116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Yes, you are seeing more EVs on the road in Iowa
Almost 15,000 electric vehicles have been registered in state since 2020
Dec. 1, 2024 5:30 am, Updated: Dec. 2, 2024 7:52 am
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
Zach Fromm didn’t think about buying an electric vehicle until he was teaching his fifth-grade social studies class about Tesla and the rapidly evolving electric car technology.
Throughout the conversation, Fromm’s students “dared” him to buy stock in billionaire Elon Musk’s EV company, Tesla.
“They told me to put my money where my mouth is,” Fromm said, who teaches in the Decorah public school district.
After buying some Tesla stock, Fromm continued down the “Telsa rabbit hole” until he bought a Tesla electric car three years ago. “It snowballed into this passion for what the vision of Tesla is, in regard to an electric vehicle future,” Fromm said.
Fromm is not alone in moving to an electric vehicle. As of June this year, nearly 14,500 EVs have been registered statewide since Jan. 1, 2020 — with almost half of them (6,776) added since December 2022.
Fromm, 43, and his wife also have a hybrid minivan — where gas supplements the electrical charge — and said he doesn’t anticipate going back to a vehicle solely powered by gasoline.
“Driving a Tesla specifically is like having a thousand engineers sitting on my shoulders,” Fromm said.
Where the EVs are
The majority of Iowa’s 99 counties saw an increase in new electric vehicle registrations between December 2022 and June 2024. Nearly every county in Iowa saw the number of EV registrations grow in the time span, with only two rural counties — Keokuk and Louisa — reporting a slight decrease
As would be expected, more EVs are registered in Iowa’s more urban counties — Linn, Johnson, Polk, Dallas, Black Hawk and Scott — in 2024, where there are more people and electric charging stations.
Fromm bought his Tesla in May 2022, the same year 90 Iowans registered new EVs in Winneshiek County in northeast Iowa. .
What’s driving the increase?
Although many factors are behind the uptick in EV popularity in Iowa, a few stick out.
Anne Kimber, director of Iowa State University’s Electric Power Research Center, said lower costs of an EV and the overall efficiency of an EV’s motor are key growth factors.
“EVs have an inherently more efficient motor, more efficient than an internal combustion engine,” Kimber said. “To operate an EV over its life is going to be cheaper than operating a gasoline engine. … I think that has driven people to buy them.”
Kimber said people are becoming more curious about EV technology.
“People like new technology. People want to see what these (cars) can do,” Kimber said. “EV users just love to compare what their cars can do, so it's partly entertainment.”
‘An iPad with tires’
Patrick Smith, 80, who was director of Northeast Iowa Behavioral Health in Decorah before he retired, bought a Model 3 Tesla in April 2019 because he was looking to reduce his carbon footprint and had “always been fascinated” by electric vehicles.
He said driving a Tesla is similar to driving a computer.
“The basic thing is that it’s just a car, but it’s really like an iPad with tires,” Smith said, who lives in Decorah. “It has all of these different features and is able to do so many things on its own.”
Most notably, Smith said his Tesla was able to smoothly self-drive when he traveled to Chicago, where driving is usually a “white knuckle thing.” But with Tesla’s technology, he said, it was easy.
Gas prices a factor
Zhaoyu Wang, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University said EV’s popularity with the average consumer and car owner picked up during the height of the pandemic.
The low inventory of gasoline-powered cars and the higher prices for standard vehicles during the pandemic — with its supply chain problems — helped boost the sales of EVs nationwide. In the years after the peak of the pandemic, EV growth has slowed somewhat, he said.
Although Iowa has seen significant increases in EVs over the past few years, it is one of the states with the fewest electric vehicles registered, partly due to Iowa’s smaller state population of 3.2 million people.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the states with the most electric vehicles in 2023 — California, Texas, Washington and Florida — are among the most populous states,
Wang said another reason for the higher number of EVs in some states is gas prices.
