11 - Sarah Fischer

Sarah Fisher from ICF joins us to talk EV charging, fleet electrification, and making clean transportation more accessible. From career advice to range anxiety myths, this episode is packed with real talk and practical insights.

Resources: 

• Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC)
• EV News Daily - podcast
• Volts - podcast and newsletter
• Green Tech Media
• EV owners group/local meetups 
• City and state government programs around EVs

Facts checked: 

• DC's Circulator bus is indeed electric!  But sadly for public transit lovers, this service was discontinued at the end of 2024. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Aparna: Hey, friends of the pod, how's it going? Today we have a very cool guest for all of y'all. Her name is Sarah Fisher and she joins us today as a program manager of the beneficial electrification team at ICF. In this role, she manages the implementation of Seattle City Lights, fleet electrification, and multifamily electric vehicle charging programs.

From actually designing the incentive programs to working directly with customers, Sarah really does it all. She's worked in alternative fuels and electric vehicles for most of her career, including the Electrification Coalition, a national nonprofit Focused on driving EV adoption. The US DOE's Clean Cities University development program, and with AmeriCorps having served at the City of Cincinnati's office of Environment and Sustainability. Her educational background is a BS in sustainability, economics and business, and she's currently back in school pursuing a master's in sustainable transportation.

Sarah, welcome. We're so excited you're here and very eager to dive into your background and learn more all about you.

[00:01:06] Sarah: Thank you. Yeah. Excited to be here. That was great, EV pun. Loved it.

[00:01:10] Aparna: Thank you very much. Uh, there is one thing we do on this show. It is make a lot of dad jokes. to start us off, Sarah, can you tell us a bit more about your career? How did you decide to study what you did study? And walk us through all those previous roles that you've had.

So.

[00:01:24] Sarah: Yeah, that's a great question. I think that really one of the biggest catalysts for me, ending up in the electric vehicle. Field and just the sustainability field as a whole was class that I took in high school. I happened to be in an AP environmental science class and like a lot of us, I think that really kind of jumpstarted my interest in the environment and and everything around it. Then I ended up going to Ohio State and focused on sustainability for my major. sort of fell. Backwards into the electric vehicle space with an internship with the Clean Cities Coalition in Columbus, Ohio. They were called Clean Fuels Ohio, and at the time it was a relatively small nonprofit. I think they had maybe five or six full-time staff. So as an intern, I was kind of gifted management of their electric vehicle education program. Without a lot of knowledge about EVs at the time, and then just kind of kept being interested in them. I tried a, a ton of different internships and jobs. I did, uh, energy efficiency, nonprofit job in dc, focused on lead consulting for homes for a little while, then ended up back in the EV space. In AmeriCorps and every job that I had, I just kind of kept asking people, have you heard about EVs? They're really cool. I love talking about them. And around 2020 when I was changing jobs again, I kind of realized that was where I wanted to be. so it was a lot of trial and error and I'd say that's. One of the biggest pieces of advice that I give to students and other young professionals working in the sustainability space is it's okay if your first job isn't your favorite. It's okay to try a bunch of different things, do internships and try short term things, and eventually that helps you figure out what you don't wanna do and helps you figure out what you do wanna do.

[00:03:33] Kiersten: we, I feel like have said similar things, so we're also glad to go there. I had a question following up. When you found yourself as an intern in charge of the EV education program, and you said maybe I didn't start out knowing the most about it, did you have any favorite resources to get yourself up to speed?

[00:03:49] Sarah: That's a great question. I will caveat this with, this was back in 20 15, 20 16 when it was. Weird to see a Tesla on the road. So very different landscape from where we are today the time, and I will say still one of the best resources is the Alternative Fuels Data Center or A FDC. have. All kinds of resources for if you're a beginner in the electric vehicle space and need to understand the different levels of charging.

Or if you are really deep in the EV space. We still reference a FDC all the time for different data points and resources. So that's probably my top recommendation. But then there's all kinds of really cool out there now. Um, there's a, a podcast actually, that I listen to called EV News Daily, which is great.

Um, volts is kind of a broader energy environmental podcast, but, they do a, a really good job covering different EV topics and then there's all kinds of different media platforms out there, like Green Tech Media, But yeah, it's, it's changed a lot over the, the last 10 years.

[00:05:01] Aparna: Yeah, a lot of good resources, So you mentioned different levels of charging. Could you define for the listeners what levels of charging are, and maybe give us some examples of level 1, 2, 3.

