Electric is better, part two

For part one of our Electric is Better series, go here.

By Ari Matusiak , co-founder and CEO, Rewiring America

The battery-powered crews of Shorb Landscaping are getting charged up for fall — or what they call “leaf season” — in the tree-lined suburbs of Washington, D.C. Leaf season is “always a giant hum,” according to branch manager Michael Capobianco. But this giant hum became a bigger problem when noise complaint calls started coming in from people suddenly working from home during COVID. While Shorb Landscaping switched some crews to electric equipment when part of its service area in D.C. mandated battery leaf blowers in January 2022, it's the customer response, not the mandate, that is proving to be the bigger motivator.

Capobianco likes the reduced maintenance and repair budget because the “electric motor is way more reliable.” But it’s the quieter operation, particularly from the gas lawn mowers and the weed eaters, that he is finding a surprising competitive advantage for his all-electric crews. “You can’t even talk to your customers because of the noise of the other crews along the street. It’s like getting out of a bad relationship,” Capobianco says. “You didn’t even know it was a bad relationship until you got out.”

The Home Depot quietly announced in June that 85 percent of the lawn equipment it sells will be electric in five years. That’s great news for the weekend lawn warriors, and the landscape pros, because as the big box giant’s Chief Sustainability Officer puts it, “I was completely surprised … the torque and power you get with these electric tools are just as good, maybe better, than gas-powered.” He also likes that they’re quieter and give off no fumes.

No kidding. According to industry data, using a gas-powered lawn mower for an hour creates as much pollution as driving 300 miles in an average car. And using a gas-powered leaf blower for an hour creates as much pollution as a 1,110-mile drive.

There may be more behind the decision though. Milwaukee Tool has started bragging that its battery-powered chainsaws “can power through cuts without stalling or bogging to complete cuts faster than 35cc gas.” The cleaner version works … better.

For as long as we’ve known about climate change, we’ve heard we need to turn off the power, give up our cars, change the way we live. It’s been a sermon on sacrifice.

But inventors went to work, and now, the clean, electrified alternative machines are taking center stage in showrooms.

The gas-powered car, for instance, has reached an innovation plateau. As one luxury auto industry analyst put it, automakers are not investing in improving the internal combustion engine because “The engine has been engineered to its end.”?

Electric cars, on the other hand, are better in every category. That’s why car companies are announcing they will stop building internal combustion cars altogether — not because they’re climate warriors, but because they want to maximize market share and stock price. Arjun Murti, a member of oil giant ConocoPhillips’ board of directors, declared that he will “never” or is “very unlikely to ever drive a gasoline car again because I simply enjoy driving the electric vehicle better.” It is his company that would drill the Willow project in Alaska.

Electric cars produce instant torque, so they accelerate insanely fast. They have fewer parts, last longer, and require less maintenance. You can pre-cool or preheat your car before you get inside, without spewing dangerous fumes. On range, the typical gas car goes 400 miles on one tank, but EVs are catching up, averaging 260 miles per charge. Even in wide-open Wyoming the average driver only goes about 40 miles per day. Our EV charging network is still patchy, but federal investment and private competition to meet the demand are racing to fix it.

Less thrilling to operate — but packing a big climate impact is a heat pump, which both heats and cools your home with one machine. Think about that. Tens of millions of American households maintain two separate systems that never need to work at the same time, both of which age and need to be replaced each generation.?

A heat pump is up to three to five times more efficient than an EnergyStar-rated fossil furnace because the heat energy is taken from the air outside, so purchased energy is only needed to transport that heat indoors and then distribute it around your house. As a result, heat pumps are often far less expensive to run. And they work well now in minus 15-degree winters.

Then there’s cooking. Induction stoves score better than gas stoves in product reviews, and now increasingly with professional chefs. They heat more quickly and more precisely. They’re safer to use, and easier to clean.

When it comes time to replace any of your existing vehicles or appliances, if you choose electric — there are billions of dollars in tax credits and rebates through the Inflation Reduction Act.

Rewiring America has calculated that 42 percent of the energy emissions produced in the United States come from decisions we, the American people, make around our kitchen tables about machines we use in our lives and how we power them. To track toward our national goal of net zero by 2050, Rewiring America calculates the pace of progress needed over the next three years is the installation of 2.38 million additional heat pumps, 200,000 heat pump water heaters, and 260,000 thousand induction stoves above the current baseline sales projection.?

Doable? Last year, for the first time in U.S. history and before the new tax credits and rebates even kicked in, heat pump sales outpaced furnaces, due to improved performance and falling costs. Better sells itself, once people find out about better. And better is a better story than sacrifice.

From the (Re)wire

• New Jersey must move faster to embrace electrification as climate change advances writes our Director of state and local policy for the Mid-Atlantic and south region at Rewiring America, Jamal J. Lewis .
• Electrifying your home is about to get a whole lot cheaper. With some great insights from Sage Briscoe, our Director of federal policy, in Grist.
• Dr. Katharine Hayhoe citing electrying everything as a key climate solution in her latest newsletter, and recommending our guide? We'll take it!

Like this newsletter?

We have more! Sign up for Rewiring America's bimonthly newsletter here.