Conversation with Chris Sharek

In 1998, after a visit to a car show, Chris Sharek became enamored with the idea of owning an electric vehicle. It took 13 years, and in 2011 Sharek was able to achieve his dream of purchasing a Chevy Volt. Since then, he has become an electric-vehicle evangelist.

In addition to penning a book extolling the virtue of electric cars, Sharek is one of the organizers of Electrify the Island, an annual event designed to showcase electric cars in Sarasota. Sharek told us about the evolution of these cars, how local governments can be leading adopters and why electric vehicle owners are so dedicated to touting the benefits of their prized possessions.

How has the Electrify the Island event evolved since its inception?

Every trend, every graph, every set of data I look at, it’s an exponential growth. It is not a linear growth, it is not just picking up. In the number of models of cars, in the number of manufacturers creating the cars, in the adoption rate — everything is an exponential growth.

Four years ago, we had our first event at St. Armands. At the time we had three cars: a Nissan, a Chevy and a Tesla. You didn’t have a lot of choice. Now, this year, we had 18 cars. Some of those cars are limited production, maybe just in a certain state, but they’re all available. The idea that all these manufacturers are finally coming on board speaks volumes that this is a trend that’s going to continue.

You've gotten initial support and buy-in from local governments. How do you persuade them to continue embracing electric vehicles?

This really gets back to the question of fleet vehicles. This is where really they need to start doing thorough analysis. Even with the cheap gas prices we have these days, it’s still half as cheap to drive the electric car than with these $2.20-per-gallon gas prices. The maintenance on the things, that’s the other whole aspect of this. We’re repairing, repairing, oil changes. You don’t have any of that with these electrics.

Sarasota County bought a few of of these cars, but they really need to look at their fleet holistically. Are they the end-all, cure-all? Are they going to do everything the county needs them to do now? No, they’re not.

Trucks are coming. They’re being produced right now — for fleet sales, specifically, in Utah. These trucks are going to go 30 miles on a charge and switch to gas. The neatest thing about them from an emergency perspective, county perspective is they have an on-board generator. You can plug them into a street light or a lift station that might not have power and provide the power right from the truck.

As prices continue to come down, the counties and cities really need to get on board. It would be nice now, when we’re looking at the new vehicle replacements, to start to feather in the electrics to reduce the long-term maintenance costs.

What is life like for an electric car owner in Sarasota County relative to other places?

It’s fantastic here. It was fantastic here three years ago. The number of charging stations they have put in — they were given to the county, so they didn’t have to pay for the infrastructure, but they did pay for the installation costs. It is becoming harder and harder for the counties to find money to pay for this infrastructure.

What I would suggest is to encourage businesses to install these. I’ve never spent as much money around the Palm Avenue garage as I have in the past four years. I park there, I walk to Two Senoritas, walk to some other restaurant, have lunch and I get a free charge while I’m there. It costs the city or whoever’s paying 20 cents. It’s peanuts when you look at the grand scheme of everything else.

How diverse is the electric vehicle market right now?

There’s a little bit of a struggle sometimes when folks need to carry five people. There’s only a couple of cars that have that third seat in the back. A family of four is not a problem, but a family of five becomes tight.

As battery technologies grow, certainly, cost is going to come down significantly. The infrastructure is there, the vehicles are there and they’re only growing.

Do you think it will take something jarring to get people to change their car preferences, or can it change organically?

I really would like to say both. There are a lot of folks that would really like this change. There are a lot of folks who drive Priuses right now, and Priuses are good. But that was also an impetus for me to write a book — 50 miles per gallon is good, but when I’m getting 250 mpg and folks are preaching to me about how great their Prius is, I have to stand up and say something.

There are a lot of folks who want to do what they can to reduce their footprint, and that will happen organically. If we do see another period of $4-$5 gallon gasoline, certainly that’s going to light a fire under folks as well. We will see gas prices go back up; it’s just a question of when.