The Washington Post recently reported that electric vehicles (EVs) now outnumber gas-powered cars in Norway, the first country to claim that distinction. The U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation--a shared agency of the U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation--was created in 2021 under the bipartisan infrastructure law to help facilitate the adoption of electric vehicles across the United States. Gabriel Klein, executive director of the Joint Office, and Joe Zietsman, deputy director of TTI, join us today to talk about the advantages, challenges, and long-term goals of implementing EVs nationwide.
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Episode Transcript
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Allan Rutter (00:14):
Hey everyone.
Welcome to ThinkingTransportation--conversations
about how we get ourselves andthe stuff we need from one
place to another. I'm AllanRutter with the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute. Manyof our listeners may have
noticed that NFL footballresumed earlier this September,
with televised games over afive-day period, and lots of
(00:37):
folks were watching. ForbesMagazine reports that in 2023,
93 of the hundred highest ratedTV shows were NFL games. That
attracts a lot of high-pricedadvertising. My own
unscientific analysis of theads on the games I watched
breaks down into three buckets: beer, sports gambling, and (00:54):
undefined
motor vehicles--mostly electricvehicles. In today's episode,
we're going to hear about someof the issues associated with
electric vehicles, as thepublic sector is responding to
and encouraging the adoption ofelectric cars, trucks, and
(01:15):
buses. Today we're welcomingGabe Klein, the executive
director of the Joint Office ofEnergy and Transportation in
the United States Department ofEnergy and the United States
Department of Transportation.
And Joe Zietsman, deputy agencydirector of the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute. Gabeand Joe, thanks for joining us.
(01:38):
There's just so much going onin both of your worlds
transportation and energy, andso much overlap involving both
research and public policy. Soif you would, let's talk a
little bit about what you doand how your agency rules
relate to each other. Gabe, canyou tell us a little bit about
this new Joint Office of Energyand Transportation, its
(02:00):
organization, and its mission?
Gabriel Klein (02:03):
Absolutely. And thanks Allan for having me
today. It's great to be here.
So, the joint office wascreated in late 2021 as part of
the bipartisan infrastructurelaw. We were given a $300
million operating budget tosupport about $20 billion in
capital spend on a combinationof charging stations, hydrogen
(02:27):
fueling CNG, LNG, and then alsorolling stock--which is a
technical term for buses, bothtransit buses and school
buses--which are EPA and FTAprograms, the Environmental
Protection Agency and theFederal Transit Administration.
We really got up and running inearly 2022. I was hired in
(02:48):
September, or I was brought onin September of 2022. Our focus
is supporting the build out ofa nationwide network of zero
emission fueling and charginginfrastructure as well as the
zero emission transit andschool buses. And we do that by
working to align the resourcesand the expertise that's across
(03:12):
the federal government andthere's so much in different
places in HUD, in EPA, incommerce with tax credits. And
then what we do is we work tounify guidance across all of
these entities. We work toprovide technical assistance
and analysis for theseprograms, but we also work
closely with the White House.
(03:33):
We're involved with them quitea bit on policy formulation for
our agencies. And I would saywe do a lot of analysis, data
analysis with the nationallabs. We work particularly with
the National Renewable EnergyLab, the Argonne National Lab,
but also with two or threeothers. And that gives us the
(03:54):
information that we need tosupport policy recommendations
that we're making. Ourinteraction day to day --the
most interaction that we haveis with states and increasingly
with regions throughmetropolitan planning
organizations and cities. Aswell as--and this is heartening
to me is --you know really I'ma private-sector person, a lot
(04:17):
of private-sector coordination,interaction support. We've spun
up something called the ChargeX Consortium with over 90
companies working together toincrease the reliability and
usability of chargers forinstance. And I can go on and
on, but I'm gonna pause therebecause that's probably 80
percent of what people need toknow.
Allan Rutter (04:40):
Well, thanks, Gabe. It is remarkable that you
guys have been able toaccomplish as much as you have
since the creation of theagency in the infrastructure
bill. Joe, tell us a little bitabout your organizational role
within TTI and your work withthe Center for Advancing
Research and TransportationEmissions Energy and Health, or
CARTEEH.
Joe Zietsman (05:01):
Sure. Thank you, Allan, for having me. And Gabe,
it's a pleasure to be havingthis conversation with you, so
thank you for that. As Allansaid, I'm the deputy agency
director of TTI, and in my roleI serve as the chief research
officer of TTI, and I overseeTT i's research portfolio. We
(05:21):
have more than 400 dedicatedresearchers working for TTI on
a daily basis serving realworld transportation problems.
So it's just a great honor anda pleasure to be working with
such a talented group ofindividuals at TTI. And we are
organized into five groups atthe institute. Basically, it's
planning, operations,infrastructure, safety, and
(05:44):
environment. And as Allanalluded, I'm also the director
of CARTEEH, and the focus ofCARTEEH is basically on the
intersection of health andtransportation. And what Gabe
is talking about withelectrification and bringing
energy and transportationtogether has a really big
impact on public health. Andthat is why our center about
(06:08):
six years ago got very, veryinterested in this
electrification space andelectrified mobility. And we
are very focused on what arethe health implications of
electric vehicles andelectrified mobility.
Allan Rutter (06:22):
That leads us to the next part of our
conversation, which is, youknow, as we think about the
effort to expand the use ofelectric cars, trucks, and
buses, it seems like one of themost persistent obstacles is
the number of chargingstations. And a lot of the
discussion comes down toconsumer demand. Will more
charging stations help to sellmore cars, or will selling more
(06:45):
cars create more chargingstations? Gabe, maybe you start
us off talking about that.
Gabriel Klein (06:50):
Yeah, I mean it's very much chicken and egg.
What's interesting is thestudies that we've done with
NREL, the National RenewableEnergy Laboratory, show us that
we need about 28 and a halfvehicles to charge a ratio
that's ideal in the UnitedStates with our land use and so
on and so forth. That'sactually where we are. So
(07:11):
what's interesting is from araw number perspective, we're
not doing badly and we havedoubled the network through all
of the different incentives inthe IRA bill--bipartisan
infrastructure law--and a lotof private-sector investment on
the back of that. And now youhave the public-sector dollars
kicking in. However, what wedon't have is the right
(07:35):
geographic coverage necessarilythat we need the right density
of level-two charging stations,for instance in cities; the
right number of DC fastchargers and level-two chargers
in all suburban areas and onall highways. That's why the
work that we're doing is soimportant to plug the gaps,
(07:56):
plug the holes . You know, whenthe president set the goal of
500,000 chargers, it wasn'tthat we're gonna build 500,000
chargers by 2030. It's thatwe're gonna facilitate the
building of that and we'regonna fill the gap , supplement
that, particularly from anequity standpoint, we're gonna
put chargers where maybe theprivate sector won't on their
own, right? So that's a longsort of way of saying, we are
(08:21):
actually in a pretty goodposition, but the number of
Americans that have actuallyused an electric car is
actually relatively small,right? And so there was a Wall
Street Journal piece maybeabout a week and a half ago. I
thought was fascinating, a veryinteresting piece. It was sort
of a first person op-ed typepiece by a writer there that
had been sort of anti-EVbefore. And then Kia loaned him
(08:45):
a new Kia EV9, and not only didhe love the vehicle, but he
realized that he could plug itinto a standard outlet in the
wall in his garage and he got90% of his charging from a 110
outlet in the wall, and thenonce that week plugged it into
a level two charger when heneeded it. And so I think it's
gonna take a little while forpeople worldwide, but
(09:07):
particularly here in the US,where a big country with a lot
of different geographies andland uses to have that
experience or to know somebodythat has the experience that
actually there's a wholeparadigm shift in charging and
that you may not go to a " gasstation" very often. I've
probably been to one 30 timesto a supercharger or a regular
(09:30):
DC fast charger in the sixyears that I've owned an EV.
And so, really, I think some ofthis is a bit of a culture
shift. It's a bit of a changemanagement challenge, if you
will.
Allan Rutter (09:42):
And Gabe, like you were saying, so much of
that is about telling the storyto each other. It's one thing
to have an officialpronouncement on policy, but
it's another to have a neighboror a friend or somebody from
church say, "Actually thisactually works."
Gabriel Klein (09:58):
Right, it works.
It's faster, better, cheaper.
And I'm not going back to acombustion-fueled vehicle. I
mean I can't imagine that likethe McKinsey survey that came
out said the majority of peoplewho have an EV are gonna go
back to an ICE[internal combustion engine]
vehicle, which is at odds withevery piece of data we've ever
seen from anybody. CoxAutomotive, JD Power, NREL,
(10:20):
which says overwhelminglypeople will be buying another
EV ,to the tune of like 90percent. I mean it's hard to
imagine going back and there'sso few moving parts that you
don't have to deal with a lotof maintenance and operations
costs.
Allan Rutter (10:34):
So, as we've talked about sort of personal
vehicles, one of the things youhad mentioned, Gabe, was that
transit buses and school busesare also in the mix,
particularly as publicly ownedvehicles. How is the federal
government helping with that?
Gabriel Klein (10:49):
Yeah, you know about half that almost $20
billion portfolio I talkedabout that we're supporting is
actually EPA's clean school busprogram and FTA's low/no
emissions bus program--it'sabout 10.6 billion. We're
partnering with both entitiesand the National Renewable
Energy Lab to offer technicalassistance. They are both
(11:11):
buses, but it's interesting,they are different, and the
duty cycles are a bit differentin terms of the way they're
used day to day . Also, theprograms are designed
differently where EPA's programis a rebate program, where any
school district can go out andbuy a bus and then get a rebate
for it. The FTA is more oftheir traditional grant-funding
(11:33):
model. But there's been like2.8 billion, almost a thousand
awards from EPA replacingalmost 9,000 buses. And then
you've got FTA with billions ofdollars out there on the
transit front. And we're seeinga tremendous amount of
interest--particularly in theschool bus side I would say--in
(11:55):
our assistance in planningrouting, figuring out how big
the batteries need to be. Like,some of it is very technical,
some of it's more businesscase, some of it's helping them
figure out how to talk to theschool board about the benefits
and what they're trying to do.
So, we're very excited aboutthat and I just wanna be clear
(12:16):
that the joint office is hereto support the electrification
of everything, alltransportation modes. I get
around on an electric bike mostof the time. I find it to be
faster, more efficient andbetter for my health. And so
it's about the right envelopeif you will, the right type of
vehicle for the right uses.
