations; improving local air quality and chipping away at the social license for operating an internal combustion engine.
Getting rooftop solar:
WattTime — 5.7 mtCO2/yr
Cambium — 1.4 mtCO2/yr
Structural benefits: Get clean energy on the grid faster than utility-scale projects; influence neighbors; reduce electric demand in your neighborhood; reduce strain on grid if paired with a battery and part of a “virtual power plant”
Air-sealing and insulation:
WattTime — 1.2 mtCO2/yr
Structural benefits: Reduce strain on grid and need for grid investment; level out electricity demand to avoid the need to activate dirty “peaker” gas plants; prepare your home for cheaper, more even, and efficient heating and cooling
Switching to a heat pump for space heating:
WattTime — 1.4 mtCO2/yr
Cambium — 1.6 mtCO2/yr
Switching from a gas stove to an induction stove:
WattTime — Roughly even
Cambium — 0.1 mtCO/yr
Switching to a heat pump for water heating:
WattTime — 0.8 mtCO2/yr
Cambium — 1.6 mtCO2/yr
Switching from a natural gas-powered dryer to a heat pump dryer:
WattTime — Roughly even
Cambium — 0.1 mtCO/yr
Structural benefits: Increase demand for and reduce price of electric and efficient appliances; build a case for policies that wind down fossil fuel use; if fully electrifying, sends signal to downsize gas system.
Getting rid of your car:
WattTime — 5.17 mtCO/yr
Structural benefits: Supporting public transit and bike lanes, enabling others to use their cars less, too.
Switching from an omnivorous to a vegetarian diet:
WattTime and HowGood — 2.8 mtCO2/yr
Switching from an omnivorous to a vegan diet:
WattTime and HowGood — 2.9 mtCO2/yr
Replacing the beef in an omnivorous diet with chicken:
WattTime and HowGood — 2.5 mtCO2/yr
Structural benefits: Reduce demand for high-emitting food products, which has the double-pump benefit of reducing the amount of land required to cultivate high-emitting products; if replacing beef with chicken, increase demand for more carbon-efficient proteins; add to the business case for developing efficient plant-based proteins.
Cutting food waste in half:
WattTime and ReFED — more than 0.1 mtCO2/yr
Structural benefits: Reduce demand across the food system; send less food waste to landfill, which helps reduce methane emissions.
Composting all food waste:
WattTime and ReFED — 0.03 mtCO2/yr
Structural benefits: Encourages the build-out of municipal composting programs; encourages responsible farming practices by lowering the cost of compost; reduces demand for nitrogen-based fertilizer.
The decarbonization benefits abound.
Electric vehicles? Really?
Is it really true that Heatmap looked at every way that you can decarbonize your life, meditated upon the politics, did the math, and concluded … that you should buy an EV? Are EVs really that important to fighting climate change?
You’ll find more thorough answers to all those questions throughout Decarbonize Your Life (plus our guide to buying an EV), but the short answer is: Yes. If you really need a car, then switching from a gas car to an electric vehicle (or at least a plug-in hybrid) is the most important step you can take to combat climate change. And it’s not only good for your personal carbon footprint, it’s good for the entire energy system.
Here is why we make that recommendation — and why you should trust us:
The best reason to use an electric vehicle is the most straightforward one: Driving an EV produces fewer greenhouse gases than driving a gasoline- or diesel-burning car. The Department of Energy estimates that the average EV operating in the U.S. produces 2,727 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution each year, while the average gasoline-burning car emits 12,594 pounds of carbon dioxide. Even a conventional hybrid vehicle — like a Toyota Prius — emits 6,800 pounds of CO2, or roughly 2.5 times as much as an EV.
These gains hold almost regardless of how you analyze the question. Even in states where coal makes up a large share of the power grid — such as West Virginia, Wyoming, or Missouri — EVs produce half as much CO2 as gasoline vehicles, according to the DOE. That’s because EVs are much more energy efficiency than internal combustion vehicles. So even though coal is a dirtier energy source than gasoline or diesel, EVs need to far less of it (in the form of electricity) to drive an additional mile.
