Utilities, state governments, and private developers are racing to roll out faster, more powerful EV chargers. At the same time, automakers and tech giants across the globe are pouring billions into R&D to develop batteries that can take ever-higher levels of power. But what if there’s a better, easier, cheaper, and more effective way to cut emissions?

What if, instead of faster chargers, we pushed for SLOWER gas pumps?

I want to start this conversation by pointing out that there’s a precedent for this idea. Back in 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule that limited the rate that gas service stations could pump fuel to a maximum of 10 gallons per minute (gpm), with the stated goals of reducing evaporative emissions and promoting safety by ensuring the integrity of the nation’s refueling infrastructure.

Officially dubbed “61 FR 33033 – Regulation of Fuels and Fuel Additives: Controls Applicable to Gasoline Retailers and Wholesale Purchaser-Consumers; 10 Gallon Per Minute Fuel Dispensing Limit Requirement Implementation,” the rule was finalized in January of 1993 and went into effect in 1996. Now, almost thirty years later, I think it’s time to revisit 61 FR 33033 in a way that helps reduce emissions even more.

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To zero.

The pitch

The basic idea is this: instead of “just” asking for utility rate-payers and State or local governments to help cover the costs of rolling out an increasingly huge EV charging infrastructure that will never be big enough to convince the red hats it’s ready, anyway, we focus our lobbying efforts on slower gas pumps in blue states. Like, significantly slower gas pumps.

By reducing the maximum pumping speed from 10 gpm to 3 gpm, we could increase the minimum time to fill up a half-ton Ford F-150’s 36 gallon fuel tank (yes, really) from under four minutes to nearly twelve (12). Factor in the longer wait times ICE-vehicles would have to endure waiting in line to refuel, as well, and we’re talking about a 20-30 minute turnaround time to go from just 10% to a usable 80-or-90% fill.

Y’all see where I’m going with this?

Everybody wins

Way back in 2022, oil giant BP claimed that its BP Pulse electric vehicle chargers were “on the cusp” of being more profitable than its gas pumps. Now, three years and several technological leaps since, BP is investing billions to expand its EV charging infrastructure – and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that they’re expecting a positive ROI.

You don’t have to take my word for that, though. You can take big oil’s. “If I think about a tank of fuel versus a fast charge, we are nearing a place where the business fundamentals on the fast charge are better than they are on the (fossil) fuel,” BP head of customers and products, Emma Delaney, told Reuters.

Those fundamentals revolve around amenities. If you’re popping into a gas station for a three or four minute visit, you’re probably getting in and out as fast as you can. But if you’re there a bit longer? That’s a different story. You might visit the rest room, might buy a snack or order a coffee or suddenly remember you were supposed to pick up milk on your way home, even – and that stuff has a much higher margin for the gas station than the dino-juice, totaling 61.4% of all fuel station profits despite being a fraction of the overall revenue.

The other big winner, of course, is literally everyone. The forgotten costs of fossil fuels cost Americans billions in healthcare bills and environmental clean up each year, and untold trillions of dollars of military spending (to say nothing of the toll on three generations of American blood spilled in the Middle East to secure an affordable supply of oil).

With this plan, ICE-holes and Hemi zealots can continue to have their gas (if they decide it’s worth the wait, so be it). Meanwhile, the well-adjusted normals figure out real quick that it’s better, cheaper, and easier to charge at home.

The rest will take care of itself.

What do you guys think? Does this low-cost, high-impact idea to cut the time delta between refueling your gas car and recharging your EV have legs? What concerns do we need to address before we take it to Gavin and JB? Let us know, in the comments!

Original content from Electrek; featured image by Wikimedia user Coolcaesar, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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Just weeks after writing about John Deere’s tried-and-true Gator side-by-side and extolling the virtues of its two-plus decades of design stasis, the engineers at Deere have launched a pair of new, li-ion Gator models that offer all-day power to move people and things all over your property in true, go-anywhere Gator fashion.

John Deere is quick to point out that these new GX side-by-side utility vehicles are not golf carts. Fair enough – while they;re not quite in the same go-anywhere league as Deere’s TH 6×4 Gas or TE 4×2 Gators, the Gator GX and GX Crew offer more than enough capability to handle just about anything you’ll find on a typical campus, golf course, or job site.

