 Okay, let's get started. I think we're about ready now. You guys ready? We're going to talk a little bit about transportation. Yeah, it's for recording. Just let me know if I need to speak louder. That's fine. Okay, sorry. I've been finding it cold lately. Many of you know Rob. Rob's going to talk a little bit, but you don't know me. I'm Peter Kerr. I work in South Sacramento. I work for the California Department of Food and Agriculture Plant Pest Diagnostics Branch. That's off of Meadowview Road down in South Sacramento. You can go ahead and click. And I do all different kinds of work on insects and descriptive taxonomy of fungus gnats is particularly what I'm interested in for my research. My wife and I, we moved to Davis in 2003 and I'm now a happy father of three growing up here in the Davis school system. The one thing about working in Sacramento and it bothered me that my personal carbon footprint was a lot of it was taken up by the car if I had to drive and it was around a trip of about 52 miles and as a scientist and a nature of lover I've always been concerned about the environment and even more so once I became a parent. This really bothered me so I adjusted by riding my bike and it was tough. My work is about 10 miles south of Sacramento so I rode, it was about three hours a day and so when I had the first, when we had the first child sure. So I have to find a balance here. So after our second child it was just impossible to ride and so we in 2011 got an electric car and so nowadays actually you can, we got a Nissan Leaf. Nowadays the variety of electric cars are amazing and you see them every day in Davis. Some great deals on electric cars and so when you say I just go get an electric car you must be wealthy, you must have a lot of money you don't just go out and get a new car. So if you click on the next, this is the economics of my electric vehicle purchase in 2011 so I was using a 1996 Honda Accord driving to work, stinky car. I sold it for $2,000. The initial payment to take the new Nissan Leaf off the lot was $2,000. So I broke even on that. A month later there's a rebate program in California I got a check for $5,000. Just a check in the mail, $5,000. So here I traded in this dirty old stinky car and I had a brand new Bluetooth navigation, everything else quiet, rides like a monorail and $5,000 in my pocket. And then the lease was for three years, $400 a month. So the first year was paid up front of this car. Not a hard decision at all. I mean it was a very easy nice thing. So after three years my lease was up. I took that, I took my old one in and they said just here, take the keys and shop around when you do, if you're looking in the, how many of you guys already drive electric cars? No, okay. If you are, there are a lot of differences in price. I got mine in Petaluma because the people in Davis weren't all that receptive, they weren't all that helpful and it wasn't that cheap. But in Petaluma is great, people are really, so shop around that may have changed but so I took it back to Petaluma changed my car for a better one, a newer one and I got a, the rebate check now is no longer $5,000, it's $2,500. Still I got $500 in my bank, in my pocket, new car and the lease was half the price. So when you go for your car, it doesn't really to me make sense to buy because it's like buying an Apple, like an iPhone versus leasing an iPhone for a year. You don't, you can, the next model is going to be better, it's going to be cheaper, it's going to last longer, it's going to have more features. So lease deal is amazing. So you go ahead. The vehicle itself, it's very, it's naturally thrifty. There are no spark plugs, no engine, no transmission fluid, single speed and the leaf, no oil change, no smog checks, no visits to the gasoline stations where you're smelling the fumes, you're taking time out of out of your day. So you charge overnight at your own home and the cost of it is even compared to a Prius is rock bottom. So the cost of running it is very cheap as well. You're saving all along the way. It's two cents a mile. But what are you, how are you using your car? So we, the electric cars now, the range isn't yet extended to the degree you can use these all the time. But for most people they drive 70 miles or less in a day and the range for my leaf is about 90 miles. So you're covered. You don't need to, you just plug in your car overnight like you do your cell phone. But we do have another vehicle and this takes, hold on a second, it's about 20%, we have loads to carry or we have longer trips to the mountains or the beach. We can always take the van. I love the van. You know, there's some things you so, and when you compare, but when you compare the electric motor and the internal combustion engine, there's really no comparison in terms of carbon footprint. You have the engine itself is much more efficient in transferring power to the wheels. And even in the case where you have the worst source of electricity it's a cleaner vehicle. Fortunately in California our electricity is quite clean. There's less than 1% or less than 1% of our electricity comes from coal. We have a lot of hydroelectric, nuclear, geothermal, wind, biomass. It's fairly clean electricity. And of course as we set regulations and our electrical system modernizes, the cars that are now on the road drive cleaner and cleaner as our electrical grid becomes cleaner. Whereas if you're driving a gas car, the extraction and the terms of that gas that you get, it's becoming dirtier and dirtier with time. And what's amazing is the energy that goes into refining that gasoline. It's about 6 kilowatt hours of electricity to refine that gasoline. On an electric car even with the current day generation you can drive 25 miles on 6 kilowatt hours. So in fact when you add into the oil distribution and the additional oil extraction processes EVs use less electricity than internal combustion engines per mile driven. So it sort of boggles your mind but it's such an inefficient that gas system that you're buying into when you pay that gas bill at the station. And of course the nice, especially nice thing about electric vehicles is that compared to gas vehicles, you can't make gas at home. But you can make the power that drives your vehicle at home and in fact we put solar panels in our house five months later after getting it. I couldn't find any photos of that. And if you look at the carbon footprint pie, your emissions, your personal emissions, you've got a lot of it. You can't probably see this but home energy uses a big part of that pie. And transportation is the other big part of that pie. But if you get solar panels, a lot of electric car drivers get solar panels. You're taking both of that and making it zero as far as carbon goes. So it's a great synergy with what you already want to do in your life. And this below is the percentage of the US expenditure of energy. I find driving so all that sort of you thinking I'm nice and pretty, I've got the my finances set up. It's such a wonderful car. And if you know anyone who has an electric car, it's forced to drive one. I mean I prefer to bike. I have to have a car because of my work. And we bike exclusively and we can. But when I do get in the car, it's not rumbling hot vibrating. And it's inexpensive but the biggest thing is you're decoupled from that