Transportation and energy officials stress the mobility industry is in the throes of being reinvented, on a scale not seen in more than a century.
The public policy needs to be developed and coordinated with cities as well as rural areas because the needs, and even cultures, differ. The issue of transitioning EVs in rural and exurban areas is one U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also seemed sensitive to.
“Because of how electric vehicles code, politically and culturally, they might not be seen as obvious candidates for this work,” said Buttigieg, also speaking at the TRB conference, as he called to mind the somewhat caricatured image of EV drivers as well-to-do liberals on the East and West coasts.
“We really need to continue to have a strategy that fits all of these different geographies, meets them where they are,” he added.