“Here in Iowa, our gas price is not very high,” he said. “But if you go to California, it's a completely different story.”
Federal tax incentives also have played a role.
In January 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy offered tax credits of up to $7,500 for eligible new electric vehicles and an incentive up to $4,000 for eligible used electric vehicles. President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to end the federal incentives program for EVs, but it is unclear if or when that could happen.
The money
On average, Iowans spend about 3 percent of their monthly income on gasoline. The typical U.S. household spends about $2,148 on gasoline in a year’s time.
The cost of charging an EV is dependent on whether the driver is charging at home or at a public charging station, along with the make and model of the vehicle.
The Kelley Blue Book estimates that an EV owner who drives about 1,200 miles per month will spend about $111 on electrical charges.
On average, an Iowa driver can fully charge a sedan-like EV for about $27.59 less than it would take to fill up a sedan with gas. The average savings is about $33.84 for an electric truck, according to Energy Innovation Policy & Technology, a non-partisan energy and climate policy think tank.
In Fromm’s case, he said he is now saving $120 to $140 a month by not buying gasoline. His electric bill, he said, has gone up about $30 to $40 per month because of charging his EV at home.
Smith, the Decorah 80-year-old, said he hasn’t noticed an increase in his electric bill because his home has solar panels, which produce electricity for his home and his car.
Charging EVs overnight at home is typically the most cost-effective way to “refuel.” On average, it costs EV users $10.86 to charge at home per charging session that can last a day or a week, depending on how far the car is driven.
Using a database tool developed by Alliant Energy, customers can estimate how much money they can save by switching to an electric vehicle. For example, a driver living in downtown Cedar Rapids who drives about 20 miles per day, could save $1,133 on gasoline expenses their first year and reduce their carbon output by 45 percent.
What are the different types of EV charging?
In Fromm’s opinion, one aspect of EVs that cause people to worry is “range anxiety,” or not being able to find a charging station when driving long distances.
“What I don't think people realize is your garage becomes a gas station,” Fromm said. “Every night, I get home, and I take three seconds to plug it in.”
He said on average, he only has to go to a charging station outside of his home about 10 times per year, and it takes about 17 minutes for his car to fully charge.
When it comes to charging EVs, there are three types of charging stations: Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3.
Wang said Level 1 charging stations use a standard 120-volt household outlet, which powers small appliances. These chargers add about 3 to 5 miles of range per hour of charging.
Level 2 chargers need a 24-volt outlet, like dryers. Those are “much faster than Level 1, adding 10 to 60 miles of range per hour, depending on the power output and the EV's battery capacity,” Wang said.
Level 2 chargers are most often used for home or workplace charging, as well as public sites, including shopping centers and parking garages.
Level 3 chargers fuel EVs the fastest but they require specialized equipment. They’re the kind EV drivers will find at 28 new fast-charging electric vehicle stations being built along Iowa’s interstates. The $16.2 million in grants to help build those stations came from the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Congress in August 2022 and announced in October by the Iowa Department of Transportation.
The Level 3 chargers, Wang said, are the “fastest charging available, adding roughly 60 to 80 miles of range in just 20 minutes, though speed can vary by station power and the vehicle's capacity for fast charging. (They’re) designed for quick top-ups on long trips, commonly found at highway rest stops, major roads and other locations where short charging times are important.”
Iowa has 270 Level 2 and Level 3 fast-charging stations in the state, according to the Iowa DOT.
The future?
Fromm said he will always own some sort of EV but that he believes he wider transition to electric vehicles will take time.
“I'm not such a big fan (of EVs) that I'm ignorant to the idea that gasoline cars are going to be gone in 10 years,” he said. “EVs have only been around for about 15 years and cars have been around for 115 years.
“So where are we going to be 30 years from now in terms of battery technology and just EVs getting better and better? It's going to happen quick.”
Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.
Comments: (319) 398-8370; olivia.cohen@thegazette.com
Daily Newsletters