[00:05:12] Sarah: Yeah, definitely. This is a throwback to my original internship. I got to explain charging all over Ohio. so level one is sort of the base level of charging that we talk about, and that's essentially if you have, uh, a regular household outlet. In your apartment garage, your home garage, wherever, um, that you could plug any regular charging cable into phone, laptop, something like that, that can also charge an electric vehicle. It is a very slow charge, so it is. In the easiest way to explain it is sort of to convert it to the miles of range that you get per hour of charging for level one charging, we typically say you get anywhere from two to five miles of range per hour of charging. So very, very slow. If you charge for 10 hours, you might get 50 miles of range, which doesn't seem like a lot. I charge on a level one outlet at home, and my car sits parked 99% of the time. I don't drive that often, so when it's parked in my garage, I get a lot of range overnight by charging that way. The other two levels of charging are really what people think of when they think of EV charging. So there's level two and then level three or DC fast charging, level two charging. The equivalent that I can compare it to is if you have a, a level two outlet in your home, that's the equivalent of a dryer outlet that's. The outlet that is equivalent to level two charging, and it will give you anywhere from 20 to 30 miles of range per hour. So it's. Definitely not, uh, fast if you're on a road trip and you need to fill up as quickly as you would at a gas station.

But for the majority of EV users, that's what they'll typically charge on. If they're at a grocery store, at a park somewhere that they're going to be sitting for, you know, a significant period of time, it can really get a pretty good amount of range charging, even if they're just there for an hour or two. The other level of charging, what we call level three or DC fast charging is what you think of when you think of, I'm going on a road trip, I need a quick fill up. It can charge your vehicle from. to 80% in as little as 15 to 30 minutes. So that's a really, faster level of charging. It's really more common in high density, high traffic places like a shopping mall or, on the side of a highway at a rest stop, things like that. so those are kind of the three broad levels, and there are variations in level two and in level three. Some vehicles take faster charging than others. So that's always something that I think is really important to consider when you're choosing your personal EV.

But for the most part, we call them level one, level two, and level three.

[00:07:59] Kiersten: Very informative. Thank you. We also heard you say something about range and we had a question regarding that. So I think one of the common issues that you hear people bring up when they're considering an EV or maybe not pro EV, is range anxiety. So I'm curious if you have any great, you know, facts in your back pocket that you would like to share with anyone to combat that range anxiety.

[00:08:23] Sarah: Yeah, definitely. I think the biggest thing that we kind of like to talk about in the EV space is range anxiety is absolutely a real thing. but what most people don't realize is that your daily miles that you drive are far lower than you expect. So outside of somebody who's driving all day, every day for work, because that's, you know, the function of their job, the average American drives less than 40 miles a day and. Almost every EV on the market has at least a hundred, 150 miles of range. So an EV's range, even on the lowest end, is going to meet the average American's daily driving needs. Where I think people get concerned is more when they think about those long range trips. So if you're trying to go on a road trip to go camping or see family in another state, it's a little scary to think about driving with a hundred miles of range, 150 miles of range. I. Like to talk about with that is we are at the point in the EV market where new EVs are on the market that get 300, 350 miles of range. Those are towards the more expensive end of the vehicle range, but we're starting to see those prices come down and because the EV market is so new, those vehicles reach the used stage, that's when we'll also see prices kind of come down.

Right now we're looking at EVs as. a very expensive car, but it's because it's a very new car, and I don't know about you, but I couldn't afford a new car for a very long time, regardless of whether it was electric or gas.

[00:09:57] Aparna: completely understand, especially when you get your first job and that first paycheck, right? Like you're trying to figure out how to live.

Like you don't really have the means immediately to spend upwards of $40,000 on a car. So very much makes sense and it's been really encouraging to see. How technology has developed, how prices have dropped as time has gone on. And also too, I think the charging corridors that have been popping up everywhere are pretty fantastic, especially for that road trip example you were giving.

I believe it's A FDC that you mentioned as well, who might publish that. But I know that's something that I look at. If I have a rental car, it's an EV, I'm like, oh, am I gonna charge this thing?

[00:10:34] Sarah: It was a great point to bring up the charging networks. We're seeing DC fast charging, definitely growing rapidly. also seeing a lot of consolidation in the market. So, the big Teslas supercharging stations that are across the country, those used to be exclusively. Accessible by Tesla vehicles. Now we're seeing other manufacturers able to access those supercharging stations, so Forge, gm, Kia, Hyundai, all of the manufacturers, those vehicles are able to use that really robust supercharging network, which opens up the possibility for road trips, opens up the possibility of the number of different EVs that you might be able to consider, if that's one of your fears.

