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Episode Transcript:
Chuck Nice VO:
The year is 1976. Anthony Schulze is a kid riding in the back of a school bus with his friends. They were chatting away, going over all the usual stuff kids were into back then.
Anthony Schulze:
We were talking about the 1976 presidential election. [Laughs] For some reason, that was a topic of conversation, but it was basically, you know, the usual stuff.
Chuck Nice VO:
Hmm… OK. A little different from the conversations I was having on the bus. But, years later, Anthony went on to drive a school bus for the Pittsburg Unified School District in California. And he likes his job for the most part.
Anthony Schulze:
If the kids are relatively well-behaved, it can be really fun. You talk to some of them, they’re really nice. And it’s, it makes for a fine day. If you happen to have some individuals that, let’s just say, [are] poorly behaved, uh, it can, uh, it can drive you crazy sometimes.
Chuck Nice VO:
Well, no matter how they behave themselves, it takes a big ol’ bus to get a whole neighborhood of kids to school. And traditionally, a big ol’ bus means a big ol’ diesel engine.
Anthony Schulze:
When a bus starts, right? A big cloud of black smoke. When a bus takes off from a stop, if you’re in traffic, stop at a stop sign, stop light, whatever, and then you hit the accelerator to start moving again, it was brutal. Nobody wants to sit behind a bus, anyway. Right? But particularly when you’re belching out black smoke. And then, the soot that it would leave on the back of the bus, you know, because the wind blows it, it comes out, right? Whatever. And I mean, it looks like you need a chimney sweep.
Chuck Nice VO:
A few years ago, Anthony’s school district began replacing their diesel buses with electric ones.
Anthony Schulze:
Well, the first thing I noticed is it’s much cleaner. It’s quieter. They are so much smoother. The old buses that we have, if you were just kind of putting along, it kind of gives a jerking motion back and forth a little bit. So you have to go a little, little faster, a little slower. With the electricals, the ones that we have are so unbelievably smooth. The process for charging is incredibly simple. It’s more simple than pumping gas. If anything could be easier… I mean, you push it in and it goes “click.” And then you pull it out. It’s unbelievably simple.
Chuck Nice VO:
It’s good to know that Anthony is enjoying a cleaner, smoother ride driving that electric bus. But the most important thing is we’re doing this for the children.
Chuck Nice VO:
Welcome to “Electric Generation,” presented by Ford. I’m your host, Chuck Nice, and on this show, we look into how electrification is changing our country. Here, we’ve got school buses, mail trucks, street sweepers, so many vehicles owned by the towns and the cities we live in, and they’re going electric right alongside everything else. I mean, let’s face it, cities can be pretty dirty. Don’t get me wrong. I love cities. I live in one, but there’s no escaping that air pollution. So let’s clean it up, right? Today, we’re headed someplace this is happening, and fast. None other than the Emerald City, Seattle, Washington, to talk to Andrea Pratt. She’s working day and night to convert Seattle buses, trucks and just about everything else to EVs.
Chuck Nice:
Andrea Pratt, such a pleasure to have you with us. Thank you for joining.
Andrea Pratt:
Pleasure to be here.
Chuck Nice:
So, now, you are a transportation electrification program manager, which honestly sounds like something that should be happening on the bridge of a star ship.
Andrea Pratt:
[Laughs] It is a mouthful.
Chuck Nice:
That’s quite a bit, quite a bit. So, aside from beaming people up, what is it that you do? What is that?
Andrea Pratt:
I work at the city of Seattle on our climate team, and we’re really trying to electrify everything that moves people, goods and services in our city. We have a goal for the city fleet to be completely fossil-fuel free by 2030. You know, when we started this work in 2011, about 10 years ago, when the first electric cars were rolling off the assembly line, you know, we were only talking about small passenger vehicles, right? And now, the whole landscape has changed. We’re talking about buses. We’re talking about trucks, vans, ferries. It’s just a different world today.
Chuck Nice:
You’re talking about electrifying a city. OK. That’s huge.
Andrea Pratt:
It is huge.