EVs retain this carbon advantage even when you take into account their full “lifecycle” emissions — the cost of mining minerals, refining them, building a battery, and shipping a vehicle to its final destination. Across the full lifetime of a vehicle, EVs will release 57% to 68% less climate pollution than internal-combustion cars in the United States, according to a landmark analysis from the International Council on Clean Transportation. (As the publication Carbon Brief has shown, many analyses of EVs versus gas cars fail to take into account the full lifecycle emissions of the fossil-fuel system: the carbon pollution produced by extracting, refining, and transporting a gallon of gasoline.)
Even if you only care about emissions math, two more important reasons justify switching to an EV.
First, when you switch to an EV, you cut down enormously on the marginal environmental cost of driving an additional mile. Most of an EV’s environmental harm is “front-loaded” in its lifetime; that is, it is associated with the cost of producing and selling that vehicle. (Most electronics, including smartphones and laptops, have a similarly front-loaded carbon cost.)
But the carbon emissions of driving an additional mile are relatively low. In other words, converting an additional kilowatt of electricity into a mile on the road is relatively benign for the climate.
That’s not the case for an internal combustion vehicle. In a conventional gasoline- or diesel-powered car, every additional mile you drive requires you to burn more fossil fuels.
Don’t overthink it: There is no way to operate a gasoline or diesel car without burning more fossil fuels. Conventional ICE cars are machines that turn fossil fuels into (1) miles on the road and (2) greenhouse gas pollution. This means that — importantly — using an internal combustion vehicle, or even a conventional hybrid vehicle, will never be climate-friendly.
That’s why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that switching to an electrified transportation system — in other words, switching from gas cars to EVs — is “likely crucial” for cutting climate pollution and meeting the Paris Agreement goals. As the International Council on Clean Transportation concluded recently, “There is no realistic pathway for deep decarbonization of combustion engine vehicles.”
This calculus is likely to improve over time. Over the past decade, the U.S. power grid’s climate pollution has plunged while emissions from the transportation sector have slightly risen; we anticipate that, over the next decade, the U.S. power grid’s greenhouse gas emissions are likely to decline at least moderately. Energy experts also expect more renewables to get built, and that natural gas will continue to drive coal off of the grid. These changes mean that the per-mile cost of driving an EV will likely fall. (If you’re in the market for an EV, Heatmap is here to guide you.)
When you switch to an EV, you do something else, too — something that may sound self-evident but is actually quite important: You increase demand for EVs and for the EV ecosystem.
To be painfully direct about why this is important, this means that you stop spending so much money into the gasoline-powered driving system — the network of car dealers, gas stations, and oil companies that subsist on fossil fuels — and begin paying for products and services from the car dealerships, charging stations, and automakers who have invested in the new, low-carbon future.
This is more important than it may seem at first. In the United States, automakers have struggled to ramp up their EV production in part because consumers haven’t been buying their EVs. EVs are a manufactured good, and the world is betting on their continued technological improvement. The more EVs get made at a company or industry level, the cheaper they should get. When you buy an EV, you prime the pump for further improvements in that manufacturing chain.
Under the Biden administration, the Environmental Protection Agency has adopted rules that could make EVs more than half of all new cars sold by 2032. But those rules are somewhat flexible — automakers could also meet them by selling a lot of conventional and plug-in hybrids — and they are under legal threat. If Donald Trump wins this year’s presidential election, then he will almost certainly roll them back, much as hereversed the Obama administration’s less ambitious car rules. And even if Kamala Harris wins, then the zealously conservative Supreme Court could easily throw out the rules.
Under most future scenarios, in other words, American consumers will have considerable power over how rapidly the country switches to electric vehicles. Even in a world where the federal government keeps subsidizing EV manufacturing and offers a $7,500 tax credit for EV buyers, the country’s transition to EVs will still depend on ordinary American families deciding to make a change and buy the cars.
So if you want to decarbonize your life, switching to an EV — provided that you drive enough for it to make sense — is one of the most important steps that you can take.
When you switch to an electric vehicle, you are doing several things. First, you are cutting off a source of demand for the oil industry. Second, you are creating a new source of demand for the EV industry. Third, you are generating new demand for the companies and infrastructure — such as charging stations — that will be needed for the entire transition.
Buying an EV is a climate decision that makes sense if you want to cut your carbon footprint and if you want to change the American energy system. That’s why it’s Heatmap’s No. 1 recommendation for how to decarbonize your life.
Whatever your motivation for buying an electric vehicle, here’s the thing: The first day you own one, you’re going to love it.