[00:11:20] Aparna: It opens up the road, so I might say for adventure. Another misconception that we've heard about, especially in the EV charging industry, is most people compare the environmental impact of mining for battery components with the emissions from internal combustion engines that might be avoided through driving an EV.

So is there something that you might wanna share on that topic for listeners that are tuning in?

[00:11:43] Sarah: Absolutely. It's one of the questions I get most frequently, and I think that it's such a good question because the people that are considering EVs are thinking about the environmental aspects as a whole. The thing that I like to say about, you know, considering the mining impacts of EVs is. On a lifecycle scale, when you're looking at from well to wheels, emissions, manufacturing, every component of a vehicle, EVs are still a lower impact for the environment.

Even considering the mining impacts, what we don't hear a lot about when we hear conversations about. mining and manufacturing and those impacts is that the people working in the EV space do care. And so we are working on making those things better. We're working on improving recycling of batteries, improving reuse of batteries, and ultimately there's a lot of work going on, shifting chemistry and how batteries are made and trying to find different minerals that we can use to manufacture batteries. The impacts of mining oil for powering gas cars are just as devastating and we are not really finding alternative ways to do that work and EVs are kind of that transition away from the devastating effects of both mining and the emissions of gas vehicles. The other thing too is when we think about the emissions of transportation. Emissions from electric vehicles are more localized, so they're a lot easier for us to deal with. So that could be from electricity generation. The environmental impacts of mining, it's more of a point source issue that people are able to focus and work on, whereas gas vehicles that are driving everywhere where you live and work and are trying to enjoy your life, it's more of a widespread pollutant.

That's a lot harder for us to and we could get into this more, but definitely has a, a disproportionate effect on communities that are located in high traffic density areas. And that's really a lot of the work that I'm working on in fleet electrification, is if we can transition our fleet vehicles to electric, we drastically reduce the impact of electric vehicles on our historically overburdened communities in the US as well.

[00:14:07] Kiersten: You really set us up for a perfect transition because the next question we had for you is about what does a day in your life as a program manager with ICF, what does that look like?

[00:14:18] Sarah: Yeah, it's kind of all across the board. you know, I'll, I'll talk about some of the, the less exciting things is, you know, there's lots of budgeting and approving invoices but I think some of the really fun parts of my job are I'm contracted out primarily to Seattle City Light and I help run two of their charger rebate programs. So we're working with Seattle City Light, a public entity. Seattle and their utility customers to help them build charging infrastructure projects. The programs that I manage are focused on multifamily EV charging, so apartment buildings, condos in Seattle that want to install charging stations or outlets for their residents. We help provide technical assistance and incentive funds for them to do that, and that's a really, really important project for us because. If you have followed the EV space, you know that a lot of the original adopters of EVs are single family homeowners that have off street parking. They have an easy place to charge their vehicle, and if you are an apartment dweller, you don't have control over where you park your vehicle.

You don't own the building. You can't install charging just because you want it. So we work with property developers, property managers, and kind of help drive that. Side of the EV charging equation. The other side of it that I manage is the Fleet Electrification program. So we're working with businesses, like I mentioned, especially in overburdened communities, trying to help them figure out how they can transition their medium heavy duty vehicles to electric, and then providing incentives for the charging infrastructure so that they can make that transition and help reduce emissions in those areas.

[00:16:01] Aparna: That is a fascinating job description, Sarah. You really are touching so many different communities, so many different people through this work. And the PC said about working with apartments, and working with property managers. Really rung true as someone who's rented apartments every time.

A building has EV chargers. That's always one of the big selling points that they make sure to have in bold letters on the first page of their flyers. So that's awesome to hear that you're actually one of the people making this transition happen. Thinking more about, us, the next generation of folks that wanna do what you're doing, they really want to empower communities to have charging infrastructure.

They want to. Help with the mass deployment of this technology. I'm wondering if there are skills or certifications that you think are important or have been useful for you along the journey? 

[00:16:50] Sarah: I love and hate this question because I think. The answer would be annoying to me as a student or a younger professional. And the short answer that I can give is no, there aren't necessarily any specific skills. It's such a broad area. In the EV space, the people doing this work, it ranges from. electricians and general contractors all the way to software developers and program managers like me, all the way up to the leadership at utilities that are making these decisions about putting funding towards this work. So it really is just kind of across the board. I think the EV space in particular is one of those areas that we can genuinely say your job title doesn't matter. Because you're working towards sustainability no matter what you're doing, so it's, it's really hard to pinpoint a specific skillset for people looking to break into this space. I really like to say that that you can do to demonstrate your passion for this space stands out a lot on a resume. When I'm interviewing candidates for internships or even full-time jobs. It's very rare for us to see somebody that has a background in electric vehicles. It's a new space. We're not expecting someone to have 10 years of experience in EVs. What I do get excited about is when I see that someone has volunteered for an organization that focuses on electric vehicle adoption, or they've done some kind of research.

