Courtesy of Emily Glanville, Ecology Action
SANTA CRUZ, CA — Ecology Action will be hosting a total of four public workshops related to electric vehicles throughout the Monterey Bay region in August and September. The market for electric vehicles is expanding dramatically, providing drivers everywhere with the option to save money on gas and reduce carbon emissions. It’s no wonder electric vehicle sales, along with Federal, State and local government support are focused on making this technology more accessible to the public. Ecology Action received support from the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District and the City of Santa Cruz to host introductory workshops for members of the public to learn more about the benefits, savings and trends of driving electric vehicles. In addition, Ecology Action received support from the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District and the California Energy Commission to host 3 public workshops for the tri-county region of Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey. These workshops are geared towards industry leaders, city and county employees, local government officials, as well as electric vehicle owners and are meant to gather input to help shape the Monterey Bay Area’s Electric Vehicle Readiness Plan. The Electric Vehicle Readiness Plan will be put in place to ensure our region is electric vehicle user friendly. As the number of local EV owners increases, it will become essential to have proper infrastructure in place to support them. The City of Santa Cruz has been working to make the City more EV friendly, having installed 8 additional EV charging stations in the downtown and beach front area in the last month. There are over 50 electric vehicle charging stations available in the Monterey Bay area alone. In a first for American transportation, the US electric vehicle (EV) market passed a significant milestone recently: the 100,000th EV sold since the introduction of the latest generation of EVs about two years ago. This upward trend has a lot to do with better EV options on the market as well as a combination of both Federal and State support. Virtually all the major automakers in the world, including a number of private outfits, are manufacturing EVs, many of which are on the market today including the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt and the Tesla S. The Obama administration recently set the goal of 1 million alternative fuel vehicles on the road by 2015 and California Governor Brown set the Zero Emission Vehicle Action Plan Goal, which includes widespread PEV infrastructure and policy investment to support 1.5 million zero emission vehicles in California by 2025. Santa Cruz residents are certainly a large part of the EV frenzy in the State. For those interested in learning more about electric vehicles and upcoming workshop dates and times, visit http://mbeva.org.
