Published in Business Pulse Magazine in Sept. 2024

EV-olution hits the road in Whatcom County

Matt Benoit

If you’ve recently felt as if you’re seeing more electric vehicles on the road, you’re not wrong: There are now more than 4,600 electric and hybrid vehicles registered to Whatcom County residents, according to recent Washington State Department of Licensing data. 

In Bellingham itself, the number of registered EVs have more than doubled in a two-year span, from just over 1,200 in 2022 to around 3,200 in 2024.

More than 1,500 of those vehicles are 2023 and 2024 model years, showing that consumers are more and more rapidly adopting these more efficient and environmentally friendly technologies. The increasing number of electric and hybrid vehicles joins growing electrification efforts in other areas of our community, including the public transit system.

On the lot

Government incentives also help drive a desire to transition to EVs. 

These incentives include a brand-new instant rebate program from the Washington State Department of Commerce, which recently began offering savings between $2,500 and $9,000 on new and used EVs for state residents making 300 percent or less of the federal poverty level. The program began Aug. 1 and will last until June 2025 or when funds run out.

Dealerships that offer point-of-sale rebates to eligible customers will be reimbursed by the program.

That’s good news for people like Julian Greening, general manager of Bellingham Ford. Julian’s James Street car lot is filled with trucks and SUVs, plus a few sports cars. The dealership’s electric offerings include the F-150 hybrid, the Ford Lightning EV pickup and the Ford Mustang Mach-E.

Julian said he’s seeing about an 80 percent retention rate for consumers leasing electric vehicles, and hybrid and electric truck models also are selling well at his dealership. Ford is currently the nation’s second-largest EV producer by volume, he added. The manufacturer trails only Tesla, whose vehicles make up roughly 30 percent of Whatcom County’s EV population, according to Department of Licensing data.

Car manufacturers’ increasing commitment to electrification, Julian said, is partly due to government pressure to meet increasing standards for lower emissions and higher fuel economy in newer vehicles. Failure to achieve those numbers, he added, can result in additional taxes for the vehicles dealerships sell.

“One way to offset that is hybrid and EV sales,” Julian said. “The reason why Ford has ventured into the EV market is so as to offset the carbon problems with having these gasoline and
diesel trucks.”

Despite increasing sales of EVs, Julian said that manufacturers are still losing money on EVs. But they’ll continue producing them as long as there are financial offsets from traditional internal combustion models and government incentives for consumers. Government support may change over time, he said, depending upon who occupies the White House next year.

Bellingham Ford has spent ample funds — about $500,000 — on electric infrastructure, Julian said, including nine electric charging stations on its lot. The dealership building had to be rewired, and Puget Sound Energy needed to bring in additional electricity.

Julian chose local contractors, including Ram Construction and VECA Electric, to make these changes, he said, keeping at least half of the expenditure local. Bellingham Ford also has several electrically certified mechanics on staff capable of tackling just about anything, he added.

Over at Iowa Street’s Swickard Auto Group, which sells Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles, General Manager Dustin McLean said customers are definitely asking questions about EVs. Overall, however, market trends show hybrid vehicles are currently more in demand than fully electric ones.

“It’s a nice entryway for people who don’t want to fully adopt and are on the fence, which is a pretty large group of people,” he said.

On the Swickard lot, electric options include several SUVs like the Porsche Taycan and Volkswagen ID.4, the latter of which currently makes up about 4 percent of the county’s electric vehicle population. On the hybrid side, models include the Audi Q8 plug-in SUV, which will be joined on the lot next year by the Audi Q5 SUV, Dustin said.

Over the next two to five years, Dustin said he expects hybrid sales to continue rising in the auto industry, helping more consumers gradually transition into full-fledged EVs.

Guy Occhiogrosso, president of the Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce, also envisions a short-term future with more hybrids.

“I think there’s a lot of value in hybrid technology,” he said. “I’m a big believer that diversity of all kinds is important. Having a vehicle that has energy diversity may not be a bad thing either.”

Guy sees electrification’s future as one in which communities must confront how they wish to innovate, whether it’s encouraging greater EV use or restricting the use of internal combustion engine vehicles.

 The latter would likely be unhelpful in changing consumer behavior in places like Bellingham, where there are currently concerns about the cost of living; some EV models, he pointed out, are quite expensive.

If there is a future in which more people drive EVs than internal combustion engine vehicles, Guy said it will likely happen only when the used market for EVs becomes more robust.

“We have to have that technology catch up to produce vehicles that can stay on the road and then have people cycle those to used vehicles,” he said. “Once we have used vehicles on car lots being a majority of EVs, then I think that’s when we will start being able to really see that difference.”