Allan Rutter (12:35):
Joe, it strikes me that thinking about the
whole mix of vehicles of allkinds of users, all kinds of
owners--that's part of what youguys have had to consider as
part of the UniversityTransportation Center that you
guys run at CARTEEH, is thatright?
Joe Zietsman (12:51):
Yeah, absolutely Allan, and I'll follow up a
little bit on what Gabediscussed. I'm like him an EV
owner--actually my wife ownsthe EV, but we have it in our
household--and I sometimes gotake it for a good spin and
it's a wonderful experience todrive the EV, and it's very
comfortable, very easy to use.
So that's very true. I do havea couple of colleagues who
(13:12):
owned EVs and they went back toICE vehicles just for the fact
that they get a little bitworried about range anxiety and
just their lifestyle and theway they operate. So, there are
a couple data points that saywow, it's not exactly for them,
but for the most part, onceyou're in the EV you don't want
to get out of it. So, I'm alsoon that bandwagon right now.
(13:32):
So, coming back to your pointAllan--and you know one thing I
also want to just talk aboutreal quick is coming back to
the school buses. I do want totouch on that, and it comes
back to emissions. So, that'san area that we at CARTEEH
really study very heavily, andschool buses is, as far as we
are concerned, super importantbecause we're talking about the
kids, their health, theirdeveloping lungs, the fact that
(13:56):
they breathe bad air, and howimportant that is for society
that we keep our kids healthy.
And these diesel buses, the olddiesel buses , uh, school buses
are terrible, and it's not onlythe kids riding the buses but
also the kids at school andwhere these buses are idling.
So, what Gabe in his office isdoing and EPA and FTA is just
(14:16):
tremendous in terms ofreplacing old diesel buses with
electric buses. So, that'sfantastic. Again, it's zero
tailpipe emissions, but it'snot zero emissions per se. So,
we need to remember that thereis some charging. I mean, you
have to actually generate thepower, and if it's renewable
resources that's being used,it's great. Twenty percent of
(14:38):
the US sources for powergeneration is renewable. So,
that's great, and that trend isexpanding. The good news about
that is more renewable iscoming, and also where the
emissions is created is notexactly where the problem areas
are necessarily. So, it's awayfrom the downtowns, it's away
from the schools, et cetera.
(14:58):
So, that is why thiselectrification wave is very,
very important from a healthperspective. And then, in
addition to emissions comingfrom the power generation,
there's also emissions fromtire wear and brake wear . And
with electric vehicles beingheavier, we need to make sure
that we understand that andalso calculate that and measure
that as we move forward. SoAllan, yes, school buses is
(15:21):
something that is a big part ofwhat we do and look at at
CARTEEH. And, then obviously,light-duty vehicles in terms of
EVs is something that's reallypenetrating the market. It's
very important. We are lookingat that. And then, to a lesser
extent and a little bit morelong term, will be the
heavy-duty vehicles we mightget a little bit. But that's
(15:43):
from the perspective ofCARTEEH.
Allan Rutter (15:46):
You mentioned the particulate matter associated
with car use of heaviervehicles, which is my next
subject. EVs tend to be or, atleast, the array batteries
might be a little heavier thana typical car engine, which has
implications for how vehiclesinteract with others on the
road and with roadsidehardware. How are the offices
(16:07):
of the research labs and thefolks at DOT thinking about how
to address the challengesassociated with how these
different vehicles perform onthe road itself?
Gabriel Klein (16:18):
Yeah , I am by background more on the
transportation side, actually,than the energy side having run
two DOTs, and then worked inthe transportation area more.
And this has always been anissue, particularly in cities
where, as Joe was saying, youhave a density of people, you
have vehicles that need to comeinto the city, and you've got a
(16:39):
lot of emissions, if you will,of all types. So, this
particular issue falls underthe jurisdiction of the Federal
Highway Administration, whichis part of the Department of
Transportation. And they tendto say, "Hey, safety is our
biggest priority." And I think,when we think about safety, we
(16:59):
have to think about the peopleinside the vehicle--and NHTSA
has given five-star safetyratings to lots of electric
vehicles--but we also have tothink about the people outside
of the vehicle. And there's alot of research going into
that, whether it's increasingthe safety of guardrails and
the ability to handle heaviervehicles; particulate matter
(17:22):
from tires and looking atalternative materials or
additives to rubber. But wehave to think about people
outside the vehicle and, youknow, we take that extremely
seriously. I think that theprivate sector is as well, and
not just from a safetystandpoint but from a cost
standpoint. Jim Farley, the CEOof Ford Motor Company, was
(17:42):
recently interviewed and talkedabout how from his standpoint,
we need to right-size thevehicle for the use and that
very large vehicles with verylarge batteries for consumers
were never gonna be profitablefor Ford. I thought that was
very interesting, and I'm a bigproponent of that myself. I
(18:03):
choose to use a very smallvehicle in the city. It's an
electric bicycle, and I have afew of them. And I do think
that we can provide a moreequitable system,
cost-effective system, andsafer system if we look at the
weight and the size ofvehicles, particularly in
urbanized areas but also ininner ring suburbs for
(18:24):
instance--for the safety of allpeople, not just the folks
inside the car or the truck.
Allan Rutter (18:33):
And, of course, one of the things, Gabe, you
mentioned there is guardrailresearch and one of the five
research areas that Joe'sresponsible for is our safety
guys , including our crash testproving grounds here on the
RELLIS campus where we've donecrash testing for much of our
75-year history.
Gabriel Klein (18:52):
That's great.
Allan Rutter (18:53):
Now, we've talked a little bit about challenges
on chargers and safety, butapart from the challenges,
electric vehicles clearly havesome advantages. Joe, why don't
you start by talking about someof the advantages that electric
vehicles have in a broad range.
Joe Zietsman (19:11):
Some of the advantages obviously is--being
a person working in the airquality, the emission
space--clearly, there's sometremendous benefits on the
health side where, even if youlook at it cradle to grave or
full lifecycle on average anelectric vehicle probably gives
you a third of the emissions,if you add everything up to an
(19:34):
internal combustion enginevehicle, it depends on so many
factors, but still it's a hugedelta. And, also like we
discussed earlier, the locationwhere the emissions get
generated is important. And, inthis case, it's typically not
where, always where the problemareas are. Another area that we
are looking at in CARTEEH isthe area of noise pollution.
(19:56):
That's one of the connectionsor intersections between health
and transportation. So, noiseis a big deal, much bigger than
people initially thought. A lotof people get physically sick
because of noise pollution andelectric vehicles are obviously
very quiet compared to internalcombustion engine vehicles. So,
that's a tremendous benefit.
(20:18):
Gabe hinted earlier about themaintenance, and I'm
experiencing that myself withour EV at home. Maintenance is
just almost non-existent. It'sjust, you replace the tires and
then you're good to go. There'salso a feel-good element about
it because you are contributingto the environment, to
emissions, to the climateproblem and greenhouse gases.
(20:41):
So, there's some factor ofthat, and it's really a fun
vehicle to drive. So, when youget into an EV, you cannot
really describe it to somebodyexcept if they've really
experienced that themselves.
And, I've also noticed that incertain metropolitan areas, the
high-occupancy vehicle lanes orsome designated parking spots
are available for EVs. So, youget some preferential treatment
(21:04):
if you show up with yourelectric vehicle. So, there
clearly benefits from what I'veexperienced owning and
operating an electric vehicle.
Allan Rutter (21:12):
Gabe, talk about some of the things that your
guys in your office have beeneither hearing from or sharing
with the people you work withon what are some of the
benefits of EVs that Joe hasn'ttalked about yet?
Gabriel Klein (21:25):
Yeah , well Joe did a great job running it
down. And, I think the onlything I would add is just the
huge potential cost savings.
Gas fluctuates up and down. Notthat electricity doesn't, but
it's generally more reliable.
And if you figure out a way, apattern of charging your
vehicle, particularly at nightat a level-two charger or a
(21:46):
level-one charger. 'Cause theaverage person's driving less
than a hundred miles a week,cars sit 95 percent of the
time. And so, there's a hugecost saving 'cause you have to
carry the cost of your vehicle,whatever that vehicle is and
depreciation and insurance andall that. But the fuel is a big
component. And then last, Iwould just say that I think
(22:08):
there's gonna be a bigopportunity for shared
vehicles, whether it's youknow, transit and school buses,
which are shared vehicles. Imean, airplanes are shared
vehicles for that matter, butalso car sharing , bike
sharing, scooter sharing, andwe're seeing a lot of interest
in that. We have two fundingopportunities where we've been
facilitating investments inthose businesses. Obviously,
(22:31):
they work better in moreurbanized areas, but there's
real interest in how do youtake an electric vehicle and
either fractionally share it ordelivered on demand access to
it or delivered rental, so onand so forth. And ride hail
--we're seeing a lot of ridehail drivers move to either
(22:51):
used electric vehicles with anew $4,000 tax credit for a sub
$25,000 used vehicle or a newone or a rental. And that's
eliminating a lot of missions,particularly to and from
airports.
Allan Rutter (23:05):
So, one of the things that we've talked about
a little bit is on the powergrid itself in expanding
electric power capacity to meetthe need that's created by
charging stations and thevehicles. What's the balance so
that demand doesn't overwhelmsupply of power? That strikes
me as given the Joint Office ofEnergy and Transportation,
(23:26):
Gabe, that's one of the thingsthat you guys are working with.
Gabriel Klein (23:30):
Yeah, so we work with, as I said NREL, the
National Renewable EnergyLaboratory, Lawrence Berkeley
National Lab on this. And wedid a study with them and
Kevala, which is a privatecompany in the data business,
and it's called theTransportation Electrification
Impact Study, if people wannalook it up. And the goal was to
(23:51):
help answer technical anddeployment questions. 'Cause
people keep saying can the gridaccommodate all these new
demands from transportation?
