A couple of more things though I think that are interesting to share: electric vehicles and hybrid cars have as high a customer satisfaction rating as luxury vehicles. People love these cars and people are going to continue to love them not just because they save them money because they’re fun to drive. And the last thing I think that’s important and I won’t go into too much detail here is just to say that all of the fundamental underlying technology behind electric vehicles whether it’s the drive train with a hundred times fewer parts than a gas car or the battery or some of the other technology about how these vehicles operates is subject to all of the innovation that we have been having across our economy with technology which is to say that it’s going to get cheaper and it’s going to get cheaper very quickly.

And so electric vehicles might be a marginal savings. Now for some people they’re going to be a very significant savings for folks when they’re making car purchases in the next few years. And that’s why during national drive electric week we’re seeing companies like Volkswagen say every model we’ve got is going to be electric by 2030.

How do these kind of fit in with the rest of the work that we do around renewable energy technology?

So  we now have the option to not only do the refueling process at home but to generate the actual energy that goes into it at home. And that’s just a fundamental change from the long distance supply chains that we have for oil and gasoline for our fossil fuel vehicles that have had you know enormous geopolitical consequences. And now all of a sudden we can talk about literally individuals can be energy independent in a way they might not have been able to before.

That’s not going to be the case for most people because even though solar and storage you know like solar and electric vehicles are a marriage of what we like to call the “sexy electrics”. A lot of people are not going to have space on their roof for a solar array or you know may not own the rooftop, but at the same time electric vehicles by being able to schedule when we charge them. That is some people who are home during the day and can charge them during the day.

Some people could plug them in at work during the day. A lot of people be willing to charge them at night at different times. Gives us a lot more flexibility on the grid both to generate more energy locally, so to put more solar on the local grid but also just to have more flexibility in how we operate the grid. And that’s going to be very important for integrating more renewable energy as the system continues to change.

I have spoken you I have stunned you into silence, Nick. And that is a good sign.

We saw the federal government under the Obama administration set this as a priority and dedicate some significant funding to it along interstates. So I think that there is definitely a recognition that this is a key component of ensuring that Americans are embracing electric vehicles in order to capture their benefits to the greatest extent possible. But obviously today you know an easy charger is not as commonplace as a gas station. So ultimately this is going to require a sort of cultural shift in how we think about driving and what infrastructure is available and how we’re investing in that. So, you know that’s one of the significant barriers that still needs to be acknowledged and dealt with and kind of conquered.

What we have is a sort of two issues that we need to address. One is how do we fully charge somebody who is driving a longer distance especially as the cars that we have electric cars that we have can go further. And the second one is how do we provide charging infrastructure for people who do not have off street parking or a covered garage where they can plug in. And so for the first piece there in terms of making sure that we have the ability to charge quickly we just need higher level charges so level 1 is your traditional outlet in your home or in your garage. That’s going to add you know a few miles overnight but not a whole lot. Level 2 charger which goes at 240 volts instead of 120 volts is going to add a charge much more quickly.

Pretty much every night when I plugged in my car since I had a level 2 charger it’s been able to fully refuel in just a couple of hours two or three hours even for a Tesla that’s being driven long distances. It can generally refuel overnight on a level 2 charger.

And then we’re going to have infrastructure on the interstate highway network like Karlee mentioned that Tesla and others are putting out their high voltage chargers that can charge in a matter of minutes instead of hours. So that’s kind of the way that we deal with the fueling up quickly enough since we’re used to going to a gas station and spending you know maybe three minutes being plugged in if you will getting our fuel it’s important that folks are able to do that quickly when they need to. But for the most part simply being able to refuel overnight and to fill up their tank so to speak at home. The second thing is for those folks who don’t have a place to plug in at night time what’s happening there.

Austin is a terrific example of this in Texas. Now they’re equipped in a way that many other cities aren’t which is to say they have a municipal utility they own their own utility company and their municipal utility is out there building public infrastructure public Chargers and is giving folks unlimited access to charging for about$4 a month. So that’s a really crucial way that the city can support this notion of availability to charging putting those higher voltage chargers out there. That mean you don’t have to be parked as long in order to charge and making sure that you have low cost access to them. Everywhere in your community other cities can do the same kind of thing they can partner with utilities to do that. They can build city on chargers or work with a private provider that might delay people for charging access. You know being plugged in is usually like a dollar or two an hour at the most. And some of those level 2 chargers a good way to for folks to add a little bit more capacity at a fairly low cost. So there’s a lot of ways that that cities can do this and other what they can do.

And I’m going to like Carly tell you more about it is that cities can kind of lead by example by doing investments in their own electric vehicle fleets and to demonstrate the technology.

