Mark and Pam Glover rented their first electric car during a vacation to Texas in 2019.
They wanted to “see what all the fuss was about,” Mark said, and he said it was a “pleasure” to drive.
The experience was an eye-opening one for the Glovers, who said they had to look up how to start up and operate the car when they picked up the rental. Now, five years later, Mark and Pam own two EVs: a Tesla Model Y SUV and one of the company’s Cybertrucks.
“In 2023 after doing all the homework on the car and following Elon [Musk] and all the Tesla and the story and all that, and we decided to get one,” Mark said.
They have their own home charger and the vehicles are connected to their phones through an app. Mark said the Teslas “just ticked all the boxes” for the convenience and technology they were hoping for in an electric vehicle.
“We loved having the fact that we didn't have to maintain the car as much, no scheduled oil changes, no spark plugs, no emissions, timing belts, things like that, things that you would normally check,” Mark said.
Now, the Paducah couple are a part of the growing population of EV owners across the nation. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation reports that EVs constitute a little more than 2% of vehicles on the nation’s roadways, a number that’s grown slowly over the past decade as more vehicles get put on the market and more charging infrastructure is built around the country.
Though Kentucky is home to several major EV industry developments, the Bluegrass State’s drivers have been even slower than most to make the shift. In a press release from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a lobbying group of car manufacturers, their data showed that Kentucky ranks 39th in the electric vehicle market.
In 2024, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet reported it had just 14,410 registered passenger vehicles that were fully electric. That’s less than 1% of the state’s personal automobiles.
Gov. Andy Beshear has called Kentucky the electric vehicle battery production capital of the United States and, in recent years, Kentucky has seen multiple companies announce billions of dollars in plans to develop electric vehicle and EV component manufacturing sites in the state.
Cities like Hopkinsville, Bowling Green and Glendale have seen the start of these new economic development projects. This week in Louisville, Ford announced plans to expand their Louisville Assembly Plant and start building a new electric pickup truck in the $30,000 price range.
Other states like Michigan, Tennessee and Georgia have electric vehicle battery production sites.
Federal tax credits for the purchase of most electric vehicles, new or used, started in 2023. One could receive up to $7,500 for buying or leasing a new electric vehicle and up to $4,000 for a used electric vehicle. However, those credits will be ending in September.
Selling Kentuckians on EVs
Electric vehicles aren’t the biggest part of the car market in Kentucky, but they are being sold.
At Pennyrile Ford in Hopkinsville, the dealership has sold less than two dozen electric vehicles since March 2024.
Rhiannon Fryer is in the process of becoming the dealership’s “EV Champion,” part of Ford’s efforts to sell more electric vehicles. Fryer, who owns a Mustang Mach-E, said it’s been “interesting” trying to sell people on EVs in a rural market.
“I think the most exciting part is kind of breaking down their preconceived notions of what EVs are and what they're capable of,” Fryer said. “Getting them behind the wheel of one, them getting to drive it and experience the difference between what the EV world refers to as ICE vehicles – internal combustion engine vehicles – versus an EV.”
She got an electric vehicle after she had the chance to drive one when her boyfriend brought it home to test drive as a part of his work, also as a car salesman. She said the biggest takeaway from it all is that EVs are just “fun to drive.”
“That kind of seems like a very sales-y track to explain something, but I don't remember the last time I genuinely had fun just driving a car,” Fryer said. “Just the acceleration, the torque, the response of the vehicle is instantaneous.”
Fryer said the biggest concern for many customers is “range anxiety,” what she calls the fear that an electric vehicle might not have enough battery to make it from one charger to the next. There’s also been some concerns on the connotations of who is an electric vehicle owner, but she’s seen purchasers from “all sides of the spectrum.”
Mike Proctor is an EV driver and a part of a group of enthusiasts and owners in the state called EvolveKY. He said owning an EV has three inherent benefits: saving money, being environmentally friendly and limiting military involvement in oil production.
“We save money. I'm saving about $1,000 a year compared to buying gas versus electricity for the vehicle,” said Proctor. “And this concept of trying to do a little something to save the planet, to be environmentally friendly.”
The group hosts events to answer questions about EVs and allow the EV-curious the opportunity to ride in or drive an electric vehicle.
Proctor said the group has seen younger people and those concerned about the environment warm up to electric vehicles already, what he described as “low-hanging fruit.”
“Now it becomes just a matter of ‘What's your personal preferences?’ Do you like the idea of bypassing all those gas stations in the middle of winter and charging up at home in your nice, warm garage? And do you like the technology and the safety?” Proctor said.
Fred Rockhold is one of the board members of EvolveKY and a former emergency room doctor. He said electric vehicles are safe, that fires are less likely in an EV and that the center of gravity in the car is closer to the road, which makes a car harder to flip in a wreck.
“I always tell parents I see, they bring their kids along, 13, 14, years old, when he or she starts driving, you need to buy them an electric vehicle, buy one used or whatever, but electric vehicles [are] much safer on the road for them,” Rockhold said.
Chargers are a big topic of discussion among electric vehicle owners and the EV-curious. A majority of EV owners have chargers installed at their home to charge their cars at night, similar to how one might charge their phone.
According to the Alternative Fuels Data Center, a part of the Department of Energy, there are 356 charging stations in Kentucky, with 1,033 charging ports. Many are public and available to use in parking garages and at gas stations, some are on-site at dealerships and others are run by auto companies, such as the Blue Oval Network maintained by Ford and Tesla’s network of superchargers.
When Proctor talks about the need for more chargers to serve EVs, he describes it as “a chicken and egg kind of situation.”
“We need the electric vehicle charging stations out there for both road trips and for emergency situations where we just need a little extra charge just to get home,” Proctor said. “Having chargers at libraries and farmers markets and places like that, in addition to the ones out on the highway just rounds out, it makes folks a lot more comfortable about knowing they can always find something to help get from A to B if they venture out with their electric cars.”
There are also groups lobbying for improvements to the electric vehicle charger network and other things, like the Zero Emission Transportation Association. ZETA’s main policy issue is supporting the EV supply chain.
ZETA research director Corey Cantor said this isn’t just about the electric vehicles and batteries, but up the supply chain to mining and refining minerals, and down it to recycling the batteries.
More knowledge about batteries, developed supply chains and additional battery chemistries have helped bring down the cost of EV batteries, Cantor said.
“It really is important work, and it has spillover effects too, into things like battery energy storage systems and the grid and helping bring car costs down,” Cantor said. “Batteries overall are really exciting.”
He said that the drop in EV battery prices in recent years has brought the vehicles into more peoples’ price ranges.
Currently, the average all-electric vehicle runs customers between $40,000 and $55,000. But Cantor believes that the increased production of EVs and their components – along with the building of further charging infrastructure – could help EV builders lower their prices. That, he said, could be the spark that powers more sales.
“Why these [battery] factories matter and these facilities is, if you're producing more and more batteries and building up more and more expertise, you're able to drive down costs over time,” Cantor said. “Once these facilities are up and running, the hope is that you're increasing the numbers of batteries produced here, and therefore, over time, able to release more affordable electric vehicles.”
Though still less than 1% of Kentucky drivers are behind the wheel of an E-V, those numbers are rising slowly.
In 2022, just under 6,000 electric vehicles were registered in the state. Since then, the state has seen a pair of consecutive 30% increases in EV registration, with around 5,000 new electric vehicles registered in Kentucky last year.