It's really amazing. The studywent down to like the feeder
level and looked at thecharging network, the
associated distribution gridthat's needed to support
(24:11):
increased adoption. And, it'snot what you would think it
would be. The key takeawayswere that we're gonna have an
incremental increase of 3percent in annual electric
vehicle charging infrastructureinstallations to support what
we need. And yeah, wedefinitely need to invest in
(24:32):
the grid, particularly for theDC fast chargers, which put
more of a strain 'cause you'repumping a bunch of electrons
through there for your vehiclevery quickly. But for a
level-two charger, that's likeplugging in a dryer, right? So
it's not really adding thatmuch load. So, the study said
(24:53):
that we need incrementaldistribution grid investments
that equate to approximately 3percent of their current annual
investments. But here's thekicker, this is what's really
important is that if we usemanaged charging, which is the
ability to have your vehicletalk to the charger, your
(25:13):
charger talk to the utility,and actually manage when we
charge and when we use otherenergy resources right in our
homes for instance in ourbuildings, that we could have a
30 percent reduction, actually,in those annual utility
investments. So, we are makinga big push into managed
(25:36):
charging. We hope to have theframework in place within the
next year so we haveinteroperable charging
throughout the United Stateswhere you can plug in anywhere.
And some of the things thatwe're doing to build that
system are also the futureproofing basics that we're
gonna need for managed chargingacross the country. So, there's
(25:59):
a lot happening behind thescenes that's gonna change the
way people view the electricvehicle from a way to get
around to a way to power yourhome to a way to cut your costs
and to do other things that wehaven't even figured out yet as
we delve into this more .
Allan Rutter (26:16):
So, it strikes me, one of the things I'm
hearing you say, Gabe, is thaton the one hand transportation
represents about 28 percent oftotal emissions, but in terms
of power use, it's not nearly athird of all power that's
needed.
Gabriel Klein (26:31):
Correct. And, we have the ability over time, we
can charge a vehicle at nightfully, and then we can sell
back to the grid at peak. So,during the day when somebody's
running their airconditioner--it's 102 degrees
in Fort Worth--but they chargedtheir car at night when it was
(26:53):
cooler and people weren'trunning their air conditioning
as much. They could make aprofit on that they could sell
back at peak and help theutility by avoiding the build
out of infrastructure for justpeak load . So, I mean this is
really a revolution and it'snot just EVs. There's other
distributed energy resources wecall them , but the batteries
(27:16):
in the vehicles can beutilized, actually save us
money, save taxpayers money andsave individuals money on their
electric bills.
Allan Rutter (27:26):
Which is another way of getting into some of the
benefits. It strikes me that,at least to some degree public
attitudes about vehicleelectrification are rooted in
how people feel about thenatural environment, which is
related by how people feelabout climate change. How are
some of the ways that we mightmove beyond the divisive nature
of that particular issue totalk about some of these bigger
(27:48):
goals of reducing costs, makingquality of life--that's a
little broader. Joe, maybeyou'd start us talking about
some of those, what you'veheard from people about their
attitudes about theenvironment.
Joe Zietsman (28:02):
Sure. And I want to touch on managed charging
that Gabe brought up. So, atTTI, we are expanding our
emissions testing capability.
So we have this largeenvironmental test chamber
where we can take in a few full-size vehicle--actually a
full-size truck, the tractorand the trailer--and a
controlled temperature andhumidity in this environmental
(28:24):
test chamber to test theemissions and other important
performance indicators that wewant to test in the controlled
environment. So, we'reexpanding that facility to be a
electric vehicle testingfacility as well. So, in other
words, we are expanding thecooling capability to hit minus
40 and go all the way up to200. We are putting in a
(28:45):
heavy-duty chassis dynamometerso we can drive the vehicle
even up to 85 miles per hourinside the chamber and expose
it to all these differentconditions of pulling a load,
driving up a hill,accelerating, decelerating, et
cetera. And then, we are alsoincluding what we call a
electric building or a powerbuilding that has got all the
(29:07):
electric components that Gabehinted to as well like
chargers, load bank generators,et cetera. So, we could
actually do a totalvehicle-to-grid, grid
-to-vehicle, empiricalreal-world testing scenarios,
and we can test what that lookslike because coming back to
your earlier question Allan,which is so important, you
know, "can the grid handle it?"So, the way to handle it is
(29:29):
like , uh, Gabe hinted isthrough managed charging and
now we can in a controlledenvironment do all the testing
and figure out how that works,how do we send power back to
the grid, under what conditionswould be the impact on the
grid, on batteries, et cetera.
So, I just wanted to mentionthat because it's a very
exciting development and weshould be opening that facility
(29:53):
for this kind of testing by thespring of 2025. So, we're super
excited about that, and I thinkit ties back to what we
discussed earlier and coming upwith information and we don't
have to only rely on litreviews and modeling to
understand what's gonna happento the grid and the power
system. And your questionabout, you know, in our CARTEEH
(30:14):
center , how do we make surethat we address these big
issues of climate and theenvironment and health and make
sure that folks get behindthose big topics. It is not
easy. All those topics are atsome level politically charged.
So we need to be careful andaware of that. So, how we
(30:35):
address that, if we are alwaysbasing it on the facts and the
data, then that's the way to doit. And that is what TTI is
known for. We are anindependent third-party broker
when it comes to informationand providing unbiased
information so that decisionmakers like the joint office
can make the decisions. So, weprovide the information for
(30:58):
them and that's our role inthat . We need to be very
cautious of that. A lot of thedecisions and a lot of the
things we talk about here whenit comes to electrification is
economics based . So, people doultimately make their decisions
based on the bottom line andwhether it makes economic sense
for them. And we are definitelymoving to a position where
these kind of EVs are beginningto make more and more economic
(31:22):
sense. So, tax credits and allthose kind of things are very,
very important when folks makedecisions about EVs, even
though all of them at somelevel understand that they want
to contribute to theenvironment and social
responsibility.
Allan Rutter (31:36):
One of the things that I think Joe just
discussed, and one of thethings I'm hearing from the
creation of the joint office,things may not be as divided as
people think they are. Theinfrastructure bill itself was
the bipartisan infrastructurelaw. That's why the, the
administration calls itthat--19 Republican senators
signed on for that. When youthink about the number of
(31:58):
states, municipalities,regional governments, NPOs from
across states of all kinds ofstripes, all of those guys are
going for some of the grantsthat you guys are providing,
Gabe. So, it strikes me thatyou are in a position to see
that there's a lot moreinterest in the kinds of stuff
you're doing than might beexhibited in the current
(32:20):
political climate.
Gabriel Klein (32:22):
Absolutely.
Look, I was in London,Amsterdam, Paris recently
meeting with the national andlocal governments there. We had
a team down in Mexico recentlyworking with them . Nowhere in
the world is climate change apolitical issue in terms of is
it real or not, except for theUnited States. When you go to
(32:43):
the rest of the world, there'sno question. Now there can be a
political conversation abouthow do we wanna deal with it?
How fast, what are the costs,who's gonna bear them ? All of
that. But we need to movebeyond that. It's just time.
And I think to Joe's point, theway to do that is with data.
But I would go a step further,and I would say in the US
(33:03):
what's really important is thebusiness case. And from an
economic standpoint, I meanwe've created hundreds of
thousands of jobs through thebipartisan infrastructure law,
IRA, the CHIPS Act, which isclosely tied to this because we
need chips and all thesevehicles and chargers. The rest
of the world's moving forward,China's moving forward. Are we
(33:26):
gonna move forward at thatpace? Are we gonna build this
equipment, these vehicles,these systems, the technology
systems that support them inthe United States or are we
gonna let the rest of the worldtake over? And so I think when
you start to make that economicargument and you show the
investments--which, by the way,most of the investments, the
(33:48):
majority have been in red andpurple states--I think it's
hard for people to argue, andyou layer on top of that the
personal benefits that theyget, the cost savings and so on
and so forth, and thingschange. The problem is with the
fearmongering, that happenssometimes in politics that has
a damaging impact. And then youcreate this sort of
(34:10):
tribalization, if you will,around propulsion types of
vehicles and things, whichreally don't need to be there.
So as a nonpolitical ingovernment, I want to rely on
the data, I want to rely onwhat's best for the American
people, the jobs, the clean airfor our children and for the
next generation. And that's thereality of what we're selling
(34:32):
and that's the reality of whatwe're building and fulfilling.
Allan Rutter (34:35):
And, Gabe , you mentioning the the private
sector investment , that'scertainly one of the things
that's happening in the stateof Texas over the past four or
five years. You mentioned theCHIPS Act. There are enormous,
multi-billion dollarinvestments going on--Texas
instruments and Samsung andGlobal in Texas. The other part
of that is over the last decadethe percentage of renewables
(34:58):
that are part of our electricgrid, all you have to do is
drive into West Texas and seethe wind farms and other things
that are happening to know thatit's not just about the
Permian, it's about a wholeother range of things. Which
kind of leads us into the nextquestion about sort of the
public- and private-sectorinvestment. As we've provided
for vehicle transportation inour history, it's involved a
(35:21):
combination of public- andprivate-sector players,.
Governments build roads andbridges, private sector builds
gas stations and truck stops...
As the power source for carsand trucks moves away from gas
and diesel, what are the kindsof public-private models
changing as we provide some ofthat energy and the vehicles
themselves? What's likely tochange both near term and
(35:44):
longer term ?
Gabriel Klein (35:45):
It's very interesting to watch it evolve,
and I've learned a lot, I'll behonest with you, on the energy
side. I wasn't aware when Itook this job that we had over
3,000 utilities in thiscountry, and some of them are
investor owned , some of themare owned by the
municipalities. So, you have acombination of public and
private just in that industry,and then you've got the the
(36:07):
regulatory bodies and entitiesthat oversee and work with them
and set rates. Then, you've gotthe private-sector companies
that are building and operatingthese networks. And, I think,
everybody out there needs toknow that while the federal
government is incentivizing andplugging gaps--we call it gap
filling --with our funding;it's dwarfed, dwarfed by the
(36:31):
private-sector investment.
First of all, you know we gotpublic and private investments
in EV charging around $24billion thus far, with a lot of
onshoring of jobs happeningbecause of Buy America . So our
seven and a half billion is adown payment, if you will, on
what's ultimately gonna beprobably $70 to $80 billion.
(36:54):
But when the government sayshey we're gonna align policy
and funding, even if it's at asmall level, that allows the
private sector to act and actquickly. And so in terms of the
models that we're seeing, wewith Federal Highways and FTA
and EPA, we send money out tostates, state energy agencies,
(37:14):
departments oftransportation--now also to
again regional metropolitanplanning organizations,
cities--they are contractingwith the private sector
overwhelmingly, almostexclusively. Sometimes, they'll
let them use their land,sometimes it's on private
property, but the people outthere need to know this system
(37:35):
is being built, operated andmaintained by the private
sector. And somestates--Colorado is
sub-allocating most of theirfunding and saying, yeah, we
need to build a network every50 miles, we need four ports
but we're gonna let eachjurisdiction go out there and
actually do that and contractthat others are contracting for
(37:57):
their entire state themselves.
