Rodrigo Scott | GNP contributor
Abby Kimmel may be the only person in Pitt County who’s planning for an electric vehicle future.
The county government is “still in the beginning stages of the plan to transition some of the vehicles in the fleet to electric vehicles,” says the UNC School of Government Fellow who focuses on sustainability. “Currently we are evaluating the fleet by department to find vehicles that would be ideal candidates for EVs, allowing for the smoothest transition.”
She’s expected to be done with her work next year. But there’s a problem. “There is almost no help from anyone in our state to switch to EVs,” she says.
That lack of help shows. EVs are few among Pitt County’s vehicle registrations. They’re absent from local government vehicle fleets.
And throughout the county there is a lack of infrastructure for EVs, and while there’s funding to build it, other urban areas in North Carolina would get first crack at it. Pitt County and the city, towns and villages in it are far down the line.
It’s a double bind for local governments, the Greenville News Project found. They need money to transition their vehicle fleets into EVs. But they don’t have the money, so they’re not all that keen on EVs.
Little public interest
It’s not just a matter of money to buy EVs. It takes money to build the infrastructure EVs need. That means charging stations.
“I would say that the biggest hurdle is the lack of EV infrastructure or even general knowledge of EVs in our region compared to other parts of the state,” Kimmel said. “Because of this there is more skepticism of EVs and a notion that EVs are inconvenient just because people are not familiar with operating them.”
There’s another double bind. Until charging stations are as ubiquitous as gas stations, the public and their governments aren’t likely to go EV.
In fact, they haven’t. NC Department of Transportation vehicle registration data shows that as of August 2023, a fraction—three-tenths of one percent—of vehicles in Pitt County are electric. In all there were 122,963 registered vehicles in the county that month.
Plug-in hybrids that can run on gas and electricity scarcely mattered. They were one-tenth of one percent of vehicles in the county. Hybrids that charge themselves off their gas engines accounted for 1.7 percent. Gas and diesel powered the other 98 percent.
Statewide averages for EVs and hybrids small too. DOT records show that in August, one-half a percent of North Carolina’s 8.6 million vehicle registrations are EVs. Hybrids averaged 2.3 percent.
For all the ads about EVs and news stories that report more and more people buying EVs and hybrids, the fact is there seems to be little interest in transitioning out of combustion engines. It’s the infrastructure and funding.
“The cost is prohibitively expensive,” says Larry Davis, fleet superintendent at Greenville’s Public Works department. “We need infrastructure, such as charging stations, that the county can pay for, because the infrastructure just isn’t there.”
Pitt County Manager Janis Gallagher says the plan Kimmel is developing will pinpoint the costs of transitioning to EVs and plan possible charging station locations around the county.
“There are a lot of grant opportunities out there for local governments to get electric vehicles and corresponding charging equipment that Pitt County would like to take advantage of,” Kimmel said.
County goes it alone
While Pitt County’s government is looking to transition its fleet to electric-powered, local municipalities aren't following along. Farmville, Winterville, Ayden, Grifton and Grimesland say they don’t have the infrastructure or funding.
“We have no plans to convert over to EVs in the near future,” says Oryan Lowry, Grifton’s town manager. “The biggest hurdle for any municipality is funding.”
Many municipal governments don’t know of a viable way to receive funding even if they wanted to transition to EVs. They also don’t want to transition from what is already working for them.
Many municipal leaders describe a transition as a hassle because they don’t know where to begin, and it would take a lot of work properly do it.
Greenville Fire/Rescue has a fleet of150 vehicles, and they’re all of the combustion engine type. There are no plans to trade them for EVs.
“Consistent funding isn’t there, so we would struggle to purchase infrastructure,” says Fire/Rescue Chief Brock Davenport. “We don’t see the point because what we have is working for us.”
Pitt County Schools has one of the larger fleets in the area with 400 vehicles. It has five hybrid buses but no EVs.
PCS also has one of the only fleets in the area and that has it at least evaluating the possibility of moving into EV buses, but only on city routes. The school district does not have an estimate on a timeline, but it has seen various hurdles even with a fraction of its fleet being partially electric.
“Some hurdles for us are initial purchase cost, higher tire cost, [limited] operating range on a single charge, and lengthy overall charging times,” says Tom McClellan, a PCS public information officer.
Even some county departments are skeptical of transition to EVs. The “cost is prohibitively expensive, and we are looking for infrastructure that the county pays for,” says John Maynard, who manages the Sheriff’s Office’s fleet. “Even if we wanted to transition, the infrastructure just isn’t there.”
The Sheriff’s Office is not planning to go EV.
The ‘Kimmel’ plan
Kimmel's work in Pitt County is part of a UNC School of Government program called Lead for North Carolina.
Her work involves an assessment based on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s “Changing Forward” program. It’s described as a toolkit for planning and funding rural electric mobility infrastructure.
When it comes to figuring out which county departments can transition to EV, “the toolkit helps assess what the ideal candidates are and what vehicles have predictable routes that only travel locally and would be able to charge overnight,” Kimmel says.
There are a number of hurdles that could prohibit the plan from coming to fruition. The plan is contingent on there being state funding left over for Pitt County, which could be after other urban areas in the pecking order get theirs.
But Kimmel is still confident that Pitt County will be OK with the transition, but it's too early to know which departments are best suited to make the switch to EV. Planning it is a long and fluid process.
“We are learning more every day, but I am happy with the progress we have made so far,” she says.
Scott produced this story for the Fall 2023 course, In-depth Reporting.
Comments