Electric vehicles improve air quality for everyone but have less impact in the most polluted areas, study finds

Although electric vehicle ownership is higher in wealthier neighborhoods than in disadvantaged neighborhoods, electric vehicles improve air quality in all communities, according to a UCLA study.

But that’s not the whole story. Traffic corridors that pass through disadvantaged areas to disseminate these clean air benefits remain a source of high pollution from gasoline-powered vehicles.

The study determined that widespread travel by electric vehicles meant disadvantaged communities experienced a 40% greater reduction in pollution than other regions, but this was a high percentage of a small number. At the same time, low-income neighborhoods continue to face significantly higher levels of pollution than other communities, due to the higher volume of car travel in their neighborhood. The article published on December 12 in the journal Natural communications.

“Because electric vehicles travel everywhere, the benefits of reducing tailpipe emissions are shared among communities,” said the study’s lead author and air quality researcher Yifang Zhu. professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and the UCLA Environment and Environment Institute. Sustainability. “That’s encouraging, but there is still a gap in who benefits from clean air, and it’s a significant gap.”

Possible solutions

The study, which also included authors from UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering, recommended policies that provide more financial incentives for low-income households to purchase zero-emission and electric vehicles, such as as battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen vehicles. cellular vehicles. The researchers also strongly recommended that the state require medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, such as shipping and delivery trucks, to go zero-emission, because larger vehicles emit more pollution than smaller ones.

“Drivers in disadvantaged and low-income communities do not own as many zero-emission vehicles as those in wealthier areas, and they live near transit arteries filled with vehicles that still produce enormous amounts of pollution,” Zhu said. “To make a fair and healthy transition, we must encourage the adoption of electric vehicles at all levels, we must clean up the heavy fleet, we must address brake and tire wear particles, and we must include disadvantaged communities in discussions about transition.

Portions of the study contributed to the LA100 Equity Strategies report outlining equitable pathways for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to achieve 100% renewable electricity by 2035. The study s It also adds to a long-term project to work with disadvantaged communities to increase electricity. adoption of vehicles.

The research involved creating a mobility simulation of Los Angeles County’s 10 million residents, overlaying information such as census data on demographics, housing types and commuting, mixed with local traffic patterns and new survey data on vehicle usage, such as charging habits, interest in purchasing an electric vehicle. and optimal locations for chargers.

The simulation predicted the impact of electric vehicle adoption on air quality and equity in 2035, when California will require all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission. The researchers were particularly focused on making cleaner vehicles equitably accessible to all, said study co-author, UCLA engineering professor Jiaqi Ma, who studies mobility and developed the simulation in collaboration with Yueshuai He and others from the UCLA Mobility Lab.

“With this model, we can generate a good representation of the future of how policies will change people’s action or see where charging stations will be useful,” said Ma, an associate professor at the Samueli School of Engineering from UCLA, director of a new American project. Mobility center funded by the Department of Transportation and associate director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA.

“If a policymaker wanted to see how five alternative electric vehicle policies would affect local residents living in multi-unit buildings, we can use simulation to see that,” Ma said. “We can predict when and where they would like to charge their vehicles. When we talk about equity, it’s not just qualitative but quantitative. Our goal is to share evidence to provide to policymakers so they can make decisions based on equity.”

Involve the community

Researchers found that electric vehicle ownership was much lower among nonwhite populations and disadvantaged neighborhoods than in wealthier white communities, noted lead author Qiao Yu, a graduate student studying how to transition to a future carbon-free.

For example, in 2020, approximately 45% of Los Angeles County residents lived in disadvantaged communities but owned only 18% of the county’s electric vehicles. Nearly half of the county’s electric vehicles (45%) were owned by about a quarter (26%) of people who identify as white. Among the Hispanic population, the numbers were reversed: Although they made up 48% of the county’s population, they owned only 26% of electric vehicles.

“We want to know why electric vehicle ownership is so low in disadvantaged communities and find ways to change that,” Yu said. “We’re talking to community organizations to ask them what your barriers to vehicle adoption are electric vehicles? Do you have access to charging stations? Do you know the advantages and disadvantages of electric vehicles? Do you know the rebates? We want to make sure they participate in choosing policies that could help them.”

To ensure disadvantaged communities have a say in the solution, Zhu said, researchers’ ongoing studies of electric vehicles will continue to include community organizations that can answer these questions from one-to-one experience. first person. “We need to better understand the barriers that are not just financial,” she said. “We want communities to have a say.”