Valley drivers share how their plug-in electric vehicles have changed their lives
State Program Has Replaced More than 2,000 San Joaquin Valley Cars with Plug-in Electric Vehicles
Coalition for Clean Air (CCA) announced today the successful replacement of 2,000 older, highly-polluting cars with used plug-in electric vehicles in disadvantaged communities in the San Joaquin Valley. The milestone is the direct result of the Charge Ahead California Initiative (SB 1275), authored by then-Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León and sponsored by CCA and its partners in the Charge Ahead California campaign.
“We’re thrilled to see climate investments delivering clean transportation to low-income Californians,” said Bill Magavern, Policy Director for CCA. “Making sure that the revenue from carbon auctions is spent in the communities that are already experiencing the impacts of climate change is the right thing to do in terms of both fairness and cost-effectiveness.”
SB 1275 directed the California Air Resources Board to create the Climate Equity Pilot Programs, which receive a portion of the revenue from California’s carbon auctions. Two of those Climate Equity Pilots have been particularly beneficial to the San Joaquin Valley:
- Clean Cars 4 All, administered by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, offers low-income drivers in state-designated disadvantaged communities up to $9,500 to replace their older, high-polluting cars with used plug-in vehicles, which are generally available for around $13,500. This program removes one of the largest sources of unregulated emissions from low-income communities, and replaces them with very affordable and reliable plug-in electric vehicles.
- Agricultural Worker Vanpool Pilot Project administered by the California Vanpool Authority in Hanford, replaced older gasoline-powered vans with innovative new hybrid vans. Dozens of vans have been added to CalVans fleets, resulting in farmworkers avoiding thousands of individual car trips.
In total, Clean Cars 4 All in the Valley Air District has replaced more than 3,000 cars; it’s especially significant that 2,000 of these customers chose to replace their old cars with a very affordable used plug-in electric vehicle (either a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle or a battery electric vehicle). These results show that the San Joaquin Valley is a stronger market than assumed for electric vehicles, and that plug-in vehicles are a very affordable, practical option for low-income Valley families.
To mark this occasion, CCA is sponsoring a series of radio ads featuring Valley drivers telling their stories of how their plug-in electric vehicles have changed their lives. The first of these ads can be heard here below.
“The stories we hear from the low-income customers who have bought used plug-in electric vehicles convince us that that the car’s reliability combined with cost savings for fuel and maintenance can have a transformative effect,” commented Dan Jacobson, Director of Environment California and one of the leaders of the Charge Ahead California campaign. “Despite claims to the contrary, electric vehicles work for low-income families, even in rural areas in the San Joaquin Valley.”
Note: Please contact Coalition for Clean Air for additional details about Clean Cars 4 All results in the San Joaquin Valley as well as to schedule phone interviews with satisfied customers in each region of the Valley.
CONTACT
thunder dawn
Communications Manager
Coalition for Clean Air
thunder@ccair.org
Header image – Kārlis Dambrāns CC BY 2.0