Chuck Nice:
All right. Once you have your targets, and you have your metrics, now you have your transitions, uh, that has to happen. And, in those periods of transition, all kinds of things go wrong, because you’re scaling up. It’s easy to have the plan where you’re doing four vehicles, easy to have the plan where you’re doing 24 vehicles. Now, you talking about 240 vehicles. Now, you’re talking about 2,400 vehicles. How do you do that in such a short, short period of time?
Andrea Pratt:
It’s challenging, and part of what makes this challenging is the lead time on infrastructure, right? If you’re talking about 250 heavy-duty trucks in one location, like, now you’re talking about huge amounts of power. Enough to power up a skyscraper building for a couple chargers for trucks. Right, and this is something that the utilities are grappling with all over the country. We’re going to have to look at the grid nationwide and really reinforce it and make sure it’s ready to take on this huge load. ‘Cause if you think about it, all the energy that we’re using with fossil fuels will have to go on the grid. And we have to be prepared for that. You know, I think that our grid infrastructure is similar to our bridges and roads. You know, it’s kind of like your house. You have to fix the roof when it starts leaking. And if you don’t, over time, these systems become antiquated and fragile. And I think that’s where we’re at now. And, luckily, I believe the federal government fundamentally understands that and understands the investments that we’re going to have to make.
Chuck Nice:
And like you said, when you got a leaky roof, you got to fix the leaky roof. Not just because the roof is leaking, but because the roof leaking leads to the degradation of other parts of the house. So, is this an opportunity to reimagine transportation for the city? Is it maybe an opportunity to make busing better? Is it an opportunity to draw people into public transportation? Because, really, I don’t care how good your vehicles are for the environment. If I don’t like taking them, what difference does it make?
Andrea Pratt:
Absolutely. We don’t want to just wave a magic wand and turn all of the vehicles in America to electric. We would like to reduce those number of vehicles, get people around in the most efficient way possible, while we electrify everything. And so, one of the goals that we have in the blueprint is that we want nine out of 10 personal trips taken to be a zero-emission trip. So, we want you walking. We want you biking. We want you on an electric bus, and if you can’t do those three things, then think about taking an electric car. But, it’s super important, as population centers are growing, we can’t have everybody jump into a vehicle to get from point A to point B, you know, and have livable, great cities, right? Congestion is a real issue. And so, electrifying and investing in public transit is just so, so central to climate. And I think those on the west coast are very jealous of the public transit on the east coast. But I will say…
Chuck Nice:
Not really. Not really. Not unless you like the smell of urine.
Andrea Pratt:
[Laughs] We are investing over 50 billion, with a B, dollars to expand our light rail here in Puget Sound. And that’s just going to be a huge game changer, and that will run on this carbon-free electricity. So, we’re banking on that for zero-emission trips.
Chuck Nice:
Well, I hope so. I, and I hope that you find great success in that. Um, they put in a light rail system where I live right now, and people started using it and found it so efficient. It runs on time, and it’s so comfortable. Now, it is almost at full capacity. So, the will is there for the public, because if they find something that works for them, that’s all they care about.
Andrea Pratt:
Yeah, it needs to be convenient. It needs to be affordable. It needs to be, you know, well-placed, right? It can’t just go to rich, white neighborhoods either. We need to make sure that transit is fully accessible to everyone, particularly those that get pushed out of the city due to cost.
Chuck Nice:
Exactly. And not to say that we don’t want to leave the rich white people out, because I happen to live in a rich, white neighborhood. So…
Andrea Pratt:
Totally. Point well taken, but we just have to make sure that these public investments that we’re making in transit are really accessible to everyone, especially those that are very transit-dependent.
Chuck Nice:
So, what are the challenges that you see with working with the public and the private sector and you have to bring them together to make this whole thing work?
Andrea Pratt:
Yeah. You know, challenges abound. I think that, you know, for-profit corporations —
Chuck Nice:
Excuse me. Wait one second. You sounded just like an elementary school teacher talking about someone’s wayward child. Well, well, you know, challenges abound.
