Way(back): Tim Nesbitt on Electric Vehicles
Old cars may become the source of a new economy, if new solutions are allowed to scale.
What is a “Way(back)”? These pieces are short reflections from contributors on previous Oregon Way pieces that left an impact on them.
Can this old Chevy pickup be shocked back to life with the automotive equivalent of electrotherapy? I’m going to find out.
I shared my “Thoughts from the Slow Lane” here last September about the potential for converting gas-powered cars to electric. My point: We’d be able to put more electric vehicles (EVs) on the road a lot faster and more affordably by promoting older-car conversions and supporting them with the tax dollars that now subsidize purchases of expensive new Teslas and Volvos. I also suggested that I might want to prove this concept by starting with that old pickup.
I got both pushback and applause for this idea.
The latter was all about the pickup that I own with my partner, who manages our apple orchard. When we shared our idea with farmer friends, the response was, well, electric. As one young woman farmer remarked, “That would be so bad ass!”
The pushback came from policy types: It will never scale. Or, you’ll never get much participation in rural Oregon until we have many more charging stations. And then there were the wonks who calculated the carbon content of the battery components, while ignoring the savings from not junking old car bodies and building new ones.
Meanwhile, I connected with a high school auto shop teacher and his colleagues who teach welding and machining. Within the next few weeks, we hope to be able to launch this project on my dime. If it works, my partner and I will get a better pickup that can run off the surplus power from our solar array. More importantly, the school will be able to showcase a training program for a new generation of auto mechanics.
My takeaways from this experience are several.
We already have our proofs of concept, from high end to low. There’s a shop in Albany that converts Rolls Royces. Some 140 do-it-your-self mechanics in Oregon are sharing their more modest projects on social media. Similar conversions are underway in all 50 states. Even the New York Times is paying attention.
What is “scalable” is too often determined by those with heavy fingers on the levers of public policy. Government subsidies are the product of marketing and lobbying, which is why our tax dollars support the purchase of new, more expensive EVs rather than the conversion of older, more affordable used vehicles.
Small steps, like pebbles in a pond, can have ripple effects. More EVs in rural areas will stoke demand for more charging stations. And more DIY projects, like the victory gardens of WW II, can boost support for an economy-wide mobilization to combat climate change.
My post also attracted attention from a group that is testing electric tractors. We’ll get a loaner to try out next spring. Ripple effects like these create their own momentum, scaling out as well as up.
Tim served as Chief of Staff for Gov. Kulongoski. A former union leader, he lives near Independence and oversees a specialty apple orchard.
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