The environmental impacts of the transportation industry have been at the forefront of mobility discourse for the last decade. With 27% of greenhouse gas emissions coming from transportation and a significant percentage of low-income households’ total earnings going to transportation (over 30% in some instances), the need to…

The delivery industry is evolving in order to keep up with the rise of home delivery. Arrival, a startup company in the process of building electric delivery vans, plans to add new vehicles to the roads in the next few years. The company plans to offer vehicles with different…

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and our memories of the “before time” feel ever more distant, some have begun to wonder how this crisis and its aftermath could change how and where people live. Will people abandon expensive and dense major cities for smaller cities, suburbs or even small…

This blog is the first in a series about electric vehicles (EVs) in various forms of public and private means of transportation, as well as the unanswered legal and policy questions surrounding electrification. More posts about EVs will follow. CLEAN ENERGY CREDITS              The terms “clean…

It feels like much longer than two months ago that I first wrote about the coronavirus, Covid-19. At the time of my first blog post on the subject, the world had just witnessed China quarantine more than 50 million people in four weeks. The United States is now under…

When Elon Musk unveiled the Cybertruck late last month, it sent shockwaves throughout the electric vehicle world, the stock market, and the internet. The sleek bodied, sharp-edged vehicle is reminiscent of the classic Back to the Future DeLorean. It has already been pre-ordered by over 200K customers, according to…

            Across the United States an average of just over a third of all highway spending comes from a gas tax imposed by the state, with further funding being provided by a federal gas tax. It ranges across states from as low as 4.5 % of funding for highway spending in…

       The railway is a part of the American ethos. Without rivers to carry us from one end of the country to another, and with horses unable to travel coast to coast, the railway was king. By 1860 there were 30,000 miles of railway crisscrossing the country. By 1915 the number…

Regardless of the mixed reactions to Tesla’s new Cybertruck, the electric vehicle revolution is here. Some analysts have predicted that within twenty years, half of new vehicles sold will be electric. For the future of the planet, we may need them to be. One core tenet of climate…

This article advocates for federal legislation to implement a nationwide EV licensing system that would allow both EV manufacturers and dealers to sell and service their vehicles directly to consumers nationwide. This prospective legislation would preempt dealer franchise laws that prohibit or limit manufacturers from selling their vehicles directly to consumers. This article does not argue that direct distribution is the superior method of distribution; instead, this article argues that manufacturers should have the freedom to pursue direct distribution. As more EV companies enter the market, EV manufacturers need to have the flexibility to use a variety of distribution systems that best suit their business needs. Part II of this article provides background information on the history of dealer franchise laws and the current status of dealer franchise laws. Part III addresses the problems associated with the current car buying process and why some manufacturers prefer to sell their cars directly to consumers. Part III also addresses counterarguments from the dealer lobby. Part IV introduces potential federal legislative reform to preempt state dealer franchise laws to allow EV manufacturers to directly sell their vehicles to consumers.