Forget the fears that come with a new technology, the negativity that stems from the politicization of EVs ownership, or the dead-and-buried stereotype that EVs are slow and boring rides for greenies only. Electric cars are zippy and fun because, unlike gas cars, they can produce a ton of torque from a resting stop. After a lifetime of listening to a car rattle and roar, I can say from experience that you’ll find driving in electric silence to be a revelation. An EV owner wakes up every morning with the equivalent of a full tank of gas because their home is their gas station.
Want a piece of this bliss? If so, then read on.
Brian Moody, an executive editor at Cox Automotive (which owns Kelly Blue Book) and an author specializing in transportation, automotive, and electric cars.
Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst for the automotive agency Edmunds.
Loren McDonald, CEO of EVAdoption, which provides data analysis and insights about the electrification of the car industry.
“That’s who the PHEV is for,” Moody told me. “You can do your errands around town with 30 to 40 miles, and when the battery runs out, you just keep driving.”
Ask nearly any EV expert and you’ll hear the same thing: “People don’t drive nearly as far as they think they do,” Moody said. Most of us put the vast majority of miles on our cars within a few dozen miles of our homes, running kids around town or driving to work. You’ll use up a small amount of your battery by the time you get home, plug in, and wake up the next day fully charged. Road trips may seem daunting to the uninitiated, but the interstates are now lined with fast-chargers and the number of them is growing quickly.
Building an EV generates more carbon emissions than building a gas car, a difference that’s due to mining and creating materials for the battery. But that’s just manufacturing a vehicle; once it’s built, it has a decade or two of driving ahead of it. A combustion car constantly spews carbon as it burns fossil fuels, which dwarfs the amount it takes to make an EV. Don’t forget: An electric car gets greener as the grid gets greener. The more clean energy is added to the world’s electrical supply, the better EVs get in comparison to gas cars. You’d need to live in a state with an especially dirty energy grid, such as Wyoming or West Virginia, for an EV not to be a much better option than driving around on gasoline. Furthermore, McDonald said, you can forget the propaganda that suggests EV batteries wind up stacked in a landfill somewhere when the cars meet their end. A growing number of companies are ready to recycle EV batteries and retrieve the precious metals therein, while it’s likely that lots of batteries will find a second life in applications such as grid storage.
It’s true that price has long been one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption. Even though tax incentives — together with savings on fuel and maintenance — make many electrics cost-competitive with their gas counterparts in the long term, their high sticker price keeps many people away. But more electric models are beginning to creep down toward the cost of entry-level gasoline cars.
As with buying an old-fashioned gas-guzzler, going to the dealership to get an EV means dealing with pushy salespeople, confusing specs, and haggling over the price. The process can be doubly frustrating for the EV shopper given the relative unavailability of some electric models and reports of some car salespeople who know frustratingly little about the very EVs they hock.
If you live in a market where EVs have taken hold, like the San Francisco Bay Area, expect knowledgeable salespeople who can walk you through the EV buying process. If you live someplace where few electrics are sold, then the experience may be hit-or-miss. Do your own research, and prepare to be your own advocate.
For a long time, things were simple: If you bought an electric vehicle, then you could take a $7,500 credit on your taxes for that year. But things have gotten murkier in the past year or two — in a bid to protect domestic manufacturing, Congress passed new rules stating that a certain amount of the car and its components had to be made in the U.S. to qualify, leaving a confusing, shifting picture of which EVs qualify and which don’t. (To wit: Many Teslas qualify, Hyundais and Kias don’t, while Rivians receive only half the credit because they’re so expensive.) The upside of the changed rules is that buyers are now allowed to get tax credits on leasing an EV, or to receive the credit as an up-front discount on their new EV. Many states have generous incentives, too. Washington, for example, will give up to $9,000 in rebates for buying an EV. “There are enormous discounts on basically every EV on the market, even before we count the $7,500 with the federal tax credit,” Yoon told me.
Before you take the plunge, take a moment and really think about how you drive — because lots of people overestimate what they need. Maybe even keep notes and check your mileage every day for a week or two to find out how much you really use the car versus how much you think you do. If you find that you could get around town on a few dozen miles of charge but road trip every other weekend, then you might consider a plug-in hybrid. If you’ve already got a gas car or hybrid to handle longer trips and are shopping for a second vehicle, there’s no reason not to go for an EV, assuming you can afford one. If you just need basic transportation to take you a few miles to work, hate the idea of ever buying gas again, and want to spend as little as possible … maybe you should get an e-bike.
