Trip report on lunch

The Alabama Clean Fuels Coalition, www.alabamacleanfuels,org, organized a Friday lunch at “The Fish Market” in Birmingham. About 3-4 dozen attended from all over Alabama. Mark Bently who is retiring next month, gave a brief introduction and introduce two follow-up speakers. He asked for questions.

I asked, “Can we somehow replace the Alabama gas tax with registration based funding like the $200 per EV we pay?” Expressions suggested few had considered this. But one answer was ‘there is a risk in moving from one tax to another.’ Another pointed out Nebraska has a “$2,000 EV tag fee.” Whoever, another EV owner voice concern about the $200 tag fee.

A nice lady from Alabama Power reported they have a time-of-day rate for EV owners. So I asked about Huntsville and her answer “TVA.” Someone else asked if I’d done anything and I answered “eye-ball to eye-ball.” But the lesson is clear, we have to focus on TVA to get better EV rates in our neck of the woods. Alabama Power can’t help.

The third speaker, Casey Foster, gave an excellent discussion of getting EV school buses into Alabama school districts. A discussion more appealing to an accountant, I followed up with an e-mail of technical questions.

The Clean Fuels Coalition is more lobby than individual membership driven. However, if they and we can adopt an individual membership approach, everyone could benefit. Meetings like Friday were nice but networking with others and sharing ‘lessons learned’ could go a long way to improving EV ownership in Alabama.

Bob Wilson