TxETRA is composed of two separate organizations: TxETRA, a 501(c)(6) organization which lobbies Texas’ governments in support of EVs and TxETRA Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization which focuses on educating the public, government officials and businesses about EVs.
Texas has a legislature that meets biennially, or every two years, in the odd numbered years. The biennial sessions last a maximum of 140 days. As such, the Legislature has been in recess for the past year but is about to have an election in November and convene at noon on January 14th. So far, my tenure as Interim Executive Director of TxETRA’s lobbying group has been without a legislature in session. That does not mean we or the government aren’t preparing for the next session. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick’s 2024 Interim Legislative Charges included this bullet point:
Interim legislative charges like this give us a hint of the Lieutenant Governor’s priorities for the upcoming session and this one makes the next session appear challenging. Electric vehicles have become politicized, especially on the national level, where one of the Presidential candidates declared that he’ll “end the electric vehicle mandate” on day one, if elected. But are EV’s a partisan issue? Take a look at the chart below.
The chart tracks EV adoption in Texas, based on Texas auto registration data provided by DFW Clean Cities and the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG). The data covers the time period from September 2021 to now. The green curve represents Texas’ EV registrations over that time, by month. As you can see, the green curve has followed an adoption total that increases, year-over-year by 50%. The rule of 72 shows that a 50% registration rate increase results in a doubling of EV registrations every 1.44 years. Based on that, Texas will have added 125,000 EVs to its roads over 2024 by year’s end. Take a look at the two images below:
The Texas on the left shows EV registration levels in the Texas Senate districts with Democratic senators. The darkest red areas are the areas with the highest number of EV registrations. The white areas have zero EV registrations. Areas with the most EVs seem centered around the metropolitan areas of Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso with smaller high registration areas around Brownsville, McAllen and Laredo. The map on the right shows the Texas Senate districts with Republican senators. Just look at all that red in Republican Senate districts! Also notice that the rural areas that are just starting to show registration increases are situated near a green (higher populated areas) blob. This shows that EV disinformation campaigns begin to fail when the EV-curious public has contact with EV drivers to get the answers they need.
The image above is another map set. On the left is a map of population density in Texas, (shown as green blobs) and on the right, a map of areas under non-attainment of EPA air quality standards (orange blobs outlined in red). Looking at those maps, it appears that EV adoption started in areas of dense population, but not necessarily poor air quality. Dense populated areas have residents with relatively short daily driving routes and more public recharging infrastructure. As EV driving ranges increased, EVs adoption began to move outward from those areas into areas where drivers’ needs included more range and more places to recharge. This tech adoption seems to be mirroring cellular phone adoption and cell tower buildout. The trend of eliminating land line phones, even in stationary locations like homes, makes me optimistic that EVs will ride out this political tempest… with our help.
Now, back to lobbying.
The Clean Cities Coalition adoption map, as well as other maps from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), were the seed for the idea of a voter information site for EV legislative bills. The general public needs to know where to find:
- who their elected officials are and where their legislator web page is located,
- which political party their representatives are members of,
- where their House and Senate districts are situated,
- what bills are under consideration that have major impact for EV drivers/manufacturers,
- TxETRA’s rating of the bill,
- how their elected representatives voted on the
We’ve spent the last couple months locating the data sources needed, and modifying them when necessary, to increase their ability to display trend data rather than static “snapshots” and creating maps of individual districts with the EV registration levels shown. Now those maps are yours to review any time you want as web pages. They are currently located on my personal blog, which we used as the development sandbox. After the election’s dust settles, we will update all the pages with the election’s results and move them to TxETRA EV Alliance website. In the meantime, we will add a chart that will house the EV bills and their voting records and update those regularly.
Here’s what we ask in return for all this work on your behalf:
- Join TxETRA as either 1) a business in the EV ecosphere, which includes electric utilities, manufacturers of EVs, their chargers and accessories, charging networks and more, 2) a like-kind membership for non-profit organizations in the EV and environmental movements or, 3) an EV driver/enthusiast. If you join as an EV driver and can afford $25 per year, please sign up as a dues-paying The lobbying team funds our lobbying efforts from the dues.
- If you receive an email from TxETRA with the subject “Legislative Alert,” please read it and take action, either by calling or emailing your elected officials to let them know your thoughts on the issue in question. The “Legislative Alert” emails are sent out when an issue before the Legislature is urgent and time constrained. We do not give you a script or an email template. The reason for this is something Smitty, my predecessor, told me. He said, “A unique call or email from a constituent carries much more weight with a legislator. They get flooded with identical form letters from political action groups. As few as ten contacts from genuinely concerned citizens can change a vote.”
- Tell all your friends who drive EVs in Texas about TxETRA and ask them to join our effort.
- Check the legislative bills page (which doesn’t exist yet) regularly so you can be aware of what’s in
- Let me know additional data you’d like to see on these web pages. If we can accommodate adding that data and it will have a legislative impact, we will do what we can to add it. As an example of this, we are trying to put together a map of factories and other EV-related businesses in Texas and to quantify the jobs each provided.
We built these tools so you can have a voice in the ongoing transportation revolution. Enjoy!