A refresher: When you buy a car, you typically put a downpayment on the vehicle, and then borrow enough money from the bank to pay off the rest of its price (plus interest and sales tax) in monthly payments over the course of four, five, or even more years. Leasing is like renting an apartment. You put down a deposit and then pay monthly over the course of the lease, typically three years. But like your rent, those payments don't go toward owning the car. At the end of the lease, you give it back. With EVs especially, there are some serious advantages and drawbacks to each approach you should keep in mind.
If you live in a century-old house that would need to have significant rewiring done to accommodate an EV charger, then installing a Level 2 charger might be too expensive, so you might want to stick to a plug-in hybrid. (Again, more on charging below.) Does your office have a charger? If you live in an apartment, does the parking lot have chargers?
“How you refuel your EV is similar to how you charge your smartphone — you do it either throughout the day or at night before you go to bed. You plug in, you wake up, and it's full,” McDonald said.
“The first thing I tell people? You should probably get a Tesla,” Moody told me. Still, Elon Musk’s electric car company isn’t the darling it once was. Tesla has squandered a huge lead in the EV market by focusing on vanity projects like the Cybertruck and lost a chunk of public goodwill through Musk’s misadventures in politics and social media. But the company still has an ace up its sleeve with the Supercharger network, which is better and more reliable than the competition. This will change in the coming years, as the other automakers have adopted Tesla’s plug and their future cars will be able to use Superchargers. But for now, it’s a major advantage that makes owning a Tesla a lot less stressful than trying to get by with a competitor’s EV, especially if you make road trips. For this reason, Tesla’s Model Y — the best-selling car in the world in 2023, and the best-selling EV in America — remains a compelling choice for anyone who wants an EV to be their only car and have it go nearly anywhere.
Don’t want Musk to get your money? Fret not. EV offerings from legacy car companies and new automakers are leaps and bounds better than they were five years ago when Tesla took over the industry. Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia, in particular, have outpaced other carmakers in offering fun and practical EVs. The new Kia EV9 is the best choice for buyers who want a true EV with three rows so they can accommodate six or seven passengers, and it’s a sleek-looking vehicle for its size. Its $57,000 starting price is not cheap, but it’s probably the best deal you can get for a true three-row electric vehicle right now.
The Ioniq 5 is a quirky mashup of a crossover and a hatchback. It’s got enough space to be practical as a family vehicle, but its dimensions aren’t quite like anything else on the market. In the EV-laden part of Los Angeles where I live, it’s the most common non-Tesla electric I come across.
Introduced in 2021, the F-150 Lightning’s game-changing feature is two-way, or “bidirectional,” charging — you can plug into your house and use the energy stored in the truck’s battery to back up your home’s power supply in case of a blackout. Chevy is following suit by putting this tech into the Silverado EV. But even if you’re just driving and not powering your home, the Lightning is impressive — its standard battery produces 452 horsepower, but that number can climb to 580 on more expensive versions, and both offer a ton of torque.
Today’s Rivians are luxury lifestyle vehicles, but they offer a lot for all that cash. The R1 vehicles are spacious and well-appointed on the interior while offering lots of power and range for the off-road lifestyle the brand projects — the high-end version of the SUV gets 410 miles of range with 665 horsepower. Other excellent luxury EVs at the top end of the market include the Lucid Air and Mercedes EQS, but the Air has the space limitations of a sedan (though it is a large one) and the Benz is likely to cost more than $100,000. Rivians are pricey, but they’re not that pricey.
The people’s affordable EV champion, the Chevy Bolt, got the ax last year, but GM has promised to bring it back for people who want a smallish EV that doesn’t cost a fortune. In the meantime, the “SE” version of the Hyundai Kona EV, a small SUV, starts around $36,000 and gets 261 miles of range. (There’s an even cheaper version with 200 miles of range, but trust me: Don’t buy any new EV with less than 250 miles of range — e.g. the Nissan Leaf, Fiat 500, Mini Cooper, or Subaru Solterra — unless you really, really like it.) Chevy finally electrified its huge-selling SUV and rolled out the Equinox EV; while it starts at $41,000 now, GM promises a $35,000 version soon to come.
