It has been an action packed few months in transportation electrification as legislative sessions have been in full swing. We have seen some good, some bad, and some ugly, but ultimately, as sessions start to wind down, the electric vehicle (EV) industry is walking away with some major wins. In Michigan, we saw a major charging infrastructure program approved. In Colorado, new legislation removed barriers to EV charging station deployment and extended tax credits for EV purchases. Down in the southwest, Nevada’s legislature has passed bills that incentivize the adoption of electric school buses by school districts and ease weight restrictions on heavy-duty electric vehicles. Next door in California, we got assurance that a new rulemaking is not going to hold up utility requests for approval of EV infrastructure plans. Meanwhile, a bill introduced in Pennsylvania is making that state look like the next one that could become EV friendly. These actions are all part of an accelerating trend toward vehicle electrification in states across the country.

Media Day at the Washington Auto Show kicked off with remarks by EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler defending the Trump Administration’s efforts to roll back CAFE emission standards for light-duty vehicles. AEE was also on hand, focusing on something Wheeler never mentioned: Electric vehicles (EVs) have arrived, and are driving toward the future of U.S. mobility.

Amid the controversy surrounding the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rollback of greenhouse gas emissions standards for light-duty vehicles, AEE filed an amicus brief in support of petitions brought by 17 states, the District of Columbia, and others in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seeking to halt EPA’s efforts. In a first for the organization, AEE and its members chose to weigh in on this issue in court because EPA’s actions ignore overwhelming realities about the availability of cost-effective technologies to reduce automobile emissions, particularly the burgeoning electric vehicles (EV) market.

Photo by Tom Burke, used under a Creative Commons license. 

In July, we published a list of the top 10 utility regulation trends of 2018 – so far. With 2018 winding down, we check in on the top public utility commission (PUC) actions and trends of the year. Ten prominent trends and actions stand out above the rest, from renewables continuing their downward price trajectory, to electric vehicle charging infrastructure build-outs getting approved, to exploration of utility business model reforms and non-wires alternatives to traditional distribution investments. Here is the full round-up of the top 10 matters before PUCs in 2018.

Note: some links in this post reference documents in AEE's software platform, PowerSuite. Click here and sign up for a free trial.

Our electric transportation future is on the way – that much is not in doubt. Electric vehicles may currently account for just a small share of vehicle sales, but a high – and accelerating – growth rate is putting EVs on the agendas of public utility commissions (PUCs) around the country. To address the coming electrification of the vehicle fleet – from passenger cars to delivery vehicles, buses, and trucks – state regulators should take steps to maximize the benefits and minimize the challenges associated with this transportation transformation – seven steps, to be specific.