CT has an electric car problem. Here’s what’s driving delays, debate and new economic inequality.
After proposed new regulations were derailed, Gov. Ned Lamont and the state legislature are now shining a spotlight on electric vehicles as they plot the future path for the state in a fast-moving industry that is already being driven by market forces.
In the coming weeks and months, lawmakers will flesh out the details of a plan as they intend to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and smooth the transition away from gasoline-powered cars.
House Speaker Matt Ritter, a Hartford Democrat, said that legitimate concerns had been raised by critics about the affordability of the switch to electric cars. The state, he said, should help subsidize the cost of expensive electric buses in struggling cities like Hartford and Bridgeport.
Lamont had originally pushed for meeting the California emissions standard by ensuring that all new vehicles sold in Connecticut by 2035 are zero-emission vehicles. While the EV market is still changing and the future is not precisely predictable, Ritter compared the situation to NASA.
“Why do I talk about NASA?” Ritter asked at a news conference. “They set goals. They set goals for when they want to land on the moon, when they want to land on Mars. There’s a reason that you do that. If you don’t have a goal and you don’t have a target — especially when you’re dealing with government — it doesn’t happen. You need to have plans to get where you want to get 11 years out or whatever it may be.”
Fires and issue
Legislators have raised questions about costs, charging stations and infrastructure, among others. But for some legislators, a key issue is that the electric batteries sometimes catch on fire and have been difficult to extinguish.
“Fire departments are extraordinarily worried about the challenges of putting out EV fires,” said Rep. Holly Cheeseman, a Niantic Republican who serves on the legislature’s energy and technology committee. “You need something like 40 times the amount of water to put out a lithium-ion battery fire.”
Cheeseman sponsored an unsuccessful bill during the last session requiring that the state must pay for training for every fire department in the state on how to extinguish EV fires.
“If the state is going to mandate the purchase of electric vehicles with the commensurate dangers, the state should pay for all municipal fire departments to be trained on how to put out the fires,” Cheeseman said. “The way the batteries are constructed — you get a runaway thermal charge.”
Besides fires, Cheeseman is concerned about the overall electric infrastructure and capacity among a host of issues.
“Let the market decide. Let the state incentivize to the extent it can afford,” Cheeseman said. “Let’s not pass the cost of building out all this infrastructure on the ratepayers who are already so challenged. … If we have all EVs and we have a three-day power failure, what do we do then?”
Electric car advocates, however, say that the fires are highly unusual and the batteries are less likely to catch on fire than conventional batteries. The problem, though, is extinguishing the blaze once it starts.
At the same time, an 11-year-old company headquartered in Danbury called Cadenza Innovation, Inc. is working on a lithium-ion battery that is designed to have far fewer problems with fires.
“They’ve developed a different kind of battery that can be used not only in motor vehicles but in houses and in place of generators,” said Deputy House Speaker Pro Tem Robert Godfrey, a longtime Democrat who represents Danbury and recently toured the headquarters.
“They showed us a video — split screen — one side their battery and on the other side, Tesla’s battery,” Godfrey recalled. “And they started a fire under them, and the Tesla battery catches on fire and pours out smoke and burns forever, and theirs did not.”
Godfrey added, “I haven’t heard a lot of reports that the Tesla-style battery blows up regularly. It’s kind of rare. … It’s not like they’re unsafe. It’s just that there’s issues, and it seems that technology is going to answer the issues in the next 10-plus years.”
Besides cars, lithium-ion batteries are used in laptop computers, electric toothbrushes, cell phones, and other common items.
In New York City in 2022, the fire department reported six deaths and 139 injuries related to fires caused by batteries — an increase from four dead and 79 injured in 2021. The issue gained attention last year when a battery in an electric bike caused a fire in an apartment that had five e-bikes on East 52nd Street in midtown Manhattan, resulting in nearly 40 injuries in the high-rise apartment building.
Free market solutions
Some lawmakers say that the free market will not solve all problems, and the state should provide more funding to cash-poor cities to build charging stations in impoverished areas. While having a charger at home would be helpful to a Tesla driver in New Canaan, it would not help thousands of others across the state, lawmakers said.
“Not every family in Connecticut has the privilege of living in a single-family home with a garage,” said Senate Republican leader Kevin Kelly, who represents middle-class constituents in Stratford. “There are many folks living in public housing, senior housing. They live in four-unit tenements, and many have not even on-site parking. Where are they going to fit in and how is this going to work for them?”
Even without any moves by the legislature, the EV market has been expanding as technology improves and costs come down. The major automobile companies are shifting toward EV production in a trend that consumers say will continue.
