Photo by Cory Burns
This year is the 10th annual National Drive Electric Week.
What a year it’s been so far. Communities across the nation are suffering from the effects of the climate crisis and the COVID crisis. We’ve had historically large wildfires and a record-breaking hurricane season. We are in the seventh month of dealing with COVID-19, and we’re seeing the impacts of the climate crisis harm our most vulnerable communities over and over again.
Transportation puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any other sector in the US economy. The biggest source of these emissions is fossil fuel–powered cars, which worsen the climate crisis and produce air pollution that harms the health of all communities, but particularly communities of color and low-income communities -- communities located near highways, along major freight corridors, and in urban areas. The Trump administration has even rolled back one of our strongest climate policies on the books -- the clean car standards -- which would eliminate six billion tons of dangerous carbon pollution.
This unjust status quo is why the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All team is working toward a transportation system that reduces dependency on single-occupancy vehicles and electrifies cars, trucks, and buses.
Electric vehicles can help us achieve a cleaner transportation future.
Alongside our partners Plug In America and Electric Auto Association, the Sierra Club has been a national organizer of National Drive Electric Week since 2011, when it started out with just 25 events. Over the past decade, Sierra Club staff and volunteers across the country have helped to grow the annual coast-to-coast celebration of electric vehicles.
Last year, we had over 170,000 people in attendance across 300 local events in all 50 states and eight different countries learning about the environmental, health, and consumer benefits of clean plug-in vehicles. EV drivers and owners provided over 10,000 test drives for attendees. These events have served as educational moments, where EV drivers chat with the EV-curious, dispel misconceptions, and answer questions about rebates, charging, and more.
National Drive Electric Week 2020 is on the horizon and will be held from September 26 to October 4.
This year looks different, as we prioritize keeping people safe during the COVID pandemic and expand online EV education, but the enthusiasm remains the same. The virtual events we have lined up feature a star-studded lineup of guest speakers sharing their testimonies about electric vehicles, including TV personality and science expert Bill Nye, NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal, racecar driver and environmental activist Leilani Münter, former late-night television host and comedian Jay Leno, and Warren Dickson of 3rd Rock Hip Hop.
We’ll hear from local organizers on the ground about the power of bringing their communities together for National Drive Electric Week events, as well as the driving force behind the EV movement -- the urgent need to push the US away from a system 92 percent dependent on oil and toward a future where the cars we drive don’t dirty the air we breathe with toxic tailpipe pollution.
Following a national kickoff event on September 24, there will be over 100 online offerings for anyone to participate in, with events on everything from EV batteries and recycling to EV myth busters. There will even be EV speed dating to find your perfect (vehicle) match.