Electric vehicles are often associated with coastal liberal types who talk about saving the planet. But in this Republican stronghold north of Dallas, more and more people are deciding that driving an electric vehicle is just common sense.
In Collin County, home to Plano, electric vehicle market share is well above the national average and growing rapidly, reaching 8.7 percent of new vehicle registrations last year, according to S&P Global Mobility . In neighboring Denton County, also reliably red, electric vehicles grew to 7.3 percent of the market. Nationally, electric cars accounted for about 6.2 percent of new vehicle registrations last year.
Some Plano-area EV shoppers expressed concern about the weather, but most said they were drawn to the vehicles’ performance, style and high-tech features, as well as convenience and savings to avoid the petrol pump.
“I used to drive a Mercedes-Benz SUV and I went to fill up my gas tank and it was over $4 for premium gas. So I went the next day and traded it in for an electric vehicle,” he said. Kate Allen, sitting in her Model 3, drinking iced coffee while charging. The chance to help the environment was a “perk,” not his main motivation, he added.
Allen, a Republican voter who lives in nearby Frisco, works as a property manager in Dallas’ Uptown neighborhood. A year ago, his was the only electric vehicle parked in one of the residential buildings he manages. Now there are half a dozen.
For the Biden administration, it doesn’t really matter why drivers choose EVs, as long as they choose them. Rapidly expanding the adoption of electric vehicles is a centerpiece of the administration’s green energy agenda, which uses tax credits and other incentives to try to get plug-in vehicles to account for half of new vehicle sales this year 2030. Achieving this goal would mean reducing the US greenhouse effect. gas emissions and air pollution up to 9 percent by 2030, according to Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University.
Across the country, most of the counties with the highest EV adoption are predictably blue and often high-income, but pockets of red are emerging. the county of st. Johns of Florida, headquarters of St. Augustine; Indiana’s Hamilton County, north of Indianapolis; North Carolina’s Union County, southeast of Charlotte; New Jersey’s seaside Monmouth County; and California’s Kern County, home to Bakersfield, are among the areas that voted for Trump in 2020 and had above-average EV market share growth last year, S&P data show .
Conservative support for green energy isn’t an entirely new phenomenon, says Neal Farris, a left-leaning photographer and electric vehicle enthusiast from Dallas who promotes the vehicles at auto shows and Earth Day events. “One of the people I quote a lot is T. Boone Pickens,” he said, referring to the oil billionaire and longtime Republican donor who embraced renewable energy late in life. “He said, ‘Yeah, let’s do solar, let’s do wind, because if we do that, the oil will last longer.'”
Of course, there are many regions in Texas where EV skepticism remains high and chargers are hard to come by. Federico volunteers with a Christian ministry group that visits prisoners near the small town of Palestine, Texas, and makes sure to charge home before driving. “I couldn’t plug in there if I wanted to,” he said.
And the powerful oil and gas lobby still has a lot of influence in the state, said Tom “Smitty” Smith, head of the Texas Electric Transportation Resources Alliance.
But even some Republican lawmakers who have supported the oil and gas industry have begun sponsoring some bills that favor electric vehicles, in part because their wealthy constituents buy the cars, Smith said. “They are seeing each other [EVs] everywhere in the republican communities”, he said. “And they’re seeing them with people who see themselves as political and intellectual leaders in their communities.”
A Republican-sponsored bill recently signed by Gov. Greg Abbott accelerates infrastructure upgrades to support charging, among other things. Another awaiting the governor’s signature would ensure that public chargers clearly post their prices. A third law recently signed, however, creates a $400 registration fee for electric vehicle drivers and a $200 annual renewal fee after that, to recoup money drivers don’t pay through gas taxes.
Buzz Smith, an electric advocate in Fort Worth who calls himself “The EVangelist,” said he’s had executives from Exxon and other oil companies come up to him at auto shows and whisper their interest in electrification. “They say they’re retiring and their next car will be an EV,” he said.