Or podcast on electric vehicles, and if they talk about that in an interview and can really tell me what excites them about the electric vehicle space that goes miles and miles beyond what I think they expect. It really excites me and really shows me that they would be a good fit in our role. Everything that we do, you know, application processing, developing budgets. Talking to customers. Those are things that you can learn, but it's really hard to teach people to care 

[00:19:03] Kiersten: I think that's really encouraging. I can see how it would be frustrating to someone who's like looking to add some letters to their resume, but for those who. Maybe don't find that accessible due to costs or time, but are still interested in making the transition. I like that you say you can learn on the job, just demonstrate and clearly articulate your passion for the subject. Um, so we'll take that answer for sure. We also wanted to know. Are there any emerging trends or innovations in the industry that you're tracking or really excited about?

[00:19:34] Sarah: This might be kind of a. A smooth brain answer, but I'm a car nerd, so I really get excited about the cars. There are incredible things happening with technology and battery chemistry and all of those things, but I get really excited when I hear about a new electric vehicle coming on the market. And I think it is also really interesting to learn about. Electric vehicles that other countries have that the US doesn't have. So I took a trip to Japan recently and I collect little matchbox cars and I found a Japanese EV Matchbox car. It was called the Nissan Sura, I think. And it. It was just the cutest thing I've ever seen, and I of course brought that home and it is on my desk. But those little things I think are what keep me excited is just kind of seeing all of the different cars and driving around and getting to find a new model of EV, even bus. We're starting to see electric buses everywhere and getting to see those in public. I'm always the annoying friend that makes the group stop while I take a picture of the bus that's electric and it's super annoying. But those, those are the little exciting things to me.

[00:20:50] Aparna: We're both located in DC and I wanna say we. Have electric buses. Am I correct? Like I think the circulator was all electric.

[00:20:58] Kiersten: I know that some of the school districts in Northern Virginia as a part of the Volkswagen settlement did get large electric bus fleets. So I'm not positive about commuter buses, but we definitely have some school buses in the DMV that are all electric. I.

[00:21:12] Sarah: School buses are really big right now. There are definitely some transit agencies that have started adopting EVs. I'm not as familiar with dc, but it wouldn't surprise me. There was a lot of work going on in the DC space when I lived there very briefly.

[00:21:27] Aparna: All right. Note to self link and find the article 

[00:21:30] Kiersten: Really interact with the public transit fans, with the audience. our public transit. Called wada, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. and full disclosure, I did an internship there myself, and I'm a big fan of everything they're doing. So give some credit where credit is due. They're, they're certainly doing a little work.

[00:21:49] Sarah: I still have my. Mata card from living there in 2018.

[00:21:54] Aparna: They're good keepsakes. They just had the cherry blossom ones too. I was not lucky enough to get one of them, but it's also almost become like a collector's token. Sarah, you've been in the space for a handful of years, it sounds like, across a bunch of different companies and really have had this passion since high school. Throughout your journey, have there been folks who have really influenced your outlook besides your environmental science teacher from high school, or any mentors that you've made along the way?

[00:22:21] Sarah: great question. There are definitely quite a few people. The first one that I'm, I'm gonna talk about, his name is Matt Stevens Rich, and I'll send him this podcast. He'll be very excited. He has hired me three different times. I keep leaving employment and getting rehired again. and my favorite story was, so he was the first person to hire me when I started the internship at Clean Fuels Ohio. And. famously in my interview, I told him. All about how I liked Fast and Furious, and he still decided to hire me and that was the start of our relationship. And then he hired me as an intern at another organization later, later hired me when I rejoined Electrification Coalition in 2020. And when I recently left the EEC and joined ICF, I joked that it's my turn to hire him in the future Now. he's definitely one of the, the big influences on my career. and then I will say I've just had some really incredible managers and mentors throughout my career. Sarah Reed was one of my managers at Electrification Coalition. She's at a, a small consulting company now called Hu Anani Partners and. She really taught me everything about managing programs and not taking things too seriously, and she's just incredible. then my current, I would say friend and mentor. Amika Colletti. We started a chapter of the Women of EVs here in Seattle together, and that's kind of how we got connected. And she eventually hired me to work at ICF with her on the Seattle City Light Portfolio. I met all of those people very randomly, and it is really funny thinking about how they kind of completely changed the trajectory of my career and what I was working on at the time.