Infrastructure concerns

An increase in fully electric vehicles will, in many areas, depend on how prevalent charging stations become. Many consumers, Dustin said, may also be waiting on EV range and charging speeds to improve before taking the plunge, based on their lifestyles.

“Not everybody has the luxury of being able to charge [a vehicle] at work or have a fast charger at home,” he said. “The charging structure, in general, needs to get caught up.”

Due to charging frustrations, very few people Dustin has spoken with about longer EV trips have had
positive reviews. Often, stations they’d planned to recharge at weren’t fully installed or functional, impacting their travel schedules.

Julian said that while there’s little doubt EVs are generally positive for the environment, there are still plenty of concerns about how quickly infrastructure can be built to meet increasing demand, whether power grids can accommodate that increase, and whether the increased electricity is being generated cleanly.

“For the consumer that wants to purchase a vehicle and put it in their driveway, there is going to be less environmental impact,” he said. “But then when you go plug the thing in at the end of the day to recharge … where’s that power coming from?”

Dustin said several things need to be done in order for greater vehicle electrification to continue: consistent operation and timely maintenance of existing charging systems and a commitment from businesses and retail centers to feature more chargers. That could include incentives for offering such infrastructure, both to customers and the businesses themselves.

While Guy is unsure how much public funding should be put toward expanding charging stations, he agrees that it should be easier to find them.

“We should make it readily available and easy to implement charging stations, because they’re not going to go away,” he said. “I think the city can maybe have certain conversations about parking stall charging.”

Regardless of what the future holds, Julian sees the move toward greater electrification as a net positive for communities.

“I believe EVs are good for what it is we’re trying to do,” he said. “I don’t think it’s worse than where we currently are.”

The future of public transit

The county’s public transit system is also continuing to undergo electrification.

The Whatcom Transportation Authority fleet, which consists of 63 fixed-route buses, currently has eight hybrid models and four electric buses to go along with its 51 diesel-powered ones, said WTA General Manager
Les Reardanz.

That’s double the number of electric buses it had two years ago, and another eight will be delivered by year’s end. Along with eight more new hybrid models (some of which will replace older hybrids), WTA’s fleet should be 35 percent low or no emission by the end of 2024, Les added. 

The new 2024 buses were purchased through the Federal Transit Administration’s Low or No Emission Grant Program.

WTA plans call for replacing eight more diesels with hybrids in 2026 and another six in 2028, with three additional zero-emission buses scheduled for delivery in 2027. 

All told, this would position roughly 60 percent of WTA’s 2028 fleet away from diesel power.

The transit provider’s larger goal is to fully transition its fleet from fossil fuel by 2040, something that Les feels is achievable. There is uncertainty in what alternative energies will power that fleet, however, and one of them may be hydrogen.

AltaGas, a Canada-based energy company, wants to build a green hydrogen plant at the former Intalco aluminum smelter at Cherry Point. 

The overall goal, according to the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association, is a carbon-free electric grid by 2035.
Les said he understands that AltaGas may begin producing this energy by 2027 or 2028.

If that happens, it would fundamentally change the local energy market and could send WTA’s no-emission buses down an infrastructure path based more on hydrogen fuel than electric power.

“This is kind of a game changer,” Les said. “If you can get green hydrogen here in Bellingham, that cuts down on all the costs of transportation. The supporting infrastructure to put in hydrogen is much cheaper than electric.”

In the meantime, WTA is focused on providing enough electric charging stations for its current fleet of EVs. The company has just two at its WTA base station, but Les said it plans to have a dozen (one for each bus) installed by year’s end. 

WTA also installed a backup charger at the Cordata neighborhood station, in partnership with the city of Bellingham.

As well, WTA is still working to troubleshoot occasional issues with its EV fleet, including coordinating software upgrades to specific bus systems and managing battery
and charging efficiency in extremely cold weather. 

But battery technology continues to increase power and range over time, and WTA’s technicians have adapted well to dealing with electrification, Les said. 

As an individual, Les said he is worried about the power grid’s ability to keep up with the escalating demand that electrification will bring, encompassing vehicles, homes and even data farms.

“That grid is all intertwined,” he said. “If they’re using a lot of that in Douglas County, what does that do for the ability to get electricity here?”

Still, Les is excited about the future, and he expressed confidence that both WTA and the wider world will figure out how to be less dependent on fossil fuel.

“We kind of know this is all going to get worked out,” he said. “It’s just on what timeline, and what does it look like at the end? We just need to see how the technology and the market kind of shakes out.”