To that end, the sturdy composite dump bed, comfortable and supportive high-back foam seats seem credible enough at first glance. And, if you give the new Deere UTVs a second glance, you’ll see a 367-L (13-cu ft) cargo box can haul more than 800 lbs. (~365 kg) of mulch, nursery plantings, building supplies, firewood, animal feed, or tools.

These are serious machines, in other words, ready to get down and do some serious work, but without the noise, vibration, and harmful exhaust emissions of gas.

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“The Gator GX lineup offers property owners the opportunity to increase productivity around their properties with less noise, less maintenance and more versatility,” said John Deere Go To Market Manager Eric Halfman. “These utility vehicles are intuitive and durable while offering users the comfort, reliability and convenience they expect from a John Deere Gator.”

The key component in the new GX and GX Crew is the new, 5.4 kWh, 51.2V lithium-ion battery that sends power to a high-efficiency electric drive motor with responsive torque and smooth acceleration. An onboard charger allows for convenient charging anywhere with a standard, grounded 120 outlet, eliminating the need for handling fuel or trips to the gas station and fully charging the 5.4 kWh battery over night, with more than 8 hours of continuous operation on tap that’s extendable with clever use of the new Deere’s regenerative braking.

These new electric Gators are available in classic John Deere green or grey metallic, and start at $17,499 with a whole suite of available accessories to make upfitting a breeze. The company says they’ll be available for order at your local John Deere TriGreen dealer in Q1 of 2026.

Electrek’s Take

I imagine that applying the Gator name to a vehicle that I’d call a glorified golf cart makes me feel something similar to what the Mustang guys feel whenever they see a Mach-E drive past. As such, I’ll give myself the same advice I give them: the people who make the thing decide what makes it worthy of the name, not you.

As such, I’d better get used to it. The good news there, of course, is that it seems like Deere’s latest Gator is going to be more than good enough to win me over. Eventually.

SOURCE | IMAGES: John Deere, via Charged EVs.

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GM has scrapped plans to build $55 million hydrogen fuel cell factory in Detroit, triggering a tsunami of headlines about the General’s future plans for hydrogen. The reality? GM isn’t scaling back its hydrogen efforts. It’s thinking bigger.

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

MARK TWAIN (sort of)

Like the great Sam Clemens, there seems to be plenty of confidence in the greater automotive press that GM’s decision to cancel a $55 millions fuel cell plant on the former Michigan State Fairgrounds site in Detroit. That plant, a JV with Southeast Michigan’s Piston Automotive, would have created ~140 jobs and built compact hydrogen fuel cells for light- and medium-duty vehicles under the Hydrotec brand.

That plan, frankly, was never going to work. It was always a cynical incentive grab and the first fruits of GM’s Hydrotec efforts were so laughably far behind the state of the electric art that the facts themselves blurred the line between satire and reality. Which, of course, didn’t matter – as long as the incentive money (Biden’s Department of Energy awarded GM $30 million in grants for the State Fairgrounds plant) kept flowing.

The new Trump Administration put an end to that flow last week, however, terminating 321 financial awards for clean energy worth $7.56 billion.

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“Certainly the decisions of the DOE are an element of that overall climate but not the only driver,” explained GM spokesperson, Stuart Fowle, in a statement. “We want to prioritize the engineering talent and resources and everything we have to continuing to advance EVs given hydrogen is in a different spot.”

That spot is heavy-duty, off-highway, maritime, and data centers.

Bigger trucks, bigger fuel cells

Instead of dying, GM is continuing on the hydrogen fuel cell it’s been on for literal decades – with no plans (publicly, at least) to shutter its Fuel Cell System Manufacturing joint-venture with Honda in Brownstown Township, MI.

That company is not just developing HFCs, they’re out there selling fuel cells today, to extreme-duty, disaster response, and off-highway equipment customers operating far enough off the grid that access to electricity is questionable and to data center developers for whom access to a continuous flow of energy is mission-critical.

Electrek’s Take

Fuel cells like the ones from GM and Honda will continue to seem like a good idea … for about as long as it takes the heavy equipment guys to watch a ZQUIP video.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Detroit News, FreightWaves, Yahoo!Finance.

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