“We know that the gasoline-powered car is certainly on its way out,” said Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney.
Currently, all drivers head to the gas station — whether driving a $300,000 Bentley or a used car on its last legs. Now, that will shift even more in future years with the affluent having basic chargers, known as Level 1, in their garages.
“For the first time, there will be bifurcation based on economic class as to how you fuel your vehicle,” Looney said. “That hasn’t been the case up to now, and it will be in the future. The nation is moving in this direction. … It is coming, and it’s coming quickly. Many of the questions that some people may have today and some cautionary notes may well dissolve in a few years because the technology is moving so quickly. Five years from now, we may have a position where we look again at this issue.”
While electric cars have generated headlines and conversations at the state Capitol, they still represent only a tiny fraction of the automobile market.
Out of more than 3 million vehicles registered in Connecticut as of July 2023, only 36,000 were electric, according to state statistics. The cars include such brands as Chevrolet Volt, Honda Clarity and Toyota Prius Prime. Connecticut has a goal of 125,000 to 150,000 electric vehicles by 2030 – which is lower than some optimists had originally hoped.
Looking ahead
The issue of electric vehicles vaulted into the spotlight recently when the legislature’s 14-member Regulations Review Committee was scheduled to vote on regulations saying that new cars sold in Connecticut starting in 2035 must be zero-emission vehicles. But some committee members raised various concerns, and Lamont withdrew the proposal. Now, the full legislature will examine the overall issues as they intend to take action in the 2024 legislative session.
Environmentalists have been re-energized after the committee’s lack of action.
Lori Brown, one of the leading environmental activists at the state Capitol for more than 20 years, said the issue is not over.
“This is a setback, not a defeat,” Brown wrote in an email to supporters. “With some of the worst air quality and the highest asthma rates in the country, we are going to keep fighting! Failure to pass these regulations means that Connecticut will leave the Clean Car program, lose out on critical federal funding, and fall behind other states in our region in addressing air quality, offering clean transportation, and fighting climate change. … If they don’t pass these regulations, the clean car standards that have been in place for 20 years will be taken away!”
House Republican leader Vincent Candelora said that electric ratepayers will end up paying for an expansion of the electric grid that could handle the volume of electricity needed to power potentially millions of cars in the future.
“The one thing I think people tried to hide … is they don’t have an infrastructure built out yet to support this plan,” Candelora said. “The federal money that’s referred to does not go toward building out that grid. That is money that has to come out of Connecticut residents’ pockets. … We do need a plan — just not the one that they’ve put forth.”
The state, he said, is simply not yet ready for a huge shift to electric cars.
“It depends on the infrastructure,” Candelora said. “There’s a lot of logistics that need to be worked out. … If the grid isn’t there, the free market can’t be there to supply these vehicles. It doesn’t work.”
More charging stations on the way
A major issue that has raised concerns is whether the state will have enough charging stations and the proper infrastructure to generate all of the electricity that will be needed to charge car and truck batteries.
In 2021, officials announced that Connecticut would receive $53 million over the next five years from the federal government for advanced, fast-charging stations in an effort to cut air pollution.
The funding is part of the $1.25 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed both chambers of Congress. All seven members of Connecticut’s Congressional delegation voted in favor of the package, which President Joe Biden signed. Under an 80-20 matching grant, Connecticut will contribute $10.6 million to the federal funding for a total allocation of $63.6 million in a move that the state environmental commissioner describes as “a game-changer” under a historic investment.
The federal money is designed for charging stations to be built statewide within five miles of busy interstate highways, including Interstates 84, 95, 91, 395, and the Merritt Parkway, officials said. The federal money, for example, could not be spent in rural towns in northern Litchfield County or eastern Connecticut until the entire highway network is completed.
The “superchargers” along the highways, known as Level 3, are more powerful and effective than the slower, less-expensive chargers, known as Level 2, that drivers might find at their local town hall. While the numbers increase on a regular basis, Connecticut has more than 1,700 Level 2 chargers and more than 400 of the faster Level 3 chargers.
Connecticut, Lamont said, needs to keep its promises so that businesses know that the trend toward electric cars will continue.
“If you want to make this more and more affordable, get scope, get economies of scale, get volume, make sure that all our cars over a period of time are going to be all-electric or hybrid vehicles,” Lamont said. “That’s how you bring down the price. … Look where we are today. We have tripled the number of EV sales just in the last two years. We have brought down the price by over one third. We can do better than that if we keep our eye on the goal.”
Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com