L.A.'s Bold Plan to Bring Car-Share to the Poor

For all their social benefits, electric vehicles have so far remained the province of the rich. Snazzy Teslas start at $70,000, BMW’s i3 will set you back $43,000, and even the relatively cheap Ford Focus Electric and Nissan Leaf cost around $30,000. That’s nowhere near economy car prices, and given how new the fleet is, it will take a few years to build up a used EV market.

That means low-income families, who tend to live in parts of cities more vulnerable to pollution, can’t always access the tremendous advances in clean transportation technology. L.A. wants to level the playing field with a new pilot program to subsidize EV car-sharing. The city just won a $1.6 million grant from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to put 100 car-share vehicles, at least 80 of which are electric, into the low-income neighborhoods ringing downtown L.A. The city still needs to figure out who will operate the service, but it hopes to get the new cars rolling by early next year.