And a lot of it depends on thegeography, the politics, their
experience. In the past it wasinteresting going to Europe
'cause you realize like eachone of their countries is like
one of our states. But it'sstill interesting. I posted
yesterday on LinkedIn, it'samazing that Norway's gonna hit
their goal of a hundred percentelectric vehicles sold by 25.
(38:18):
They hit 95% so far in 24. Theyset a goal and they gave the
carrots and the sticks, and nowthey're gonna do it. And I
think you're gonna see stateshere that are gonna do the same
thing. And Texas, by the way,is a shining star a red
state--some people say red,some say purple--doing a
phenomenal job on the chargingnetwork, luring companies, and
(38:43):
selling electric vehicles now.
It's great. Go Texas!
Allan Rutter (38:47):
. Well,
we're always glad to hear that.
Now, which leads us to, one ofthe things I'm hearing about is
there's excitement both you andJoe have for your work, the
enthusiasm you bring to it. ButI'm guessing it's not all
sunshine and flowers all thetime. One of my friends puts it
, it's not all puppies andkittens. What's one of the
things you feel most optimisticabout right now? What's the
(39:09):
thing that you're the mostexcited about? Joe, I'll let
you start.
Joe Zietsman (39:13):
Well, we're talking electric vehicles and
it is a true game changer fromthe perspective of the
transportation system. Youknow, I've been in
transportation all my career,35 plus years. So, used to be
the vehicles and theinfrastructure. Now, we see it
as the vehicles, theinfrastructure and the power
grid, and overlaying all ofthat is basically data and
(39:37):
communication. It's a totaldifferent world and it's
exciting. And, what reallygives me some optimism is
because, you know, at somepoint I'll be moving on, and I
would like to see younger folksstep into leadership positions
and take over and do thingsthat we were not able to do.
And the best thing we can hopefor is we leave things in a
(39:58):
place where it's a little bitbetter than what we found it,
but these young superstars takeover and they really solve
these big problems. So, I'msuper excited to see a lot of
young people being up to thechallenge. They are not stuck
in their silos, they're seeingthis as a much bigger, much
more multidisciplinary problem.
They're open to that and theyare collaborative, and they are
(40:21):
just ready for this challenge.
So that is giving me theexcitement that I need .
Allan Rutter (40:27):
Gabe, what are the things you're most
optimistic about?
Gabriel Klein (40:31):
So, I get JD Power's numbers every month. I
get a lot of data incoming, andwhat's really great for me is I
know now it's clearer than everwhere we're gonna be in 2030.
And that's where a lot of ourgoals are; and by 2035, and by
2040 on medium heavy duty .
Like, we know where we'reultimately going to be. It's
(40:51):
really just about pace to getthere. And the technology's
getting better and better allthe time. Batteries have gone
down 90 percent in price. Newinnovations in the private
sector and with research labsare gonna make batteries
better, longer, lighter. So, Iknow where we're gonna be. The
question is how fast do wewanna move? And I think that we
(41:15):
need to move as fast as humanlypossible for a bunch of
imperatives, including theclimate and the next
generation. I'm with Joe, theyoung people that I see out
there, they think there'snothing we can't do. They are
mission driven for the mostpart, and they wanna get this
done. And they're also open tousing all different types of
vehicles. They don't seethemselves as "I'm a car
(41:38):
driver" or "I'm a bus user" or"I'm a bike user." They're very
multimodal, and I think thatalso bodes well for the future.
Allan Rutter (41:47):
So the corollary to that question, which is what
are the things that keep you upat night about what's happening
next? I'll let Joe go with it.
Joe Zietsman (41:56):
Yes, Allan, being a transportation professional,
I think we all share this biggloomy topic of more than
40,000 deaths on our roadnetwork every single year. We
pretty much got numb to thatnumber and it just continues
and continues, and it'sunacceptable and we all agree
that it's unacceptable. It'sbeen like this since the
(42:18):
Seventies, you know, it's beenhovering since 30,000 to
50,000. So, I really feel thatit should be all hands on deck
that we can really pursueVision Zero. Electric vehicles
bring its own set ofchallenges. So, we need to make
sure that it doesn't add to theproblem. And, you know, with
its heavier weight and lowercenter of gravity, we did a
(42:40):
test recently at TTI testing aModel 3 Tesla. And, let's put
it this way, the barriers thatwere designed for conventional
light-duty vehicles didn'twork. So, this much heavier EV
with the lower center ofgravity went right through the
barrier . So, that's somethingthat's a challenge, and it
(43:00):
would keep me up at nightbecause being an EV driver,
myself and our family, we worryabout those things. So, that
needs to be fixed and moretesting, more evaluation needs
to be done. But there's a lotof things that we need to do to
address this issue of deaths onour roadway. And how do we get
to Vision Zero?
Allan Rutter (43:18):
Thanks Joe. Gabe, what are the things that keep
you up at night?
Gabriel Klein (43:21):
Well, first of all, beyond my job today and
everything I've worked on formy career, I a hundred percent
agree with Joe. I think it'sthe number one issue, and I
think that it's a healthcarecrisis in the United States and
we've gotta fix it. So, I justwanna say that the biggest
thing that I get nervous aboutin my job is the level of
(43:43):
misinformation you see outthere. And, I'll be straight
with you guys, even in themainstream press, everybody
wants clicks; everybody wantsmore eyeballs on their content.
So, you might have somebodywrite a great story--and this
happens to us all the time--andthen have a terrible headline.
We had a CNN piece come out,had a great headline and a
(44:06):
great story. It wasn't gettingenough clicks so the editor put
a terrible headline. It didn'teven really correlate with the
story the next day to getclicks. So, I think while the
internet is amazing and has theability to revolutionize, and
the AI is also fascinating, andmaybe technology should be
reducing these deaths on ourroadways, it's also increasing
(44:28):
the complexity of informationthat people have to take in.
And people are increasingly intheir little bubbles. And so,
when it comes to EVs, they maythink things that are
completely untrue, whether it'sabout cost , whether it's about
safety, whether it's about whobuilds them . And so, you know,
my hope is that I don't know ifit's regulation, I don't know
what happens, but that we havesome better consistency of
(44:51):
information so that data can'tbe misrepresented.
Allan Rutter (44:56):
At TTI, we very much appreciate that, Gabe.
Part of what Joe described asour role is a honest
third-party broker providingunbiased information so that
people can make good decisions.
And we really appreciate youspending some time with us
today so that we can advancethat cause of getting some
better information out. One ofthe things we close out our
(45:17):
episodes with is to ask ourfolks, what is it that
motivates you to show up forwork every day ? Joe, why don't
you start?
Joe Zietsman (45:26):
Well, I started out as a contractor in the
construction space, and then Imoved to planning in a big MPO,
and then I became a researcher.
So, I've experiencedtransportation from different
perspectives, and the last 10years has been so revolutionary
in terms of all the changes andeverything happening. So, I'm
(45:46):
just very fortunate to be ableto participate in this great
evolution in the transportationsystem, and being able to
provide some input as thathappens, and see how we can
make a difference. But,honestly, what makes me the
happiest come to work is thewonderful people here at TTI
that I get the pleasure and thehonor to work with--the
(46:09):
brilliance, the intelligence,the enthusiasm that I see here.
And just to be able to be partof that team and to play a
small part is just amazing. Andthen not only the folks at TTI
but also to be able to workwith clients and sponsors like
Gabe and his office and FHWA,Federal Highway Administration,
TxDOT, the USDOT and on and on,EPA. It's just a privilege and
(46:32):
a pleasure to be able to beworking in this space at this
time.
Allan Rutter (46:37):
Gabe, what gets you to work every day other
than your electric bike?
Gabriel Klein (46:41):
Yeah. Well, I'm a very mission-driven person. I
think most people are. But I'vehad the opportunity to really
pursue it, and I believestrongly that public and
private can work together. Ifyou have an environment where
you've got fiscally responsiblegovernment working with
socially responsiblecompanies--sort of, switching
(47:02):
hats if you will--there's nolimit to what we can accomplish
together. And I think, as I wassaying earlier, the imperatives
are there to work together touse technology for things that
matter versus things thatreally don't matter or are not
helpful, and great socialoutcomes, you know, which I
think are hugely important thatare also fiscally responsible,
(47:24):
which is what we're working on.
It's getting to show up andwork with people every day .
Like, the team that we've builtfrom a couple federal people to
now I think we have 40 people;Steve, who's on with us , from
the joint office and runs ourengagement and outreach and
media. He was a M&O contractorfrom NREL and came on full time
as the program manager to runthis 'cause he really loves to
(47:48):
join office. I'm just gonnaspeak for him. And everybody
that works with us--whetherthey're from Google or Lyft or
Rivian or a utility or New YorkCity DOT--they love working
with this team on things thatmatter. And I do, too.
Allan Rutter (48:06):
And that's a great way to close things out.
Gentlemen, thanks again forspending time with us on this
very important subject andthanks a lot for participating.
Gabriel Klein (48:17):
Absolutely. And also, it was great to meet Joe
and get to know him and moreabout what your organization's
working on. So thanks forhaving us, getting the word
out, and I get to meet Joe.
Joe Zietsman (48:28):
Likewise. It was a pleasure, Gabe, to hang out
with you during this podcastand what an honor to be able to
work with the joint office andsee how we can take this
further.
Gabriel Klein (48:38):
All right , beers in Texas next time.
Allan Rutter (48:40):
There you go.
Nearly 75 years ago, TTI wascreated by the board of the
Texas A&M College System to bethe agency of the system to "do
highway research for and onbehalf of the state of Texas
and the State HighwayDepartment." Our first focus
(49:00):
was to engage in research inthe various forms of
transportation of persons andproperty or activity concerned
with the movement of personsand things . Today, the
movement of persons and thingsthat we study includes vehicles
with increasing levels ofonboard technologies and
increasing energy efficiency.
(49:22):
We'll continue to monitor theadoption curves for these new
power systems for cars andtrucks, and how the changing
vehicle mix will affecttransportation funding, energy
production in Texas, and motorvehicle supply chains in the
state. Thanks for listening.
Please take just a minute togive us a review, subscribe and
(49:44):
share this episode, and pleasejoin us next time for another
conversation about gettingourselves and the stuff we need
from point A to point B.
