Drivers invited to test out electric vehicles

Motorists can see a wide variety of electric vehicles (EVs), learn the ins and outs of EVs from owners and even test drive an environmentally friendly car or truck at the Blue Ridge EV Club’s 11th annual Asheville Drive Electric Event on Sunday, Sept. 29, noon-4 p.m at Tanger Asheville, 800 Brevard Road.

Close to 80 vehicles will be on-site, with 10-20 available for rides or test drives, says Dave Erb, co-founder of the event. Harley Davidson will bring two of its LiveWire all-electric motorcycles to the party.

“The idea is to get private owners together who … have experience with EVs, showing their cars [and] answering questions,” Erb says.

EVs from 13 automakers, including Ford, Tesla, Chevrolet, Kia, Hyundai and Nissan, will be at the event.

Two types of EVs will be featured at Tanger — Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), which are all-electric rechargeable battery-powered vehicles, and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), which are vehicles that are fueled with gas and electricity.

Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), low-emission vehicles that use an electric motor to assist gas-powered engines, get all their energy from gasoline and cannot be charged. They will not be included in the mix of EVs at the event.

Erb says driving on electricity is much cleaner than driving a gasoline-powered car, citing a recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

According to the study, greenhouse emissions from driving an electric car depend on the source of the electricity that recharges it.

“In places with a relatively clean grid, emissions from driving an EV are very low. For example, driving an EV in Upstate New York is equal to a 219 miles per gallon (mpg) gasoline car, or less than 12%of the average new gasoline vehicle emissions. Even where the grid still uses significant fossil fuel-powered generation, EVs are a cleaner choice,” the study says.

In the grid that covers North and South Carolina, as well as parts of eastern Virginia, average EV emissions are equal to a 100 mpg car.

EVs also cost less to operate than gasoline cars, Erb writes in an email to Xpress.

“At $0.13 per kilowatt-hour, the electricity needed to drive 12,000 miles in a Bolt (with a U.S. Environmental Proection Agency rating of 280 watt-hours per mile) would cost $437. At $3 a gallon, gas for a Prius (50 mpg EPA rating) would cost $720, even before accounting for oil changes, tuneups, and a host of other engine-related maintenance,” writes Erb.

Sarah McGonigal, charging and energy services senior manager for Ford Motor Co., volunteers at the Drive Electric Event. She says convenience is one of her primary reasons for owning an EV.

“Before I even started working in EVs, I hated going to the gas station. I think people just want to have that freedom of being able to charge at home and not have to go out of their way to fill up their vehicle. I think that’s really attractive,” McGonigal says.

McGonigal says you can even buy equipment that allows you to charge your home from your EV.

“It’s great for people who live where there’s a lot of power outages,” McGonigal says.

Erb says critics of EVs note that producing EV batteries — and disposing of them — leaves a significant carbon footprint.

“It’s true that manufacturers extract a half-ton of minerals to make an EV battery. But that battery’s in the vehicle for its life, and at the end of its life, it gets recycled into a new battery, versus a ton and a half of mineral extraction every year to run a gas car. And we don’t recycle [gas]. We burn it and blow it out into the atmosphere, where it ends up in the air, the soil and in the water as pollution,” Erb says.

Erb also discounts claims that old EV batteries are thrown away, noting the high value of the minerals in the batteries.

“We’re not going to toss battery materials into the landfill, for the same reason we don’t throw diamond rings there,” Erb says.

Find more information at avl.mx/e4h.