DENVER — The switch to electric vehicles is a slow and tedious transition in Colorado. However, a new report from the Public Interest Research Group is painting a better picture of what the switch will mean for the state both in terms of cost savings and environmental impact.
Beyond the cost savings, the group estimates that the transition of these vehicles alone will result in a drop in state greenhouse gas emissions by 300,000 tons over the next decade alone. They hope the Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit can help offset some of those costs. That program offers $7,500 in savings for lightweight vehicles and $40,000 for each heavy-duty vehicle.
Overall, the electrification of vehicles is still at a low percentage for the state, though it is steadily trending upward. This year, Governor Jared Polis re-upped an executive order supporting the transition to EVs. His goal is to have 940,000 light-duty electric vehicles on the road in Colorado by 2030.
“All the gas stations that we have around cities, make it really easy to be able to refuel internal combustion engine vehicles, we are going to need something like that when it comes to electric vehicles,” Goetz said. “If you get a bunch of people in the same neighborhood that plug in their Nissan LEAF or Tesla at the same time, it's going to overload your transformer,” said Kyri Baker, an Assistant Professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. “We just need to replace those transformers, possibly upgrade some of the wires and infrastructure upstream as well, and then incentivize people to charge during smart times.