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute, amember of the Texas A&M
University System. The show isedited and produced by Chris
(50:06):
Pourteau. I'm your new host,Allan Rutter. Thanks again for
listening. We'll see you nexttime .
Hey everyone.
Welcome to ThinkingTransportation--conversations
about how we get ourselves andthe stuff we need from one
place to another. I'm AllanRutter with the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute. Manyof our listeners may have
noticed that NFL footballresumed earlier this September,
with televised games over afive-day period, and lots of
(00:37):
folks were watching. ForbesMagazine reports that in 2023,
93 of the hundred highest ratedTV shows were NFL games. That
attracts a lot of high-pricedadvertising. My own
unscientific analysis of theads on the games I watched
breaks down into three buckets: beer, sports gambling, and (00:54):
undefined
motor vehicles--mostly electricvehicles. In today's episode,
we're going to hear about someof the issues associated with
electric vehicles, as thepublic sector is responding to
and encouraging the adoption ofelectric cars, trucks, and
(01:15):
buses. Today we're welcomingGabe Klein, the executive
director of the Joint Office ofEnergy and Transportation in
the United States Department ofEnergy and the United States
Department of Transportation.
And Joe Zietsman, deputy agencydirector of the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute. Gabeand Joe, thanks for joining us.
(01:38):
There's just so much going onin both of your worlds
transportation and energy, andso much overlap involving both
research and public policy. Soif you would, let's talk a
little bit about what you doand how your agency rules
relate to each other. Gabe, canyou tell us a little bit about
this new Joint Office of Energyand Transportation, its
(02:00):
organization, and its mission?
Gabriel Klein (02:03):
Absolutely. And thanks Allan for having me
today. It's great to be here.
So, the joint office wascreated in late 2021 as part of
the bipartisan infrastructurelaw. We were given a $300
million operating budget tosupport about $20 billion in
capital spend on a combinationof charging stations, hydrogen
(02:27):
fueling CNG, LNG, and then alsorolling stock--which is a
technical term for buses, bothtransit buses and school
buses--which are EPA and FTAprograms, the Environmental
Protection Agency and theFederal Transit Administration.
We really got up and running inearly 2022. I was hired in
(02:48):
September, or I was brought onin September of 2022. Our focus
is supporting the build out ofa nationwide network of zero
emission fueling and charginginfrastructure as well as the
zero emission transit andschool buses. And we do that by
working to align the resourcesand the expertise that's across
(03:12):
the federal government andthere's so much in different
places in HUD, in EPA, incommerce with tax credits. And
then what we do is we work tounify guidance across all of
these entities. We work toprovide technical assistance
and analysis for theseprograms, but we also work
closely with the White House.
(03:33):
We're involved with them quitea bit on policy formulation for
our agencies. And I would saywe do a lot of analysis, data
analysis with the nationallabs. We work particularly with
the National Renewable EnergyLab, the Argonne National Lab,
but also with two or threeothers. And that gives us the
(03:54):
information that we need tosupport policy recommendations
that we're making. Ourinteraction day to day --the
most interaction that we haveis with states and increasingly
with regions throughmetropolitan planning
organizations and cities. Aswell as--and this is heartening
to me is --you know really I'ma private-sector person, a lot
(04:17):
of private-sector coordination,interaction support. We've spun
up something called the ChargeX Consortium with over 90
companies working together toincrease the reliability and
usability of chargers forinstance. And I can go on and
on, but I'm gonna pause therebecause that's probably 80
percent of what people need toknow.
Allan Rutter (04:40):
Well, thanks, Gabe. It is remarkable that you
guys have been able toaccomplish as much as you have
since the creation of theagency in the infrastructure
bill. Joe, tell us a little bitabout your organizational role
within TTI and your work withthe Center for Advancing
Research and TransportationEmissions Energy and Health, or
CARTEEH.
Joe Zietsman (05:01):
Sure. Thank you, Allan, for having me. And Gabe,
it's a pleasure to be havingthis conversation with you, so
thank you for that. As Allansaid, I'm the deputy agency
director of TTI, and in my roleI serve as the chief research
officer of TTI, and I overseeTT i's research portfolio. We
(05:21):
have more than 400 dedicatedresearchers working for TTI on
a daily basis serving realworld transportation problems.
So it's just a great honor anda pleasure to be working with
such a talented group ofindividuals at TTI. And we are
organized into five groups atthe institute. Basically, it's
planning, operations,infrastructure, safety, and
(05:44):
environment. And as Allanalluded, I'm also the director
of CARTEEH, and the focus ofCARTEEH is basically on the
intersection of health andtransportation. And what Gabe
is talking about withelectrification and bringing
energy and transportationtogether has a really big
impact on public health. Andthat is why our center about
(06:08):
six years ago got very, veryinterested in this
electrification space andelectrified mobility. And we
are very focused on what arethe health implications of
electric vehicles andelectrified mobility.
Allan Rutter (06:22):
That leads us to the next part of our
conversation, which is, youknow, as we think about the
effort to expand the use ofelectric cars, trucks, and
buses, it seems like one of themost persistent obstacles is
the number of chargingstations. And a lot of the
discussion comes down toconsumer demand. Will more
charging stations help to sellmore cars, or will selling more
(06:45):
cars create more chargingstations? Gabe, maybe you start
us off talking about that.
Gabriel Klein (06:50):
Yeah, I mean it's very much chicken and egg.
What's interesting is thestudies that we've done with
NREL, the National RenewableEnergy Laboratory, show us that
we need about 28 and a halfvehicles to charge a ratio
that's ideal in the UnitedStates with our land use and so
on and so forth. That'sactually where we are. So
(07:11):
what's interesting is from araw number perspective, we're
not doing badly and we havedoubled the network through all
of the different incentives inthe IRA bill--bipartisan
infrastructure law--and a lotof private-sector investment on
the back of that. And now youhave the public-sector dollars
kicking in. However, what wedon't have is the right
(07:35):
geographic coverage necessarilythat we need the right density
of level-two charging stations,for instance in cities; the
right number of DC fastchargers and level-two chargers
in all suburban areas and onall highways. That's why the
work that we're doing is soimportant to plug the gaps,
(07:56):
plug the holes . You know, whenthe president set the goal of
500,000 chargers, it wasn'tthat we're gonna build 500,000
chargers by 2030. It's thatwe're gonna facilitate the
building of that and we'regonna fill the gap , supplement
that, particularly from anequity standpoint, we're gonna
put chargers where maybe theprivate sector won't on their
own, right? So that's a longsort of way of saying, we are
(08:21):
actually in a pretty goodposition, but the number of
Americans that have actuallyused an electric car is
actually relatively small,right? And so there was a Wall
Street Journal piece maybeabout a week and a half ago. I
thought was fascinating, a veryinteresting piece. It was sort
of a first person op-ed typepiece by a writer there that
had been sort of anti-EVbefore. And then Kia loaned him
(08:45):
a new Kia EV9, and not only didhe love the vehicle, but he
realized that he could plug itinto a standard outlet in the
wall in his garage and he got90% of his charging from a 110
outlet in the wall, and thenonce that week plugged it into
a level two charger when heneeded it. And so I think it's
gonna take a little while forpeople worldwide, but
(09:07):
particularly here in the US,where a big country with a lot
of different geographies andland uses to have that
experience or to know somebodythat has the experience that
actually there's a wholeparadigm shift in charging and
that you may not go to a " gasstation" very often. I've
probably been to one 30 timesto a supercharger or a regular
(09:30):
DC fast charger in the sixyears that I've owned an EV.
And so, really, I think some ofthis is a bit of a culture
shift. It's a bit of a changemanagement challenge, if you
will.
Allan Rutter (09:42):
And Gabe, like you were saying, so much of
that is about telling the storyto each other. It's one thing
to have an officialpronouncement on policy, but
it's another to have a neighboror a friend or somebody from
church say, "Actually thisactually works."
Gabriel Klein (09:58):
Right, it works.
It's faster, better, cheaper.
And I'm not going back to acombustion-fueled vehicle. I
mean I can't imagine that likethe McKinsey survey that came
out said the majority of peoplewho have an EV are gonna go
back to an ICE[internal combustion engine]
vehicle, which is at odds withevery piece of data we've ever
seen from anybody. CoxAutomotive, JD Power, NREL,
(10:20):
which says overwhelminglypeople will be buying another
EV ,to the tune of like 90percent. I mean it's hard to
imagine going back and there'sso few moving parts that you
don't have to deal with a lotof maintenance and operations
costs.
Allan Rutter (10:34):
So, as we've talked about sort of personal
vehicles, one of the things youhad mentioned, Gabe, was that
transit buses and school busesare also in the mix,
particularly as publicly ownedvehicles. How is the federal
government helping with that?
Gabriel Klein (10:49):
Yeah, you know about half that almost $20
billion portfolio I talkedabout that we're supporting is
actually EPA's clean school busprogram and FTA's low/no
emissions bus program--it'sabout 10.6 billion. We're
partnering with both entitiesand the National Renewable
Energy Lab to offer technicalassistance. They are both
(11:11):
buses, but it's interesting,they are different, and the
duty cycles are a bit differentin terms of the way they're
used day to day . Also, theprograms are designed
differently where EPA's programis a rebate program, where any
school district can go out andbuy a bus and then get a rebate
for it. The FTA is more oftheir traditional grant-funding
(11:33):
model. But there's been like2.8 billion, almost a thousand
awards from EPA replacingalmost 9,000 buses. And then
you've got FTA with billions ofdollars out there on the
transit front. And we're seeinga tremendous amount of
interest--particularly in theschool bus side I would say--in
(11:55):
our assistance in planningrouting, figuring out how big
the batteries need to be. Like,some of it is very technical,
some of it's more businesscase, some of it's helping them
figure out how to talk to theschool board about the benefits
and what they're trying to do.
So, we're very excited aboutthat and I just wanna be clear
(12:16):
that the joint office is hereto support the electrification
of everything, alltransportation modes. I get
around on an electric bike mostof the time. I find it to be
faster, more efficient andbetter for my health. And so
it's about the right envelopeif you will, the right type of
vehicle for the right uses.
Allan Rutter (12:35):
Joe, it strikes me that thinking about the
whole mix of vehicles of allkinds of users, all kinds of
owners--that's part of what youguys have had to consider as
part of the UniversityTransportation Center that you
guys run at CARTEEH, is thatright?
