Why EV Gentrification Is Leading To urban Charging Deserts - And How Ride Sharing Could Help

Electric cars are awesome. They really are. They’re more affordable to operate, require less maintenance, and of course, are responsible for less pollution over their lifetime than an internal combustion engine car. 

They’re often quicker than an internal combustion engine car, and are super easy to drive. And when it comes to driver fatigue, studies have shown that EV drivers tend to suffer less stress behind the wheel than their ICE counterparts. 

But, electric vehicles are also, sadly, more expensive to buy brand new than most internal combustion engine vehicles. While price parity is just a few years away, the sticker price of most new EVs is out of the price range of a large proportion of the population. 

And yes, things are getting better. Used electric cars are now available at price points that are within the reach of more buyers than ever before. But while some used electric cars are now as affordable as a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle (and can be far more reliable to boot), a complete lack of investment in electric vehicle charging in historically disinvested neighborhoods means that we’re facing down the barrel of a major urban charging crisis. Specifically, Urban charging deserts, areas of major cities where there is little to no electric vehicle charging provisions, means people who might be able to afford a used electric car are finding that they can’t buy it because of a lack of charging infrastructure. 

And, as a recent report by the Rocky Mountain Institute shows, this already pressing problem will  only get worse unless we tackle what I’m going to call EV Gentrification. Luckily though, as the report also points out, one answer to that problem could be a shift in ride share services to an all-electric fleet. 

So today, we’re going to talk about the problem of  Urban Charging Deserts and EV Gentrification. Specifically, we’ll examine what the issues are, talk about how we got here, and ask how we can move forward. 

But first, let’s talk to EV affordability. Many argue that EVs are affordable because the average new price of a car in the U.S. is more than the entry-level price of a brand-new Tesla Model 3.  If that is true, they say, then clearly EVs are affordable. 

That argument is flawed. 

First, the statistics for this argument usually reflect the median price, which is what you get if you add up all the sticker prices of every car sold and then divide it by the total number of cars sold. Examining a median figure does not take into account the fact that a couple hundred high-end sports cars can skew the entire end figure upwards. 

Nor does it take into account the rising sub prime crisis in the auto industry; people today are entering into ever-longer lease and purchase deals on new cars just to be able to manage the monthly payments. But that doesn’t make those cars affordable, it just means more people are being forced to buy more expensive cars with incredibly high interest rates or long terms because that’s the only option they have. 

And of course, that ‘average new price’ refers to new cars, not used. And statistics show that people are keeping their cars longer than ever before, partly because it now costs so much to buy a new one. 

And no, you can’t use ‘post incentive’ pricing to argue a point. Because in some countries, like the U.S., incentives require you to actually have a tax liability large enough to use the credit to offset. So you still need the cash, or good enough credit, up front.

OK, back to EV gentrification and urban charging deserts. And if we’re going to talk about EV gentrification, we should make sure we understand the term in its usual context - Neighborhood gentrification. 

Gentrification refers to the process of taking an historically disinvested neighborhood and then injecting high amounts of real estate capital, usually from outside non-local sources, to attract more affluent, higher-income residents to move there. Houses are torn down or gutted and rebuilt into trendy apartment complexes, and well-known grocery store chains, wine bars, restaurants,  and fast food outlets move in to satiate the needs of (often, but not always), young professionals moving to the area with lots of disposable income, and very little interest in their local community. Gentrification often coincides with a wave of racial readjustment - an area may see long term residents that are people of color moving out while white people are moving in.

These communities that are so attractive to buyers, with their stock of cheaper historic housing and vibrant culturally diverse stores and restaurants, are often a result of historic redlining and modern discriminatory lending. For those who don’t know, in the 1930’s, the federal government’s underwriting manual, the rules for providing mortgages stated “incompatible racial groups should not be permitted to live in the same communities”. Which in practice meant redlining denied, mainly Black people, the ability to buy houses outside certain areas, and with discriminatory lending continuing even now, these federal policies continue to have impacts despite those rules being gone.

Alongside that shift in demographics, independent local businesses that have existed in the community for years find themselves unable to compete with their new high-street rivals as loyal customers leave. Residents who grew up in the neighborhood find they can no-longer meet the cost of living there due to increased rent. And those who are lucky enough to own their home often find that their home has increased so much in value that selling up and moving out is too much of a good financial windfall to pass up. 

The original disinvested community, which rarely receives any of the actual investment that gentrification brings, finds itself splintered, disenfranchised, and ultimately, destroyed. 

Those who lived in the area pre-gentrification find themselves forced to move further out of town, requiring them to travel longer distances for work. They may even have to find new jobs. All-too-often, displaced community members find that they end up relocating to somewhere where they are worse off financially than they were, all because some dinky couple (dual income, no kids) want to live in an historic neighborhood but also want to get their fair trade, ethically sourced, out-of-season vegetables from the new, local Amazon-owned grocery store down the street and talk with their friends over coffee about that time they went to Africa in high school to build a well for ‘poor people’. 