In some Dallas-area homes, electric vehicles now share garages with gas-guzzling pickup trucks. This also often happens at the national level. Ford F-Series trucks are the top garage companion for the Mustang Mach-E and three other electric cars in the U.S., while Chevy’s Silverado truck is the most common garage companion for the Bolt EV, according to S&P Global Mobility.
Greg Nipper, a tech industry executive who lives north of Dallas, bought a Tesla Model 3 in 2018, parking it at home next to his Ford F-150 pickup truck. Soon, he decided to abandon the truck.
“I’ve always been a pickup person, but the pleasure of driving this [Tesla] it was enough that I traded in my truck for a second Model 3,” said Nipper, a registered Democrat who has voted more Republican in recent elections. The convenience of charging at home also won him over. “No oil change , without going to the gas station. Just plug in at night and wake up with a full charge.”
The prevalence of software, semiconductor and telecommunications companies in the area north of Dallas means that there are many affluent buyers who desire the latest technology.
Federico, who works in the IT industry, has seen the number of electric vehicles increase since he bought one. Waiting at a red light on a recent morning after dropping her daughter off at school, she counted more than a dozen Teslas going by. “There’s a Y. There’s a 3. There’s a 3, there’s a Y,” he pointed out, marking them for the 90 seconds before the light changed.
In his spare time, Federico runs a local Tesla owners club that meets for social events or coffees at charging stations. Gathered on the top floor of a Plano parking lot on a recent morning, club members chatted about their cars and distributed club information to other Tesla owners who were killing time while charging.
Most of the drivers traded stories about the rapid growth of electric vehicles and chargers in their area, but also some reminders that they are still in Texas.
Dressed in a Tesla Cyber Truck hat and a “My Car Runs on Sunshine” T-shirt, club member John Packer said it’s not uncommon for EV drivers to encounter anti-social or passive aggressive behavior. Gas-powered pickup trucks sometimes park in front of gas stations, even when there are plenty of other spots available, just to block them. “There is a challenge, because this is an oil state,” said Packer, a Democrat who drives a Model Y and owns a logistics company that uses 16 Rivian electric vans for deliveries.
Nationally, the top dozen counties for electric vehicle market share growth last year were all in California, according to S&P data, followed by counties near Seattle, D.C., Boulder, Colo., Nova York and Portland, Ore.
Travis County, a Democratic stronghold that hosts Austin, is the Lone Star State’s top county for EV market share growth, ranking 28th nationally. But the next two Texas counties, at 43rd and 52nd, are Collin and Denton, which have long voted red and supported Donald Trump in the last two presidential elections.
In Denton County, a businessman and his partner are so into electrification that they’ve started a small business that converts classic cars into electric vehicles.
Bill Schofield, a two-time Trump voter who describes himself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, became interested in electric vehicles a decade ago, when he was among the first 2,000 customers to buy a Tesla Model S.
Schofield didn’t think vehicles would do much for the environment, and he still doesn’t. I was chasing the latest technology.
“I think the Democrats think they’re saving the planet, because they didn’t do the real math to see, oh no, they’re not,” he said. “Republicans and conservatives, they bought it because it was the cool new technology.”
After falling in love with the performance and high-tech benefits of his Tesla, Schofield bought an electric Porsche Taycan and an electrified Mercedes EQS, with the handsome sum he made selling his electric distribution business. He also started the business converting classic cars, which he now runs with his partner, Kevin Emr.
At the garage on Denton Road, they showed off a dozen vintage cars they’re overhauling: a 1965 Shelby Cobra, a 1968 Camaro, a 1959 Corvette, swapping gas engines for electric motors and batteries. The switch makes them drive wonderfully, with all the torque and power of a modern electric vehicle and little of the noise and crash of an old gas car, they said.
“If you have driven [an EV]you realize how comfortable they are to own and drive,” said Emr, an engineer and race car driver who has a Rivian SUV on order. His father-in-law, a longtime Ford driver who loved in favor of pickup trucks and SUVs, he recently bought Ford’s electric Mustang Mach E. “No more trips to gas stations, no more oil changes. No more maintenance, no drips in the garage, no smells. Everything works.”
