Beyond Electric Vehicles: Recommendations for State and Municipal Policymakers to Ensure a Sustainable Transportation Future

Electric vehicles have rapidly become a primary component of the US’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the severity of climate change. While it will surely serve an important role, EV technological advancement alone is far from a silver bullet to solve all transportation-related climate woes. On the contrary, the formidable degree of electrification necessary to meet climate goals, paired with the rapid development of clean power grids and the immense quantity of critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt needed to power this transition, is a cause for concern over the feasibility of a strategy relying fundamentally on electric vehicles. A more comprehensive, impactful, and sustainable strategy would target the car-centric foundations of US culture to make electrification more attainable while also reducing the per-vehicle resource burden and promoting more sustainable battery alternatives.