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Few places in California are as unforgiving to drive an electric car as the remote and populated Imperial Valley.
There are only four public fast-charging stations spread across the valley’s 4,500 square miles, just north of the U. S. -Mexico border, according to the U. S. Department of Energy. That means if Greg Gelman — one of the 1,200 Imperial County citizens who owns an electric car — traveling almost anywhere is an infuriating logistical challenge.
“It’s been, I wouldn’t possibly say, a nightmare, but it’s been very, very, very inconvenient,” Gelman said recently afternoon as he charged his all-electric Mercedes-Benz at a charging station in a Bank of America parking lot. Would I do it again? No. “
California’s electric-charging “deserts,” such as the Imperial Valley, are one of the biggest obstacles to the state’s efforts to combat climate change and air pollutants by electrifying cars and trucks.
Experts say the slow installation of chargers in remote California spaces may jeopardize the phase-out of new gas-powered cars in the state. According to the state’s mandate, 35% of sales of 2026 models must be zero-emission, up to 68% by 2030 and 100% by 2035.
Located in the desert at the southeastern tip of California, Imperial County ranks last in terms of electric car ownership among California counties with a population of 100,000 or more, according to a 2023 CalMatters study of data. Only 7 out of every 1,000 cars there are battery-powered, compared to 51 out of every 1,000 statewide.
High poverty and unemployment are major factors in the region’s slow transition to electric cars, but the lack of public charging stations is also a major drawback.
According to a study conducted by the state’s Energy Commission, people living in low-income rural areas like the Imperial Valley are the least in need of electric car chargers. More than two-thirds of low-income California citizens are within a 10-minute drive. or more than one publicly accessible fast-charging station.
Luis Olmedo, executive director of El Comité Cívico del Valle, a nonprofit that campaigns for environmental justice, has been fighting for years against the Imperial Valley’s bad air. Now it’s targeting its supplier of zero-emission car charging stations.
Olmedo isn’t waiting for companies or the state to make chargers a reality in Imperial County. Instead, his organization embarked on a $5 million, high-stakes crusade to build a network of 40 fast-charging stations in different locations. It remains an open question whether his somewhat quixotic business will succeed.
Electric car chargers “are an opportunity for us to breathe cleaner air,” Olmedo said. “It’s a matter of fairness. It’s about justice. It’s about making sure everyone has chargers. “
Esther Conrad, a researcher at Stanford University who focuses on environmental sustainability, said getting chargers in places like Imperial County is critical to California’s efforts to transition to electric cars equitably. Apartment dwellers and those who don’t have a charging station in the house need nearby and reliable charging spots.
“When you have a rural network that’s low income and far from other places, it’s incredibly vital to allow other people to get where they want to go,” Conrad said.
A car is necessary to drive through Imperial County, which is the least populous county in Southern California.
Its neighborhoods are far from the urban centers that meet the needs of citizens: El Centro, its largest city, home to about 44,000 other people, is much closer to Mexicali, Mexico, than to San Diego, which is about two miles away. by car, or Riverside, only about 3 hours. Its highways and roads pass endless fields of lettuce and other crops that give way to shopping malls, apartments, and suburbs, and then even more crops and an open desert.
If you drive an electric car the 170 miles from El Centro to Palm Springs, its direction will take you to farmland, desert, and around California’s largest lake, the Salton Sea, which is also one of its greatest environmental calamities.
The Salton Sea has receded in recent years, causing poisonous dust to be spewed into the cities of the Imperial Valley. The region’s air quality is among the worst in the state, with dust storms and brown haze emanating from agricultural fires and factories in the valley. or across the border in Mexicali, a city of one million people.
About 16% of Imperial County’s 179,000 citizens suffer from asthma, which is higher than the state average. The air violates national suitability criteria for fine particulate matter or soot, as well as for ozone, the main element of smog; Both pollutants can lead to asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses.
More than 85% of Imperial County’s population is Latino and Spanish is widely spoken. Agriculture is the largest employer and many businesses rely on cross-border industry and trafficking from Mexico. The median household source of income in the county is $53,847. , well below the average source of state income, and 21% of citizens live in poverty.
Now, the discovery of lithium, used to make electric vehicle batteries, in the Salton Sea has prospects for the region’s economy. State officials say the depot could produce just 600,000 tons a year, valued at $7. 2 billion, and would help the U. S. in its attempts. to foster a domestic electric car industry that rivals China’s.