Andrea Pratt:
[Laughs] Oh my gosh, there is really no end of challenges in this space, but, hey, I like complicated, hard things. So, I’m in the right line of business. But, I think the main, not challenge, but just things you have to grapple with is the motivation of a private profitable corporation is different than the motivation of government, but I will say that we have a lot of really great kind of corporate leaders, uh, in the Puget Sound region, that have strong climate goals. So that’s kind of bringing folks to the table and giving us enough, you know, common ground to move forward together and work on some of these really cool projects that we’re working on.
Chuck Nice:
Fantastic. And you’re right. You’re looking at entities that have, I would say, varied interests, and sometimes those interests don’t exactly line up, but I think one model that works very well is NASA. Uh, when you look at NASA, they’re able to accomplish all of their goals, uh, for the most part. And most of what they utilize is the private sector.
Andrea Pratt:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a great, great example, and something that I always say is like early on, you know, government started their climate work by looking at their own operations and looking at their fleet vehicles. As complicated and hard as that was, you know, that’s something we directly control. We buy those vehicles, we have contracts. Right? But when you’re talking about trying to encourage private sector to go electric, or private individuals, I mean, we have limited control over that. So, that’s almost like a totally different ball game.
Chuck Nice:
You know, the way I look at it now, because this is such a dire situation, because almost 30% of all greenhouse gases come from transportation. That’s huge.
Andrea Pratt:
In Seattle, it’s 60%. Six zero.
Chuck Nice:
Wow.
Andrea Pratt:
So, wherever the grid is clean, transportation is your major source of emissions.
Chuck Nice:
There you go. Well, listen, we are just about out of time, and I would just want to ask you, of course, your finger’s on the pulse of everything transportation. Is there anything that you see either in the near future or far off that’s got you really excited?
Andrea Pratt:
The thing that gets me so excited is electrifying heavy duty trucks. I think you’re seeing the port congestion and, you know, all of this online ordering and it’s just a huge source of growing emissions. And those trucks are so dirty and inefficient that an electric motor would be far superior on several levels, but really, kind of looking to those benefits to those communities that have those trucks rolling in and out of them every day. You know, if we can electrify that sector, which I think could actually go faster than personal cars, because for fleets, it’s a business decision, and we know that electric, uh, can be cheaper to own and operate over time. So, they’re in a position to kind of make that leap first. And, so, I’m really excited to see what goes on in that space.
Chuck Nice:
You know what, that is very cool. And that has all sorts of implications, like getting fleets of the last mile delivery trucks electric, like what Ford is trying to do with these e-transit vans. Now you clean up even more neighborhoods.
Andrea Pratt:
Well, keep your eyes on Seattle, because if anybody can do it, I think we can do it.
Chuck Nice:
It’s such a pleasure to have you. Thank you.
Andrea Pratt:
Thank you so much. It was great being with you, Chuck.
Chuck Nice VO:
As someone who lives in a city, you don’t need to tell me twice how important it is to clean the place up. Believe me. I’m walking through it every day. Respiratory issues disproportionately affect Black and brown communities, and there’s certainly a tie to pollution. One of the biggest benefits of electrifying cities is improving people’s health. People will literally breathe easier. So, I’m hopeful that we can make great changes out there with the help of people like Andrea.
“Electric Generation” is presented by Ford and produced by Yahoo Creative Studios, At Will Media and me, Chuck Nice. The At Will Media Producers are Mitch Bluestein, Josh Farnham, Drew Beebe and Tina Turner. Editing and sound design by Andrew Holzberger. Check out bonus material for this episode on TechCrunch.com. And thanks to you, in advance, for giving us a great rating and subscribing to our podcast. The opinions given on this show are personal and do not represent those of the Ford Motor Company, or anybody else with an ounce of sense. I’m Chuck Nice, and make sure you plug in next time to “Electric Generation.” Thanks for listening.
From Ford:
To find out more about how Ford is leading the way toward a more sustainable, electric future, visit ford.com/built-for-america.