Electric Vehicles in Rural Communities
Those who live in or near large cities enjoy ready access to public and private transportation, where bus, rail, taxi and ride share options are plentiful. But for smaller communities, getting around can be a real challenge. Well, we recently visited one Texas town that has found a smart, clean solution for shrinking this big problem.
Bastrop, Texas, is located about 30 miles southeast of Austin. It covers nine square miles and is home to around 9000 people. It’s a pleasant place to live or visit, on the edge of Texas hill country with the Colorado river passing nearby; a thriving main street downtown and a relaxed vibe all around.
Typical of small towns in the area, there are no city buses or subways here. Carts, the capital area rural transportation system, offers low-cost van rides for folks to get around within the city limits, or to connect with regional transit options.
And since December of 2019, Bastrop has collaborated with the lone star clean fuels alliance and e-cabs of North America to provide a cost-free and emissions-free micro-transit ride service using GEM low-speed battery electric vehicles. The US Department of Energy funded this two-year pilot project to explore how well these low-speed EV’s could meet a rural community’s first- and last-mile transit needs.
The GEMs carry 5 passengers and can legally travel on roads with speed limits up to 45 miles per hour, though the cabs themselves top out at 25. They can sustain 3 to 4 hours of continuous duty per charge.
E-cabs operates on evenings and weekends, and covers a limited area surrounding downtown Bastrop, but there are no pre-determined routes. It’s all on-demand and on the rider’s schedule, and these things stay busy! They also offer a para-transport option with a foldaway accessibility ramp.
The system allows riders to request electric cab service through a phone call or a mobile app. The e-cab driver is alerted immediately, and pickup time is typically fifteen minutes or less.
Bastrop mayor Connie Schroeder is a frequent rider, and she knows a thing or two about riding in style!
MAYOR CONNIE SCHROEDER: It doesn’t matter if you’re in a small town or a big town, you need to be able to get around. Everybody needs to go to the post office, go to a doctor, maybe get something to eat, and that last mile can be extremely hard. It can be hard if you don’t have a vehicle, it can be hard if you’re elderly.
JOHN DAVIS: Frequently taking the place of larger conventional vehicles, the system’s electric vehicles translate into lower per-trip fuel consumption and emissions. Bastrop’s e-cabs are re-charged using electricity from the Texas grid, which relies on one of the country’s highest proportions of renewable energy sources.
Nationwide, adoption of electric vehicles has lagged in rural areas when compared to urban markets. The hope is that the electric shuttles can increase comfort and familiarity with EV technology in the community, and could lead to greater interest in electric vehicle ownership, too.
CHRIS NIELSEN: This is a good idea because it’s incredibly inexpensive to operate, it’s efficient, the people like it. We have a lot of traction, and we’ve been adopted by the community here. And we’re a part of it now, and this has happened everywhere that we’ve deployed.
JOHN DAVIS: The e-cabs are bringing new mobility options to the citizens of Bastrop, and showing that even a small town can set a big example for clean transportation.
MAYOR CONNIE SCHROEDER: They take care of the environment, they’re convenient, they’re easy, and there isn’t anything better than waving to your friends when you’re in a free e-cab ride.
EV Tech Training
A shortage of qualified auto repair technicians has been an industry-wide problem for years now, but the high-tech nature of today’s advanced safety systems and high-voltage EV architectures are attracting a new generation of tech trainees to maintain the cars of tomorrow.
TODD RENFRO: “In the market today, automotive technician training is extremely important. For every seven technicians that are leaving our industry, we’re only having two come in to replace them. And unfortunately, the information we have at this time is, one of those two won’t make it past 12 months. So, we need to get young people excited about the automotive trade, all the opportunities that are in the automotive trade, and get them started in a path of career to be successful.”
As the number of electrified vehicles on the road increases, dealerships and independent shops alike are pushing to be ready for their service needs. But working around electrified vehicles means following very specific safety protocols for the high voltage systems and learning a whole new type of vehicle architecture. So, across the country, vocational schools big and small are adding electrified vehicle training into their curriculums.
Utah’s Weber State University has been teaching hybrid and electric systems to their students for nearly 20 years, and they also share their experience with technicians, educators and the general public in a unique five-day EV bootcamp, funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy with the Utah Clean Cities and Communities Coalition.
JOHN KELLY: “I would say that for the last five or six years, probably half of the students coming through the class are teachers at other colleges and universities, high schools, technical programs that are interested in starting an EV or hybrid training program at their location, and are coming here to see how we do it. So that gives them a lot of ideas. They can go back, they may or may not have the same vehicles that we have, but it gives them an idea of what type of activities can they do at their school to, uh, enhance learning with their students.”
Like with conventional vehicles today, OEM-specific systems and procedures may have to be learned on the job, but weber’s program takes a universal approach, starting with the basics of high voltage wiring, and how battery electric vehicles work.
BRANDON STEVENSON: “Every OEM has their own common components, but they are named differently. So, unless you understand what that component actually does, it is a struggle. So, with our students that are already technicians, they’re coming in because they don’t know how all of the different OEMs work and they actually want to know it.”
And while new EV models continue to arrive on the market, remember that EVs and hybrids have been around for quite a while now, so there’s plenty of service experience to draw from.
BRANDON STEVENSON: “So, when you’re looking at where the industry is going and where it has come from, we’ve got a 2002 Toyota Prius in there now that’s 22 years old. That sounds like it’s really old and outdated, but it actually has a lot of technology that is still leveraged today. So, we’re able to show students where we were back in 2002 to where we are now in 2024.”
As the market share for plug-in vehicles grows, related jobs will open up as well over the next few decades, like electricians to install EV chargers, battery engineers and software developers, creating opportunities for existing workers to retrain, and appealing new career paths for the next generation to drive forward.
TODD RENFRO: “The excitement about EV, and also with hybrid, is that it’s the future. It’s what’s coming down the road. So, to be ahead of the curve and be prepared for that future, is exciting to a lot of the young students.”