But Olmedo fears that when the ore is mined from the valley, it may not specifically replace other people’s livelihoods or health. He cites examples of emerging countries where local people were abandoned while extractive industries appropriated what they needed.
“We would possibly be on the verge of extracting the world’s source of lithium here, but we don’t even have the simplest, lowest offer which is: let’s build their chargers,” Olmedo said.
Last year, electric cars accounted for just 5% of all new cars sold in Imperial County, compared to 25% statewide. Installing chargers in rural and low-income spaces will become increasingly vital as California struggles to meet its ambitious climate goals.
The Energy Commission estimates that California will need 1. 01 million chargers outside private homes through 2030 and 2. 11 million through 2035, when more than 15 million electric cars are expected to be on the road. So far, the state only has about 105,000 non-personal chargers. Chargers.
Nick Nigro, founder of Atlas Public Policy, which studies the electric car market, said charging corporations will locate chargers in spaces where there are few electric vehicles.
“You want revenue, and if electric cars are there, then your consumers will necessarily be there, so you have a valid chicken-and-egg problem,” Nigro said. “We want to take a look at public policies to deal with this market failure. “
The Biden administration will invest $384 million in electric car infrastructure in California over five years. And state officials will invest about $2 billion in grants to fund zero-emission vehicle chargers over the next 4 years, adding special grants in rural and inland spaces for up to $80,000 consistent with the charger. Olmedo says the investment has been insufficient, so he has had to resort to donations and other investment resources.
Patty Monahan, one of five members of the California Energy Commission, said “it’s especially true that we see chargers” in the Imperial Valley and other low-income counties where air quality is poor.
The Imperial Valley has just 4 fast-charging stations open to the public, where chargers are capable of recharging batteries up to 80% in less than an hour, according to the U. S. Department of Energy. Three are in El Centro, adding an exclusive for Teslas. ; another is on the border with the city of Calexico and was recently installed through The Committee. Six other stations will only offer slower chargers.
Olmedo is planning a network of 40 publicly available charging stations in the valley. The Committee is awaiting investment from the California Energy Commission and has secured donations from the Waverley Streets Foundation, United Auto Workers and General Motors. investment.
Olmedo said he faces many demanding situations with his project, adding some local opposition and the top installation and maintenance charge.
At a warehouse in the city of Imperial where El Comité retail store shippers are, Jose Flores, allocation manager for the group’s charging initiative, said he and three colleagues spent four days in Santa Ana, about two hundred miles north, at a BTC-run facility. , the company that manufactures the chargers installed by El Comité.
They obtained education on installation and maintenance techniques and discussed the fact that not all chargers can be used in all electric vehicles. He learned about payment and cooling systems, and learned that chargers require more common maintenance due to the harsh desert situations of the Imperial Valley. .
“We’re like a floor because the air quality is bad here because of the Salton Sea and the fact that we’re in a desert,” he said.
The Committee installed its first charger at its Brawley headquarters in 2022. Last December, El Cívico pursued a more ambitious project: 4 of its fast chargers are now operating in a park in the border city of Calexico.
Chris Aldaz, 35, a U. S. Postal Service worker. A U. S. citizen who lives in Calexico gets paid at home, but uses chargers at the group’s headquarters in Brawley, which other people can use for free. This is point 2, which can take several hours to load. .
“The reason I wanted to buy an electric vehicle is because it’s cheaper,” Aldaz told CalMatters. “I don’t want to spend all that money on fuel and maintenance, and it’s better for the environment. “
However, electric car charging stations in Olmedo have a local political issue.
Maritza Hurtado, former mayor of Calexico and coordinator of a city council recall campaign, said it without mentioning that the committee built 4 charging stations for electric cars in a downtown park. The chargers were diverting attention “from the desires of our police and our actual desires for the network infrastructure,” Hurtado said at a public hearing at the county’s utility, the Imperial Irrigation District, in January. He declined to speak to CalMatters.
“We didn’t know they were going to take over our park,” Hurtado said at the hearing. “It is very provocative and disrespectful to our network for the Civic Committee to come to Calexico and take over our land. »
Olmedo hopes the chargers will eventually be something the county’s Latino network is proud of.
“Let’s put that in perspective: It’s an organization founded through farmworkers, an environmental justice organization, building the infrastructure. This is the lithium industry. We are the ones who build it ourselves.
Data journalist Erica Yee contributed to this report.
This county is California’s toughest charging “desert” for electric cars. Local activists need to replace that, according to an article by Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service that covers the blank energy transition. If you would like to collaborate with us, please make a donation.
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