Can EV ambassadors help Chicago drivers go electric?

Illinois has big plans for electric vehicles — but they won’t happen unless residents of its biggest city, Chicago, embrace the battery-powered cars. That’s where EV ambassadors like William Davis come in.

Davis is one of a handful of community leaders working with utility ComEd under a new program that’s meant to convince skeptical individuals and businesses to electrify, and to connect them with incentives to do so.

“People don’t understand how EVs work, how they make their lives better,” he said, or ​“from a socioeconomic standpoint, why it’s urgent to accelerate this transition from internal combustion engines to EVs.”

ComEd, Illinois’ largest utility, sees ambassadors as a way to help fulfill the goals enshrined in its Beneficial Electrification plan, which is meant to drive EV adoption in the company’s territory and was mandated by the state’s 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act. The law sets a target of 1 million EVs in Illinois by 2030. There are now 150,000 registered in Illinois, and about 130,000 of those are in ComEd service territory — up from a mere 23 in 2010, according to the utility.

The Illinois Commerce Commission recently approved ComEd’s Beneficial Electrification plan for 2026 through 2028, which calls on the utility to spend $168 million promoting EVs. Most of the funding will go toward rebates for EVs and chargers for residents, businesses, and public use. That will bring ComEd’s total spending on the program to $400 million between 2023 and 2028.

Already, ComEd has offered rebates for about 5,800 charging ports and over 1,500 electric vehicles, said Cristina Botero, senior manager of the company’s Beneficial Electrification program.

More than 1,400 of those vehicles and almost half of the charging ports are in areas that qualify for social-equity incentives under state law. Botero said that in all, 80% of Beneficial Electrification EV incentives have gone to places the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act designates as ​“equity investment eligible communities” that have faced economic exclusion or disproportionate levels of pollution.

The ambassador program, launched this summer, aims to deepen the plan’s benefits to these areas, which also stand to gain the most from EVs, given the high levels of vehicle pollution they face. The initiative is rolling out first in historically marginalized South Side neighborhoods like Bronzeville, where Davis is executive director of the Bronzeville Community Development Partnership.

Davis is approaching the ambassadorship from experience. His organization is in the process of installing two EV chargers thanks to ComEd incentives, and it recently purchased an electric van through a city climate grant. He imagines the van serving as a modern jitney — referencing the informal cabs that once plied the streets of Bronzeville and other segregated neighborhoods, transporting Black customers that taxi drivers refused to serve.

Nicole Wheatly is another EV ambassador. She’s the founder and executive director of A Step Beyond, a Bronzeville-based nonprofit that promotes home ownership, public health, small business development, and education.

Wheatly recently bought her own EV — a Hummer — and has noticed that it’s cheaper to run than her previous gasoline-fueled car. She received a ComEd rebate for a charger that she is in the process of installing at her home.

In her view, spreading information through existing connections is more important than ever. When she’s on the clock as a real-estate agent, she already encourages clients to consider homes with electric rather than gas heat.

“I’m in community development. In the past we could knock on doors and people would answer, but people are not trusting anymore,” Wheatly said. ​“I’m getting the word out through that personal touch, personal relationships, personal email contacts for people I know will be open to hear these things.”

For Remel Terry, another ambassador, it’s especially crucial to draw the connection between the benefits of EVs and the transportation-related challenges the community has historically faced.

“Most of our communities are significantly impacted by all of the environmental justice concerns,” said Terry, director of programs for Equiticity, an advocacy group that promotes mobility for residents in neighborhoods such as Bronzeville and North Lawndale on the city’s West Side. The organization puts on community bike rides, neighborhood walking tours, and workforce development programs to help young adults learn how to repair electric cars, bikes, and scooters.

“We’re helping people to see the benefit of getting rid of gas cars, transitioning to electric cars for a significant benefit,” she continued. ​“Not just the environmental aspect, but the cost over time.”

Both Equiticity and the Bronzeville Community Development Partnership are pushing to expand charging infrastructure in underserved neighborhoods, especially for apartment-dwellers or others who would have trouble installing a charger at their home.

Davis said the COVID-19 pandemic really drove home the toll of air pollution on his community, as many residents have respiratory illnesses that make them even more susceptible to the disease.

“Transportation is fouling the air,” said Davis. ​“How do we solve that? There are steps we can take to create a cleaner transportation environment. An essential piece is electric vehicle transportation.”