[00:24:19] Kiersten: Shout out to all of them. Well, I'll put their names in the show notes, so when you send the episode, you can tell them, look for a special message.

[00:24:26] Sarah: I am sure they'll love it.

[00:24:27] Kiersten: Well, we sort of hope to be a virtual mentor for those who maybe haven't been so fortunate with the people that they've met. So we definitely push our guests and try to ask things that are actionable. If someone wanted to support your work or get involved in EVs, what would you recommend that they do?

[00:24:45] Sarah: People would be really surprised to see how much work is going on at the city and state level. That's something that I really took away from my AmeriCorps term working at the City of Cincinnati. and state policies around driving EV adoption are just. So highly recommend looking into what your cities and states are doing. I think a lot of, you know, big federal, flashy grant programs and tax credits and things like that get a lot of press, but, cities. Are doing a, a ton of incredible work in this space, so would recommend looking at that. I'm out in Seattle, Washington. We've got a state department that is working on a comprehensive state EV plan and they're always opening portals for public commentary and I'm always telling people to go comment and talk about what they want. So would definitely recommend following those things. Even in the private sector, I think those. Opportunities for public comment drive a lot of what we are able to do. So that's typically the the biggest thing that I recommend people look at.

[00:25:58] Aparna: Yeah, those are some great resources and a lot of the city government websites, albeit a little difficult to navigate sometimes have such a wealth of information. So that's a great reminder, Sarah. You've made quite the splash already, especially with increasing education amongst your friends, pointing out the buses everywhere you go, which I so love but I wanted to take a step forward and think about.

the rest of your career, future generations, and ask if there's a legacy you hope to leave behind through this work.

[00:26:27] Sarah: That's such a hard question. I am very much one of those people that is just trying to get through today, and then I'll think about tomorrow. I think I really like working in this space because however many hours a week, I'm working 40 hours a week. I know that I'm having some kind of impact. I don't know what the end goal is.

I would love to say I wish everyone could have, an but I think ultimately if we can move the needle a little bit so that anywhere, whether it be Seattle or where I grew up in Ohio, it's not To see an EV on the road, that would be a really big win. And then I would just love to see more fleets transitioning their vehicles to electric.

That's still a very near and dear to my heart. I want to help reduce fleet emissions and really help them see also the cost savings that you can achieve from going electric. 

[00:27:27] Kiersten: That's great actually, I, follow so many nerdy sustainability based pages on LinkedIn, but one of them is called 80,000 Hours and it's named because that's like the typical amount of time you spend working. So I love your answer about you spend 40 hours a week, like that's your day job. Probably more if we're being honest sometimes. But all of those hours, you know, are purposeful. And I, I do think that's one of the beautiful parts of working in sustainability. I think if our listeners wanted to be involved in the sustainability shift and we, we think that they do, do you have any. I like books, documentaries.

You did mention a couple podcasts, so I guess you've already dropped a few. But if there are any other favorite resources that you'd like to share with the audience, we'd love to hear them.

[00:28:12] Sarah: I have to do some Googling because I can't keep the name of anything in my brain, but I really like Green Tech media. And then I will also say, I think some of the best resources for getting involved in the EV space, learning about the EV space are really local community groups. So anywhere that you live, you can typically find an EV owners group. Sometimes they have a a very formal website. Sometimes they have a. fun little Facebook group, and then sometimes they'll do meetups every month. A lot of times they will organize EV car meetups where you can go and learn about different electric vehicles if you're very new to the EV space, trying to. You know, figure out, um, places that you can learn about EVs or you're just curious about seeing a bunch of EVs in person. I think those are a really fun way to get into this space. And a lot of us that work in the EV space are also part of those groups. So you might meet somebody who's hiring for a role in this space.

[00:29:16] Aparna: All you, Evie curious folks out there, listen up. Go on, join your local meetup groups. See the EVs that are taken over our streets in the best way possible. Well, thank you so much, Sarah. This has been such a fun conversation and you have really helped educate us on the fundamentals as well as highlight some cool trends and talk to the future of EVs in our brief conversation.

So really wanted to say thank you from both Kirsten and myself, and we are looking forward to keeping up with you in the future and seeing how things play out there at ICF.

[00:29:48] Sarah: thank you both for having me and happy to connect with anyone who wants to learn more about EVs, ICF, anything.