Today, electric vehicles are no longer a futuristic abstraction present only on the West Coast, but an inevitable trend that has extended its reach across the nation to Ohio where they present an opportunity — or perhaps an imperative — for the state to reinvent its economic foundation. While we may mostly think of compact, futuristic-looking cars when talking about electric vehicles, Ohio is paving the way for commercial uses of these vehicles and capitalizing on the infrastructural changes they will bring to communities.
“Auto manufacturing jobs are a cornerstone of our economy now. They’re very important for basically every part of Ohio because the supply chain is spread throughout the state,” Brendan Kelley, director of Drive Electric Ohio, said. “If we’re going to still have a robust auto industry in Ohio, we need to be welcoming electric vehicles.”
Ohio is embracing one area of innovation in particular: the production of electric alternatives to medium and heavy-duty trucks, which accounted for nearly a quarter of the transportation sector’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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