The Ray - sustainable highway incubator in Georgia

At my office, we have a series of lunch-and-learns on innovation in a variety of industries. Today's interesting presentation was from the team at The Ray, a 16-mile stretch of I-85 in western Georgia that is used as an incubator for sustainable highway tech.

"The team behind the project envisions The Ray, as the organizers call this stretch of road, to be a living laboratory for highways of the future. Working with innovation consultants and the Georgia Department of Transportation, they’re testing a mix of high- and low-tech solutions that could potentially make highways smarter, greener, and safer. The team hopes to make The Ray the first road—but not the last—to be 'zero-carbon, zero-deaths, zero-waste, zero-impact.' The organizers call it Mission Zero."
-- Unlocking the Hidden Power of a Highway​

Some of the features installed so far (at a visitor's center near the Georgia/Alabama line):

• A solar-powered EV charging station
• A WheelRight tire monitoring system that measures tire pressure and tread depth by driving over sensors in the road
• 50 square meters of solar panels installed on the surface of the road
• A one-megawatt solar farm in the right-of-way (under construction)

The team is also exploring options for solar generation from highway noise barriers and roadside wind turbines.

One of the interesting points made in the presentation was that we expect all of our devices to multi-task, while thousands of miles of highway (plus additional land for right-of-way and large walls of noise barriers) just sit there.

 

Yes, in addition to personal interests, they were looking for transportation budget $$$, and the EV credit was an easy target. Many EV buyers in Georgia were taking advantage of the federal + state credits, which made a two-year lease on a Leaf nearly-free. State lawmakers weren't interested in continuing to subsidize vehicle ownership, especially vehicles that would further reduce (gas) tax collection. In fact, to add insult to injury, at the same time that we lost the credit, a $200/yr EV registration fee was added

We also have a strong urban-vs.-rural dichotomy in Georgia, which is sometimes viewed as Atlanta vs. "everyone else in the state." State lawmakers that represent areas outside of Atlanta fiercely oppose anything that appears to be Atlanta/city-centric.

Although EV sales in Georgia have plummeted, it will be interesting to see how EV ownership rates change over time. A guy in my office did the math on a Leaf before the credit expired, realized it would be practically free to drive (we have several free charging stations on our campus), so dozens of colleagues bought Leafs in 2014-2015 before the credit ended. About 90% of the Leaf owners that I know got into an EV because it was an almost-free car; no one cared about the environmental benefits. As they're coming off-lease now, I hear that most of them are getting pretty great buyout deals from Nissan (given the glut of off-lease Leafs available nationwide). I think the cheap buyouts might be keeping a lot of people in EVs (who normally would have switched back to a traditional ICE).