Joe Zietsman (12:51):
Yeah, absolutely Allan, and I'll follow up a
little bit on what Gabediscussed. I'm like him an EV
owner--actually my wife ownsthe EV, but we have it in our
household--and I sometimes gotake it for a good spin and
it's a wonderful experience todrive the EV, and it's very
comfortable, very easy to use.
So that's very true. I do havea couple of colleagues who
(13:12):
owned EVs and they went back toICE vehicles just for the fact
that they get a little bitworried about range anxiety and
just their lifestyle and theway they operate. So, there are
a couple data points that saywow, it's not exactly for them,
but for the most part, onceyou're in the EV you don't want
to get out of it. So, I'm alsoon that bandwagon right now.
(13:32):
So, coming back to your pointAllan--and you know one thing I
also want to just talk aboutreal quick is coming back to
the school buses. I do want totouch on that, and it comes
back to emissions. So, that'san area that we at CARTEEH
really study very heavily, andschool buses is, as far as we
are concerned, super importantbecause we're talking about the
kids, their health, theirdeveloping lungs, the fact that
(13:56):
they breathe bad air, and howimportant that is for society
that we keep our kids healthy.
And these diesel buses, the olddiesel buses , uh, school buses
are terrible, and it's not onlythe kids riding the buses but
also the kids at school andwhere these buses are idling.
So, what Gabe in his office isdoing and EPA and FTA is just
(14:16):
tremendous in terms ofreplacing old diesel buses with
electric buses. So, that'sfantastic. Again, it's zero
tailpipe emissions, but it'snot zero emissions per se. So,
we need to remember that thereis some charging. I mean, you
have to actually generate thepower, and if it's renewable
resources that's being used,it's great. Twenty percent of
(14:38):
the US sources for powergeneration is renewable. So,
that's great, and that trend isexpanding. The good news about
that is more renewable iscoming, and also where the
emissions is created is notexactly where the problem areas
are necessarily. So, it's awayfrom the downtowns, it's away
from the schools, et cetera.
(14:58):
So, that is why thiselectrification wave is very,
very important from a healthperspective. And then, in
addition to emissions comingfrom the power generation,
there's also emissions fromtire wear and brake wear . And
with electric vehicles beingheavier, we need to make sure
that we understand that andalso calculate that and measure
that as we move forward. SoAllan, yes, school buses is
(15:21):
something that is a big part ofwhat we do and look at at
CARTEEH. And, then obviously,light-duty vehicles in terms of
EVs is something that's reallypenetrating the market. It's
very important. We are lookingat that. And then, to a lesser
extent and a little bit morelong term, will be the
heavy-duty vehicles we mightget a little bit. But that's
(15:43):
from the perspective ofCARTEEH.
Allan Rutter (15:46):
You mentioned the particulate matter associated
with car use of heaviervehicles, which is my next
subject. EVs tend to be or, atleast, the array batteries
might be a little heavier thana typical car engine, which has
implications for how vehiclesinteract with others on the
road and with roadsidehardware. How are the offices
(16:07):
of the research labs and thefolks at DOT thinking about how
to address the challengesassociated with how these
different vehicles perform onthe road itself?
Gabriel Klein (16:18):
Yeah , I am by background more on the
transportation side, actually,than the energy side having run
two DOTs, and then worked inthe transportation area more.
And this has always been anissue, particularly in cities
where, as Joe was saying, youhave a density of people, you
have vehicles that need to comeinto the city, and you've got a
(16:39):
lot of emissions, if you will,of all types. So, this
particular issue falls underthe jurisdiction of the Federal
Highway Administration, whichis part of the Department of
Transportation. And they tendto say, "Hey, safety is our
biggest priority." And I think,when we think about safety, we
(16:59):
have to think about the peopleinside the vehicle--and NHTSA
has given five-star safetyratings to lots of electric
vehicles--but we also have tothink about the people outside
of the vehicle. And there's alot of research going into
that, whether it's increasingthe safety of guardrails and
the ability to handle heaviervehicles; particulate matter
(17:22):
from tires and looking atalternative materials or
additives to rubber. But wehave to think about people
outside the vehicle and, youknow, we take that extremely
seriously. I think that theprivate sector is as well, and
not just from a safetystandpoint but from a cost
standpoint. Jim Farley, the CEOof Ford Motor Company, was
(17:42):
recently interviewed and talkedabout how from his standpoint,
we need to right-size thevehicle for the use and that
very large vehicles with verylarge batteries for consumers
were never gonna be profitablefor Ford. I thought that was
very interesting, and I'm a bigproponent of that myself. I
(18:03):
choose to use a very smallvehicle in the city. It's an
electric bicycle, and I have afew of them. And I do think
that we can provide a moreequitable system,
cost-effective system, andsafer system if we look at the
weight and the size ofvehicles, particularly in
urbanized areas but also ininner ring suburbs for
(18:24):
instance--for the safety of allpeople, not just the folks
inside the car or the truck.
Allan Rutter (18:33):
And, of course, one of the things, Gabe, you
mentioned there is guardrailresearch and one of the five
research areas that Joe'sresponsible for is our safety
guys , including our crash testproving grounds here on the
RELLIS campus where we've donecrash testing for much of our
75-year history.
Gabriel Klein (18:52):
That's great.
Allan Rutter (18:53):
Now, we've talked a little bit about challenges
on chargers and safety, butapart from the challenges,
electric vehicles clearly havesome advantages. Joe, why don't
you start by talking about someof the advantages that electric
vehicles have in a broad range.
Joe Zietsman (19:11):
Some of the advantages obviously is--being
a person working in the airquality, the emission
space--clearly, there's sometremendous benefits on the
health side where, even if youlook at it cradle to grave or
full lifecycle on average anelectric vehicle probably gives
you a third of the emissions,if you add everything up to an
(19:34):
internal combustion enginevehicle, it depends on so many
factors, but still it's a hugedelta. And, also like we
discussed earlier, the locationwhere the emissions get
generated is important. And, inthis case, it's typically not
where, always where the problemareas are. Another area that we
are looking at in CARTEEH isthe area of noise pollution.
(19:56):
That's one of the connectionsor intersections between health
and transportation. So, noiseis a big deal, much bigger than
people initially thought. A lotof people get physically sick
because of noise pollution andelectric vehicles are obviously
very quiet compared to internalcombustion engine vehicles. So,
that's a tremendous benefit.
(20:18):
Gabe hinted earlier about themaintenance, and I'm
experiencing that myself withour EV at home. Maintenance is
just almost non-existent. It'sjust, you replace the tires and
then you're good to go. There'salso a feel-good element about
it because you are contributingto the environment, to
emissions, to the climateproblem and greenhouse gases.
(20:41):
So, there's some factor ofthat, and it's really a fun
vehicle to drive. So, when youget into an EV, you cannot
really describe it to somebodyexcept if they've really
experienced that themselves.
And, I've also noticed that incertain metropolitan areas, the
high-occupancy vehicle lanes orsome designated parking spots
are available for EVs. So, youget some preferential treatment
(21:04):
if you show up with yourelectric vehicle. So, there
clearly benefits from what I'veexperienced owning and
operating an electric vehicle.
Allan Rutter (21:12):
Gabe, talk about some of the things that your
guys in your office have beeneither hearing from or sharing
with the people you work withon what are some of the
benefits of EVs that Joe hasn'ttalked about yet?
Gabriel Klein (21:25):
Yeah , well Joe did a great job running it
down. And, I think the onlything I would add is just the
huge potential cost savings.
Gas fluctuates up and down. Notthat electricity doesn't, but
it's generally more reliable.
And if you figure out a way, apattern of charging your
vehicle, particularly at nightat a level-two charger or a
(21:46):
level-one charger. 'Cause theaverage person's driving less
than a hundred miles a week,cars sit 95 percent of the
time. And so, there's a hugecost saving 'cause you have to
carry the cost of your vehicle,whatever that vehicle is and
depreciation and insurance andall that. But the fuel is a big
component. And then last, Iwould just say that I think
(22:08):
there's gonna be a bigopportunity for shared
vehicles, whether it's youknow, transit and school buses,
which are shared vehicles. Imean, airplanes are shared
vehicles for that matter, butalso car sharing , bike
sharing, scooter sharing, andwe're seeing a lot of interest
in that. We have two fundingopportunities where we've been
facilitating investments inthose businesses. Obviously,
(22:31):
they work better in moreurbanized areas, but there's
real interest in how do youtake an electric vehicle and
either fractionally share it ordelivered on demand access to
it or delivered rental, so onand so forth. And ride hail
--we're seeing a lot of ridehail drivers move to either
(22:51):
used electric vehicles with anew $4,000 tax credit for a sub
$25,000 used vehicle or a newone or a rental. And that's
eliminating a lot of missions,particularly to and from
airports.
Allan Rutter (23:05):
So, one of the things that we've talked about
a little bit is on the powergrid itself in expanding
electric power capacity to meetthe need that's created by
charging stations and thevehicles. What's the balance so
that demand doesn't overwhelmsupply of power? That strikes
me as given the Joint Office ofEnergy and Transportation,
(23:26):
Gabe, that's one of the thingsthat you guys are working with.
Gabriel Klein (23:30):
Yeah, so we work with, as I said NREL, the
National Renewable EnergyLaboratory, Lawrence Berkeley
National Lab on this. And wedid a study with them and
Kevala, which is a privatecompany in the data business,
and it's called theTransportation Electrification
Impact Study, if people wannalook it up. And the goal was to
(23:51):
help answer technical anddeployment questions. 'Cause
people keep saying can the gridaccommodate all these new
demands from transportation?
It's really amazing. The studywent down to like the feeder
level and looked at thecharging network, the
associated distribution gridthat's needed to support
(24:11):
increased adoption. And, it'snot what you would think it
would be. The key takeawayswere that we're gonna have an
incremental increase of 3percent in annual electric
vehicle charging infrastructureinstallations to support what
we need. And yeah, wedefinitely need to invest in
(24:32):
the grid, particularly for theDC fast chargers, which put
more of a strain 'cause you'repumping a bunch of electrons
through there for your vehiclevery quickly. But for a
level-two charger, that's likeplugging in a dryer, right? So
it's not really adding thatmuch load. So, the study said
(24:53):
that we need incrementaldistribution grid investments
that equate to approximately 3percent of their current annual
investments. But here's thekicker, this is what's really
important is that if we usemanaged charging, which is the
ability to have your vehicletalk to the charger, your
(25:13):
charger talk to the utility,and actually manage when we
charge and when we use otherenergy resources right in our
homes for instance in ourbuildings, that we could have a
30 percent reduction, actually,in those annual utility
investments. So, we are makinga big push into managed
(25:36):
charging. We hope to have theframework in place within the
next year so we haveinteroperable charging
throughout the United Stateswhere you can plug in anywhere.