EV gentrification? Well, it’s a little similar. And it goes like this: 

Affluent neighborhoods historically have had more electric vehicle owners in them than less affluent areas. And more EV adoption means more likelihood that electric vehicle charging infrastructure will be provided. Additionally, more affluent areas are more likely to have the money to invest in electric vehicle charging. More infrastructure encourages more people to dump the pump and make the switch, and you’re left with a self-sustaining EV adoption. 

There’s a nasty, unspoken truth here though. Charging infrastructure companies install EV charging stations where they know electric car owners will want to stop for a half hour or more. And given the socioeconomic makeup of much of the EV-owning population, well, those charging networks self-select locations that are considered more ‘up-market’. 

And that leads us to something that’s called “Urban Charging Deserts”. Areas of towns and cities where there is little to no charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.  And, you’ve guessed it, those areas tend to be areas of historical disinvestment. 

Of course, when it comes to EV ownership, if you don’t have a place to park and charge overnight, owning an electric car becomes a lot more difficult.  And for the reasons we mentioned, it is less likely that those in Black and Latinx communities will own their own home, and thus have a place to park and charge at night.. 

As a side, while Red Lining is now illegal in many countries, including the U.S., just take a look at the story of Carlette Duffy from Indianapolis, who had to hide her race and get a friend to show her home for an appraisal in order to get an unbiased, realistic valuation for it, to see how discriminatory housing practices still exist today. I’ll link to it below. 

If you’re feeling uncomfortable about this video, well, I’d suggest you’re not alone. This isn’t an easy topic to discuss. It is uncomfortable. But we as a society need to have this discussion. 

In the EV world, the lack of first level 2 public charging stations and then higher-powered Level 3 charging stations in disinvested areas, often areas with communities that are predominantly black or brown, means that entire communities are effectively discouraged from buying an electric vehicle even if they can afford, for example, a brand-new Tesla. 

The problem is also apparent among indigenous communities, where a lack of EV charging stations and infrastructure effectively prohibits many native communities from even contemplating electric vehicles as a transit solution.

So let’s now look at the Greater Los Angeles area, an area the Rocky Mountain Institute uses to demonstrate just how stark the disparity between EV charging infrastructure and median income is. Entire swathes of LA have little to no EV infrastructure, and they are areas that have traditionally been disinvested. They are also the areas with poorest health (much of it caused by poor air quality) ,poor health care and the lowest median income. Frankly these communities are the ones that could benefit the most from electric vehicles. 

And they’re also communities where the gig economy is quickly becoming a lifeline for people needing a second job, or flexible working hours. In a two thousand and seventeen survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Gig economy, or contingent workers, are far more likely to be younger and from black, indigenous, Pacific Islander, or Asian communities than so-called ‘traditional workforces’

Uber and Lyft, whatever you think of them, have been working to make it easier for drivers to get behind the wheel of a car so they can drive for the service. But as I’m sure you already know, drivers for Uber and Lyft don’t earn a whole lot of money for their work, and if they have to also pay for maintenance and fuel for their vehicles (they do) then that profit margin gets smaller.

But drive an EV for ride sharing services? You’ll end up with more in your pocket as daily operational costs are far lower. Especially if you can find a good deal on a used EV, assuming you can charge. 

Which brings us to the crux of the problem. Rideshare services are pledging to go fully electric in the next decade. And in states like California, that’s now going to be a legal requirement too. But without proper infrastructure deployment, rideshare operators with electric vehicles will naturally avoid areas with no infrastructure they can use. Data from existing EV operators on these services already shows that quite clearly. 

The solution, says the RMI, is to encourage full deployment of charging stations with provision across all regions. And, I’m going to add, engage with communities to ask them where charging infrastructure needs to be placed, rather than acting without consultation (because that comes with its own set of problems). 

Ride share services, who are earning a lot of money from their drivers, could be in the perfect position to support an equitable rollout of charging stations. They have the money to invest in truly accessible, truly affordable charging stations that entire communities, and their drivers, can use.

And in doing so, they can also ensure that they have as broad a service coverage as possible, and meet emissions targets (and avoid pesky fines for not complying with regulations).

Without appropriate charging station rollout, without equitable involvement, and without changing regulations to encourage rather than discourage public and on-street charging provision for those who do not have off-street parking and charging available to them, ride sharing services, and in fact the very electrification of the fleet, will become more, not less divisive.

And making that happen is going to require a lot of teamwork from everyone. But that’s for another video we’re working hard on. 

That’s it for today! Please do head to our Transport Evolved Youtube Channel and hit subscribe and the bell if you haven’t as it stops YouTube from doing weird things with our content, and make sure you’re subscribed to Take Two and Transport Evolved shorts.