There are a wide variety of PHEVs that are worth a look, but an especially compelling option is the Toyota Prius Prime. The entire Prius family of hybrids and plug-in hybrids just got a facelift for 2023 that is miles ahead of the frumpy, aging look the car previously had. And where the previous Prius Prime was limited to a puny 25 miles of electric range, today’s will do 44 — enough for lots of people to do their daily city driving without burning any gas.
Some vocabulary to get you started:
Since charging at home is the make-or-break feature that will make your electrified life more convenient than your gas-burning days, your first order of business is getting a Level 2 charger installed. You’re going to need an electrician for this one, since it requires stepping up the voltage (and might require installing a new breaker panel or running new wiring, depending upon your home). Be sure to get multiple quotes so you can compare work estimates and prices.
“When you buy from an EV dealer or Tesla or whomever, they might refer you to an electrician or an installer. There are companies that have services and websites where they do all the work for you. You plug in your address and information, and they'll recommend and refer you to an installer,” McDonald said.
How much this’ll cost you varies by where you live and how much work it’ll take to set up your home, but the national average is $1,200 to $1,500, McDonald says. The exception could be older houses that were not set up for anything close to the electrical load it takes to charge a car, so if you own a hundred-year-old home in New England with lots of original wiring, you might be in for a shock. Don’t forget, however, that lots of incentives are available for setting up EV infrastructure at your home. You might be eligible for a tax credit equal to 30 percent of the cost up to $1,000.
As far as charging away from home? Most EVs automatically show nearby charging stations on their touchscreen navigation systems and will route you to the necessary stops along a long drive. Teslas will even show you how many stalls are available at a given Supercharger and how many other cars are en route. As an EV driver, you’ll get to know the fast-chargers in your neighborhood and along your familiar highways, but you’ll also get to know sites like Plugshare that will display every charger of every speed and every plug throughout that country — invaluable for planning a journey.
As you get comfortable with your own driving habits, you’ll figure out whether you need to expand your choices by purchasing adapters or dongles that let your car charge at different kinds of plugs. For example, today’s non-Tesla EVs eventually will be able to charge at Tesla superchargers, but because they are still being built with the competing CCS standard, you’d need an adapter to allow today’s Ford Mustang Mach-E to use a Tesla plug. I have an adapter in my Tesla Model 3 to use the “J1772” plugs you find on the Level 2 charger at the grocery store, and I bought one for the NEMA 14-50 plugs common at an RV campsite — just in case I really get into trouble out there.
When a car brakes to slow down, energy is lost. But in an EV, some of it can be recaptured via regenerative braking, a system that captures the energy from waste heat and puts it back into the battery. This allows for an experience unavailable to the gasoline motorist called one-pedal driving: Take your foot off the accelerator and the car immediately slows itself down via the regenerative braking system. When I drive my Tesla Model 3, I only hit the brake pedal when I need to slow down in a big hurry; otherwise, I let off the accelerator and let the car coast to a stop. This system can add several miles of range back onto the battery if you’re coasting out of the mountains on a steep downgrade.
A word of warning: Many people don’t like regenerative braking, at least at first, because it feels jerky to have the car instantly slow itself down when you let off the accelerator. But trust me, you’ll get better and better at letting off the pedal slowly so you don’t make your passengers nauseous. It’s also possible in many vehicles to turn down the regen so it’s less aggressive.
For starters, think of all the car vocabulary you won’t need anymore. An EV’s power output can be measured in torque and horsepower, but say goodbye to combustion-specific vernacular like spark plugs, cylinders, pistons, or liters as a measure of engine size (unless you get a plug-in hybrid). No more mufflers, no exhaust or timing belts. An EV has no use for miles per gallon, though carmakers and the EPA try to measure an electric car’s efficiency in miles per gallon equivalent as a way to compare them with gas cars.
As the months and years go by, you’ll appreciate a number of differences in the EV owner’s lifestyle. Drivers needn’t bother with remembering the pesky oil change every 3,000 miles, nor with worrying about the lifespans of thousands of moving parts that come with internal combustion. (On the other hand, today’s EVs burn through tires faster than gas cars do because of their weight and their performance.)
There’s a lot more to learn, of course. Just remember: The first time you bypass the gas station — with its stinky fumes and pesky commercials screaming at you — to refuel your car in the comfort of your home, you’ll wonder why you waited so long.