And some of the things thatwe're doing to build that
system are also the futureproofing basics that we're
gonna need for managed chargingacross the country. So, there's
(25:59):
a lot happening behind thescenes that's gonna change the
way people view the electricvehicle from a way to get
around to a way to power yourhome to a way to cut your costs
and to do other things that wehaven't even figured out yet as
we delve into this more .
Allan Rutter (26:16):
So, it strikes me, one of the things I'm
hearing you say, Gabe, is thaton the one hand transportation
represents about 28 percent oftotal emissions, but in terms
of power use, it's not nearly athird of all power that's
needed.
Gabriel Klein (26:31):
Correct. And, we have the ability over time, we
can charge a vehicle at nightfully, and then we can sell
back to the grid at peak. So,during the day when somebody's
running their airconditioner--it's 102 degrees
in Fort Worth--but they chargedtheir car at night when it was
(26:53):
cooler and people weren'trunning their air conditioning
as much. They could make aprofit on that they could sell
back at peak and help theutility by avoiding the build
out of infrastructure for justpeak load . So, I mean this is
really a revolution and it'snot just EVs. There's other
distributed energy resources wecall them , but the batteries
(27:16):
in the vehicles can beutilized, actually save us
money, save taxpayers money andsave individuals money on their
electric bills.
Allan Rutter (27:26):
Which is another way of getting into some of the
benefits. It strikes me that,at least to some degree public
attitudes about vehicleelectrification are rooted in
how people feel about thenatural environment, which is
related by how people feelabout climate change. How are
some of the ways that we mightmove beyond the divisive nature
of that particular issue totalk about some of these bigger
(27:48):
goals of reducing costs, makingquality of life--that's a
little broader. Joe, maybeyou'd start us talking about
some of those, what you'veheard from people about their
attitudes about theenvironment.
Joe Zietsman (28:02):
Sure. And I want to touch on managed charging
that Gabe brought up. So, atTTI, we are expanding our
emissions testing capability.
So we have this largeenvironmental test chamber
where we can take in a few full-size vehicle--actually a
full-size truck, the tractorand the trailer--and a
controlled temperature andhumidity in this environmental
(28:24):
test chamber to test theemissions and other important
performance indicators that wewant to test in the controlled
environment. So, we'reexpanding that facility to be a
electric vehicle testingfacility as well. So, in other
words, we are expanding thecooling capability to hit minus
40 and go all the way up to200. We are putting in a
(28:45):
heavy-duty chassis dynamometerso we can drive the vehicle
even up to 85 miles per hourinside the chamber and expose
it to all these differentconditions of pulling a load,
driving up a hill,accelerating, decelerating, et
cetera. And then, we are alsoincluding what we call a
electric building or a powerbuilding that has got all the
(29:07):
electric components that Gabehinted to as well like
chargers, load bank generators,et cetera. So, we could
actually do a totalvehicle-to-grid, grid
-to-vehicle, empiricalreal-world testing scenarios,
and we can test what that lookslike because coming back to
your earlier question Allan,which is so important, you
know, "can the grid handle it?"So, the way to handle it is
(29:29):
like , uh, Gabe hinted isthrough managed charging and
now we can in a controlledenvironment do all the testing
and figure out how that works,how do we send power back to
the grid, under what conditionswould be the impact on the
grid, on batteries, et cetera.
So, I just wanted to mentionthat because it's a very
exciting development and weshould be opening that facility
(29:53):
for this kind of testing by thespring of 2025. So, we're super
excited about that, and I thinkit ties back to what we
discussed earlier and coming upwith information and we don't
have to only rely on litreviews and modeling to
understand what's gonna happento the grid and the power
system. And your questionabout, you know, in our CARTEEH
(30:14):
center , how do we make surethat we address these big
issues of climate and theenvironment and health and make
sure that folks get behindthose big topics. It is not
easy. All those topics are atsome level politically charged.
So we need to be careful andaware of that. So, how we
(30:35):
address that, if we are alwaysbasing it on the facts and the
data, then that's the way to doit. And that is what TTI is
known for. We are anindependent third-party broker
when it comes to informationand providing unbiased
information so that decisionmakers like the joint office
can make the decisions. So, weprovide the information for
(30:58):
them and that's our role inthat . We need to be very
cautious of that. A lot of thedecisions and a lot of the
things we talk about here whenit comes to electrification is
economics based . So, people doultimately make their decisions
based on the bottom line andwhether it makes economic sense
for them. And we are definitelymoving to a position where
these kind of EVs are beginningto make more and more economic
(31:22):
sense. So, tax credits and allthose kind of things are very,
very important when folks makedecisions about EVs, even
though all of them at somelevel understand that they want
to contribute to theenvironment and social
responsibility.
Allan Rutter (31:36):
One of the things that I think Joe just
discussed, and one of thethings I'm hearing from the
creation of the joint office,things may not be as divided as
people think they are. Theinfrastructure bill itself was
the bipartisan infrastructurelaw. That's why the, the
administration calls itthat--19 Republican senators
signed on for that. When youthink about the number of
(31:58):
states, municipalities,regional governments, NPOs from
across states of all kinds ofstripes, all of those guys are
going for some of the grantsthat you guys are providing,
Gabe. So, it strikes me thatyou are in a position to see
that there's a lot moreinterest in the kinds of stuff
you're doing than might beexhibited in the current
(32:20):
political climate.
Gabriel Klein (32:22):
Absolutely.
Look, I was in London,Amsterdam, Paris recently
meeting with the national andlocal governments there. We had
a team down in Mexico recentlyworking with them . Nowhere in
the world is climate change apolitical issue in terms of is
it real or not, except for theUnited States. When you go to
(32:43):
the rest of the world, there'sno question. Now there can be a
political conversation abouthow do we wanna deal with it?
How fast, what are the costs,who's gonna bear them ? All of
that. But we need to movebeyond that. It's just time.
And I think to Joe's point, theway to do that is with data.
But I would go a step further,and I would say in the US
(33:03):
what's really important is thebusiness case. And from an
economic standpoint, I meanwe've created hundreds of
thousands of jobs through thebipartisan infrastructure law,
IRA, the CHIPS Act, which isclosely tied to this because we
need chips and all thesevehicles and chargers. The rest
of the world's moving forward,China's moving forward. Are we
(33:26):
gonna move forward at thatpace? Are we gonna build this
equipment, these vehicles,these systems, the technology
systems that support them inthe United States or are we
gonna let the rest of the worldtake over? And so I think when
you start to make that economicargument and you show the
investments--which, by the way,most of the investments, the
(33:48):
majority have been in red andpurple states--I think it's
hard for people to argue, andyou layer on top of that the
personal benefits that theyget, the cost savings and so on
and so forth, and thingschange. The problem is with the
fearmongering, that happenssometimes in politics that has
a damaging impact. And then youcreate this sort of
(34:10):
tribalization, if you will,around propulsion types of
vehicles and things, whichreally don't need to be there.
So as a nonpolitical ingovernment, I want to rely on
the data, I want to rely onwhat's best for the American
people, the jobs, the clean airfor our children and for the
next generation. And that's thereality of what we're selling
(34:32):
and that's the reality of whatwe're building and fulfilling.
Allan Rutter (34:35):
And, Gabe , you mentioning the the private
sector investment , that'scertainly one of the things
that's happening in the stateof Texas over the past four or
five years. You mentioned theCHIPS Act. There are enormous,
multi-billion dollarinvestments going on--Texas
instruments and Samsung andGlobal in Texas. The other part
of that is over the last decadethe percentage of renewables
(34:58):
that are part of our electricgrid, all you have to do is
drive into West Texas and seethe wind farms and other things
that are happening to know thatit's not just about the
Permian, it's about a wholeother range of things. Which
kind of leads us into the nextquestion about sort of the
public- and private-sectorinvestment. As we've provided
for vehicle transportation inour history, it's involved a
(35:21):
combination of public- andprivate-sector players,.
Governments build roads andbridges, private sector builds
gas stations and truck stops...
As the power source for carsand trucks moves away from gas
and diesel, what are the kindsof public-private models
changing as we provide some ofthat energy and the vehicles
themselves? What's likely tochange both near term and
(35:44):
longer term ?
Gabriel Klein (35:45):
It's very interesting to watch it evolve,
and I've learned a lot, I'll behonest with you, on the energy
side. I wasn't aware when Itook this job that we had over
3,000 utilities in thiscountry, and some of them are
investor owned , some of themare owned by the
municipalities. So, you have acombination of public and
private just in that industry,and then you've got the the
(36:07):
regulatory bodies and entitiesthat oversee and work with them
and set rates. Then, you've gotthe private-sector companies
that are building and operatingthese networks. And, I think,
everybody out there needs toknow that while the federal
government is incentivizing andplugging gaps--we call it gap
filling --with our funding;it's dwarfed, dwarfed by the
(36:31):
private-sector investment.
First of all, you know we gotpublic and private investments
in EV charging around $24billion thus far, with a lot of
onshoring of jobs happeningbecause of Buy America . So our
seven and a half billion is adown payment, if you will, on
what's ultimately gonna beprobably $70 to $80 billion.
(36:54):
But when the government sayshey we're gonna align policy
and funding, even if it's at asmall level, that allows the
private sector to act and actquickly. And so in terms of the
models that we're seeing, wewith Federal Highways and FTA
and EPA, we send money out tostates, state energy agencies,
(37:14):
departments oftransportation--now also to
again regional metropolitanplanning organizations,
cities--they are contractingwith the private sector
overwhelmingly, almostexclusively. Sometimes, they'll
let them use their land,sometimes it's on private
property, but the people outthere need to know this system
(37:35):
is being built, operated andmaintained by the private
sector. And somestates--Colorado is
sub-allocating most of theirfunding and saying, yeah, we
need to build a network every50 miles, we need four ports
but we're gonna let eachjurisdiction go out there and
actually do that and contractthat others are contracting for
(37:57):
their entire state themselves.