On that note I’d also single out the example of Houston you know a city that’s maybe the most prominent example of the American oil industry. They added 27 Leafs back in 2014 and in 2014 numbers they save $100,000 per year in fuel and maintenance costs so you know the value proposition is only getting better. And I think that these stories really illustrate the power of fleet electrification to save cities money to build capacity that way and to really reinforce commitments to electric vehicles and the fact that this technology isn’t going anywhere and it really bears out.

So if your roof is still on after the hurricane your solar panels are probably still there and you’re able to combine that with something like an electric vehicle which you can put electricity into and it in and of future generations of electric cars we’re going to have the ability to take that power out as backup generation.

And when you combine those things together all of a sudden you’re talking about resiliency and the ability to spring back after these natural disasters in a way that we haven’t been able to do before. And I think this is something that people forget is that a gas generator or a gas car always has the supply chain issue that you know the supply line issue. And you know the military understands this. That’s one reason they care about renewable energy is the supply chain. I think it’s something that we’ll be thinking more and more about is these kind of large natural disasters disrupt our economy and the way that we can have more local resiliency with electric vehicles and solar power and other ways to localize our energy generation.

You know we didn’t talk about the actual numbers before but the cost of battery storage when it was forecast what the price would be in 2016. Back in 2013. So it was looking ahead three years. All of the leading prognosticators were off by a 50 percent difference. They thought the price would go down a little bit but not nearly as much as it has. And now we’re seeing that a further two thirds decrease is likely in the next five to 10 years.

And so we’re going to see much more opportunity to rebuild our electricity system and our grid system in a way that allows for local power to stay on. Whether that’s for you know shelters for folks who had to leave their homes during storms for hospitals for emergency services in particular. I think that’s one of the key pieces. But of course the second one is simply thinking about you know as we’re rebuilding infrastructure in general rebuilding homes and apartment buildings and office buildings how can we make sure that we’re being as good a stewards of those dollars as possible. And so whether that’s energy codes that states or cities can adopt and make sure that the buildings are as energy efficient as possible requiring those buildings to be solar ready or as some communities have done in California and in Florida requiring that solar be included when there’s a major retrofit or when there’s a new home that’s being built. So I think there are ways that we can respond to this. I don’t think any community has kind of done it all but I think we have lots of little pieces that these storm-wrecked communities could tap into.

And that’s an outgrowth of citizen led efforts among residents and advocacy groups to explore municipalization. A few years ago the end result was not municipalization but rather this partnership that has a ton of potential to be really effective and influential in deciding that we want a more democratic, cleaner, more sustainable energy future for our selves so one piece of that that’s on the table right now that in fact Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges raised in her budget address a plan that would impose a nominal increase on the utility franchise fee assessed to all utility customers in Minneapolis that would unlock about three million dollars a year in revenue that could be reinvested then in clean energy upgrades, energy efficiency programming, and outreach that you know we really need in order to move forward. And electric vehicle infrastructure can be a part of that.

So there’s a real opportunity to kind of look at what’s already on the table and think creatively about how funds could be moved around or redistributed in a way that better reflects the priorities of residents and officials who are committed to this vision for cleaner more democratic energy future. One other thing that I think is useful to consider that has really done with me since we began exploring how states and cities can influence electric vehicle adoption is exploring incentives and programs that really reflect what is going on in specific communities. So in California for example one of the most powerful incentives that was set forth after the state decided that it wanted to dramatically increase adoption was one that would enable any driver to use the carpool lane and whenever they wanted. So obviously in California famous for its traffic a lot of congestion going on.

This is an incentive that actually proved to be really powerful studies that examined why drivers made the switch to go electric revealed that this was actually kind of a top of mind thing for a lot of people. And so I think where cities and states can be really in tune with what’s happening in their community and what might actually move the needle for people on electrification in the transportation sector I think that that’s a really powerful powerful thing to keep in mind and something that maybe doesn’t have a one size fits all approach. But I think variations of that can be implemented everywhere.

We’re moving on to the very last part of the show where we ask for your recommendations. Reading watching listening and anything you think is going to be of interest to our listeners this could be something to do with energy work. It also could not be because you can’t have your brain just in this. So, Karlee what is your recommendation for our listeners?

What’s the appropriate relationship between myself and my smartphone and my you know real live folks in my life. Real life relationships, so it’s really interesting. I think the headline was terribly hyperbolic and it’s you know just another way of like getting down on young people. But I think that in general it’s a really interesting way to think about how we might do things differently and what the role of adults is in putting down their phones to talk to kids and how we can teach kids to be good users of that online and off.