Wednesday
May 8, 2024 
“There is an emphasis and a great push to have Americans, and the rest of the world for that matter, to move from internal combustion engines to electric motors.” A guest opinion writer opens his column (“Look deeper at electric vehicles,” May 11) with this true statement.
We should all be grateful that there is this great push. But let’s look at the other side of this coin, the one that the author is espousing, one where there is a reluctance, doubt, and even opposition, to switch to electric vehicles.
There are presently approximately 1.446 billion vehicles on the roads across the world and about 19 percent of those are in the U.S. By 2050, there will be 3 billion worldwide (Fuel Freedom Foundation).
The transport sector generates the single largest share of greenhouse gas emissions (28 percent in 2021, according to the EPA) and 3.2 billion metric tons of that are produced by passenger vehicles, up from 2.2 billion tons in 2000 — that’s a 30 percent increase over 22 years.
This is the backdrop to the tone and content of the author’s guest opinion. What he does in his piece, which does ask legitimate questions, is, nevertheless, to cast a shadow over the efforts across the U.S. and the world to counter the increasing effects of that backdrop. By sowing seeds of doubt over the efficacy of going electric, he provides reasonable opportunity and argument to those debating the switch. Naysayers, those sitting on the fence, those fearing change, and downright obstructionists now have some sort of rationale to delay or stop considering making the change to EVs.
Should we all have the best information possible in order to make our purchasing decisions? Absolutely. Will governments have to replace vehicle tax revenues in some form? Sure. But by highlighting the gaps in that information (which by the way is completely accessible if you do your research) and by fear-mongering on tax revenues, the writer obfuscates the benefits and provides a very lopsided picture.
Electric vehicles are here to stay and will very soon outnumber those powered by fossil fuels. There is no escaping that.
California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington states are all planning a ban on new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.
The Biden administration is planning a ban across the U.S. by that same year. This change is inescapable and the sooner the population gets on board that train (a very environmentally method of transport, by the way) the quicker we can reach that goal. The demand for clean electric power from this switch will place the needed pressure on the fossil fuel industry and the grid to make the necessary changes to our power infrastructure.
Other countries are ahead of us already, including the whole of the European Union. We all need to accept those facts and stop trying to put roadblocks in the way and, instead, encourage our community to adopt EVs.
In Solebury Township, we have passed multiple resolutions and published our commitment to helping the community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 and 2050 in line with the Paris accord and Ready for 100.
We have a published Energy Transition Plan and have formed a new sustainability subcommittee to shepherd those efforts to satisfactory conclusions.
Those efforts need the help of everyone in our community, and I ask detractors to please step aside.
John Francis lives in Solebury and is a member of the township’s board of supervisors.
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