And a lot of it depends on thegeography, the politics, their
experience. In the past it wasinteresting going to Europe
'cause you realize like eachone of their countries is like
one of our states. But it'sstill interesting. I posted
yesterday on LinkedIn, it'samazing that Norway's gonna hit
their goal of a hundred percentelectric vehicles sold by 25.
(38:18):
They hit 95% so far in 24. Theyset a goal and they gave the
carrots and the sticks, and nowthey're gonna do it. And I
think you're gonna see stateshere that are gonna do the same
thing. And Texas, by the way,is a shining star a red
state--some people say red,some say purple--doing a
phenomenal job on the chargingnetwork, luring companies, and
(38:43):
selling electric vehicles now.
It's great. Go Texas!
Allan Rutter (38:47):
Now, which leads us to, one ofthe things I'm hearing about is
there's excitement both you andJoe have for your work, the
enthusiasm you bring to it. ButI'm guessing it's not all
sunshine and flowers all thetime. One of my friends puts it
, it's not all puppies andkittens. What's one of the
things you feel most optimisticabout right now? What's the
(39:09):
thing that you're the mostexcited about? Joe, I'll let
you start.
Joe Zietsman (39:13):
Well, we're talking electric vehicles and
it is a true game changer fromthe perspective of the
transportation system. Youknow, I've been in
transportation all my career,35 plus years. So, used to be
the vehicles and theinfrastructure. Now, we see it
as the vehicles, theinfrastructure and the power
grid, and overlaying all ofthat is basically data and
(39:37):
communication. It's a totaldifferent world and it's
exciting. And, what reallygives me some optimism is
because, you know, at somepoint I'll be moving on, and I
would like to see younger folksstep into leadership positions
and take over and do thingsthat we were not able to do.
And the best thing we can hopefor is we leave things in a
(39:58):
place where it's a little bitbetter than what we found it,
but these young superstars takeover and they really solve
these big problems. So, I'msuper excited to see a lot of
young people being up to thechallenge. They are not stuck
in their silos, they're seeingthis as a much bigger, much
more multidisciplinary problem.
They're open to that and theyare collaborative, and they are
(40:21):
just ready for this challenge.
So that is giving me theexcitement that I need .
Allan Rutter (40:27):
Gabe, what are the things you're most
optimistic about?
Gabriel Klein (40:31):
So, I get JD Power's numbers every month. I
get a lot of data incoming, andwhat's really great for me is I
know now it's clearer than everwhere we're gonna be in 2030.
And that's where a lot of ourgoals are; and by 2035, and by
2040 on medium heavy duty .
Like, we know where we'reultimately going to be. It's
(40:51):
really just about pace to getthere. And the technology's
getting better and better allthe time. Batteries have gone
down 90 percent in price. Newinnovations in the private
sector and with research labsare gonna make batteries
better, longer, lighter. So, Iknow where we're gonna be. The
question is how fast do wewanna move? And I think that we
(41:15):
need to move as fast as humanlypossible for a bunch of
imperatives, including theclimate and the next
generation. I'm with Joe, theyoung people that I see out
there, they think there'snothing we can't do. They are
mission driven for the mostpart, and they wanna get this
done. And they're also open tousing all different types of
vehicles. They don't seethemselves as "I'm a car
(41:38):
driver" or "I'm a bus user" or"I'm a bike user." They're very
multimodal, and I think thatalso bodes well for the future.
Allan Rutter (41:47):
So the corollary to that question, which is what
are the things that keep you upat night about what's happening
next? I'll let Joe go with it.
Joe Zietsman (41:56):
Yes, Allan, being a transportation professional,
I think we all share this biggloomy topic of more than
40,000 deaths on our roadnetwork every single year. We
pretty much got numb to thatnumber and it just continues
and continues, and it'sunacceptable and we all agree
that it's unacceptable. It'sbeen like this since the
(42:18):
Seventies, you know, it's beenhovering since 30,000 to
50,000. So, I really feel thatit should be all hands on deck
that we can really pursueVision Zero. Electric vehicles
bring its own set ofchallenges. So, we need to make
sure that it doesn't add to theproblem. And, you know, with
its heavier weight and lowercenter of gravity, we did a
(42:40):
test recently at TTI testing aModel 3 Tesla. And, let's put
it this way, the barriers thatwere designed for conventional
light-duty vehicles didn'twork. So, this much heavier EV
with the lower center ofgravity went right through the
barrier . So, that's somethingthat's a challenge, and it
(43:00):
would keep me up at nightbecause being an EV driver,
myself and our family, we worryabout those things. So, that
needs to be fixed and moretesting, more evaluation needs
to be done. But there's a lotof things that we need to do to
address this issue of deaths onour roadway. And how do we get
to Vision Zero?
Allan Rutter (43:18):
Thanks Joe. Gabe, what are the things that keep
you up at night?
Gabriel Klein (43:21):
Well, first of all, beyond my job today and
everything I've worked on formy career, I a hundred percent
agree with Joe. I think it'sthe number one issue, and I
think that it's a healthcarecrisis in the United States and
we've gotta fix it. So, I justwanna say that the biggest
thing that I get nervous aboutin my job is the level of
(43:43):
misinformation you see outthere. And, I'll be straight
with you guys, even in themainstream press, everybody
wants clicks; everybody wantsmore eyeballs on their content.
So, you might have somebodywrite a great story--and this
happens to us all the time--andthen have a terrible headline.
We had a CNN piece come out,had a great headline and a
(44:06):
great story. It wasn't gettingenough clicks so the editor put
a terrible headline. It didn'teven really correlate with the
story the next day to getclicks. So, I think while the
internet is amazing and has theability to revolutionize, and
the AI is also fascinating, andmaybe technology should be
reducing these deaths on ourroadways, it's also increasing
(44:28):
the complexity of informationthat people have to take in.
And people are increasingly intheir little bubbles. And so,
when it comes to EVs, they maythink things that are
completely untrue, whether it'sabout cost , whether it's about
safety, whether it's about whobuilds them . And so, you know,
my hope is that I don't know ifit's regulation, I don't know
what happens, but that we havesome better consistency of
(44:51):
information so that data can'tbe misrepresented.
Allan Rutter (44:56):
At TTI, we very much appreciate that, Gabe.
Part of what Joe described asour role is a honest
third-party broker providingunbiased information so that
people can make good decisions.
And we really appreciate youspending some time with us
today so that we can advancethat cause of getting some
better information out. One ofthe things we close out our
(45:17):
episodes with is to ask ourfolks, what is it that
motivates you to show up forwork every day ? Joe, why don't
you start?
Joe Zietsman (45:26):
Well, I started out as a contractor in the
construction space, and then Imoved to planning in a big MPO,
and then I became a researcher.
So, I've experiencedtransportation from different
perspectives, and the last 10years has been so revolutionary
in terms of all the changes andeverything happening. So, I'm
(45:46):
just very fortunate to be ableto participate in this great
evolution in the transportationsystem, and being able to
provide some input as thathappens, and see how we can
make a difference. But,honestly, what makes me the
happiest come to work is thewonderful people here at TTI
that I get the pleasure and thehonor to work with--the
(46:09):
brilliance, the intelligence,the enthusiasm that I see here.
And just to be able to be partof that team and to play a
small part is just amazing. Andthen not only the folks at TTI
but also to be able to workwith clients and sponsors like
Gabe and his office and FHWA,Federal Highway Administration,
TxDOT, the USDOT and on and on,EPA. It's just a privilege and
(46:32):
a pleasure to be able to beworking in this space at this
time.
Allan Rutter (46:37):
Gabe, what gets you to work every day other
than your electric bike?
Gabriel Klein (46:41):
Yeah. Well, I'm a very mission-driven person. I
think most people are. But I'vehad the opportunity to really
pursue it, and I believestrongly that public and
private can work together. Ifyou have an environment where
you've got fiscally responsiblegovernment working with
socially responsiblecompanies--sort of, switching
(47:02):
hats if you will--there's nolimit to what we can accomplish
together. And I think, as I wassaying earlier, the imperatives
are there to work together touse technology for things that
matter versus things thatreally don't matter or are not
helpful, and great socialoutcomes, you know, which I
think are hugely important thatare also fiscally responsible,
(47:24):
which is what we're working on.
It's getting to show up andwork with people every day .
Like, the team that we've builtfrom a couple federal people to
now I think we have 40 people;Steve, who's on with us , from
the joint office and runs ourengagement and outreach and
media. He was a M&O contractorfrom NREL and came on full time
as the program manager to runthis 'cause he really loves to
(47:48):
join office. I'm just gonnaspeak for him. And everybody
that works with us--whetherthey're from Google or Lyft or
Rivian or a utility or New YorkCity DOT--they love working
with this team on things thatmatter. And I do, too.
Allan Rutter (48:06):
And that's a great way to close things out.
Gentlemen, thanks again forspending time with us on this
very important subject andthanks a lot for participating.
Gabriel Klein (48:17):
Absolutely. And also, it was great to meet Joe
and get to know him and moreabout what your organization's
working on. So thanks forhaving us, getting the word
out, and I get to meet Joe.
Joe Zietsman (48:28):
Likewise. It was a pleasure, Gabe, to hang out
with you during this podcastand what an honor to be able to
work with the joint office andsee how we can take this
further.
Gabriel Klein (48:38):
All right , beers in Texas next time.
Allan Rutter (48:40):
There you go.
Nearly 75 years ago, TTI wascreated by the board of the
Texas A&M College System to bethe agency of the system to "do
highway research for and onbehalf of the state of Texas
and the State HighwayDepartment." Our first focus
(49:00):
was to engage in research inthe various forms of
transportation of persons andproperty or activity concerned
with the movement of personsand things . Today, the
movement of persons and thingsthat we study includes vehicles
with increasing levels ofonboard technologies and
increasing energy efficiency.
(49:22):
We'll continue to monitor theadoption curves for these new
power systems for cars andtrucks, and how the changing
vehicle mix will affecttransportation funding, energy
production in Texas, and motorvehicle supply chains in the
state. Thanks for listening.
Please take just a minute togive us a review, subscribe and
(49:44):
share this episode, and pleasejoin us next time for another
conversation about gettingourselves and the stuff we need
from point A to point B.
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute, amember of the Texas A&M
University System. The show isedited and produced by Chris
(50:06):
Pourteau. I'm your new host,Allan Rutter. Thanks again for
listening. We'll see you nexttime .
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