whole system of horizon spills in the Gulf. Spills in the Yellowstone River. Oil trains crashing destroying these wars and all of this nasty nasty politics. The democracy of our system is held by these guys this system. And when you drive an electric car you're free of that. And the value of that in your own well-being and sort of ethical moral compass is extremely gratifying. So I I don't see why more people aren't driving. Electric cars, when they have to drive. If you're not going to buy a car, you can't buy a car. That's my sort of prepare remark. So the question was, the trouble with this is like computers in a sense. The technology is changing so rapidly and it's improving so rapidly, you don't know when to come in. You feel like you'll get stuck with version 1.0. It's so much more expensive than a computer. Sure. More expensive than a computer. Yes. Well did you hear? Yeah. Well the thing is that there's when you look at how it is right now. You know in 2011 it was a great deal. Because I leased. So you're not buying a computer, you can't lease. And you get caught in that. A car you can. And so when those three years, at the end of 2000 end of my lease of the first vehicle, I was reluctant to give that car away because I loved it. It was a great three years. Yes, it was there $400 a month. I got $5000 to start that to pay. Nowadays you're going to pay. There's a huge variety and you saw all those different cars you have. If you can afford luxury, there's that. It's probably the nicest car ever produced. No, no, no. $5000 because it's such a good deal. So, but the $400 a month, that was so now it's you pay $200 a month. But remember there are no oil changes. The cost per year driving is extremely low. So you're saving a lot of money as you go. So the economics now work. You may, so you lease, I leased just this year, the beginning of the year, with knowing that in 2000, well, yeah, knowing that when my lease was up I was going to get a better car at a better deal. But it's already good for me now to drive it for a number of reasons. I leased the Nissan Lease. But the Fiat 500 is a great deal. A lot of these cars. Two questions. One, the leasing option meant that you had to get a new car after three years. So have you figured in the carbon footprint of the production of the car? Uh-huh. The question is the lease, you get a, you have to buy another car after three years and have you factored in the amount of emissions that went into producing that car? So, yeah, there was a study recently done with the Union of Concerned Scientists about that question. I saw it on GRIST a few weeks ago. And they're talking about if you have a not so economical car and if you have a Prius and actually when they were looking at it and they studied it it didn't take a very, they were saying pass on these economical cars. So buy an economical car used or a new electrical vehicle they said it's better to buy a new electrical vehicle. And the thing is I appreciate that sort of rationale and I think that's important to think about and that's completely valid. What I see is some people they don't have that, maybe they don't have the credit to get the financing for stuff. When you trade in that leased car my white 2011 Nissan Leaf is a good car for someone at a much lower price now. And so you're putting that, you're substituting a really good efficient car for one that is less likely to be so even a Prius. The second question is here in Davis a lot of people live in apartment complexes or whatever so the general stuff, the charging of vehicles So the problem with the second question is how do you deal with in cases where you're living in an apartment or group housing and you don't have control over your own power do you have to rely on the community grid and that is a problem and fortunately in Davis we have a progressive set of representatives for the most part representing us and for us it's very nice to have a second vehicle and nice to be able to plug in at home so it's not at that point, you may find reasons not to do it but when I see the number of people who are driving internal combustion engines I think gosh you know they don't have as good a reason What is the driving range What is the driving range? The driving range of electric cars now vary a lot and they're getting better with each new generation. My car runs about 90 my first car ran about 75 and today by expensive cars that go for 250 miles it's still time consuming to charge on the go if you're going farther than that So you're having to put in solar that you see in your electricity The question is if I hadn't put in the solar panels what was the increase in your electrical bill? It depends of course on your amount of driving that you're doing. I was pending about $125, $130 a month on gas and it went to about $25 increase in electricity The panels knocked it off Yes Do you have a place to charge your car? Yes The question was do you have a place at work to charge your car and that varies a lot since I work for the state but for a while I wasn't able to We moved and so we're looking to put in solar panels now We just have a regular plug that we plug the car into again at work but if I couldn't it would still be enough for me to get there. I would just do it a little differently I wonder how it fits into your portfolio of vehicles How many people in your household Yes Right The question was can you get to San Francisco and a friend said no you probably can and he's right for that for the technology now The portfolio of my transportation access personally is we have a van We have three children and two of us and we all fit in the leaf Most of our driving is for me commuting but also we drive around town sometimes We use about We have a collective hybrid vehicle We use the electric vehicle for everything then it can do and for everything else we use the van It's about 15-20% maybe of our driving You really can't unless you're exclusively going to stay really within the eye range here You really can't help Justin in his vehicle Right Right A lot of us do have multiple cars We live with someone else who also has a car and so those tasks are divided You can anticipate in what kind of vehicle would be optimal for that sort of trip Last person I talked with We talked briefly about having an electric vehicle One problem that he has with the electric vehicle is that he and his wife fight over who's going to use it David, we have any electric cars sharing since that's the best social tools to freely share the kinds of data to facilitate the sharing of electric vehicles We don't have bike sharing either Zip power has an electric fit It's a good idea for a lot of reasons I get it but the energy It's still really good I'm not sure Oh, the question was The The So the concern was He's heard that there's no question that the electric vehicle is much more efficient than the internal combustion engine but producing those lithium ion batteries is a big input of energy He saw a study that immortalized over the life cycle of the car that adds a significant amount I haven't seen that study I know that if you've heard about merchants of doubt I'm not saying that's a misinformation I think you should take it for what it is and choose the best of what's available Yeah Biking is great The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The