Galena investigates electric vehicles

November 27, 2024

Michelle Wilber of ACEP and Jen Schmidt of University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research held a public meeting in Galena at the end of October to kick off the next phase in the Electric Vehicles in the Arctic, or EVITA, project.

While the potential for extreme cold and the rough roads demand robust vehicles, there is a lot of community interest in EVs. Community members already own a range of electric vehicles including electric bikes, a converted electric motorcycle, a plug-in electric hybrid car and a fully electric car.

Galena City School District is a project partner and is excited to develop EV maintenance curriculum for the Galena Interior Learning Academy. During classes the morning before the public meeting, GILA students had a chance to weigh in on the relative merits of available electric off-road vehicles and to check out the local plug-in hybrid.

The community meeting was a chance for attendees to learn more about this phase of the project, which started with working with the community and gathering data on existing vehicle use. It was also a good opportunity for the attendees to talk with researchers about current off-road EV choices on the market and share their preferences with the project team; the project includes funding to purchase off-road vehicles for data collection and performance analysis.

While in Galena, Wilber and Schmidt also worked with the project’s local lead Tim Bodony to install a vehicle logger in a participating vehicle to test the project’s ability to collect accurate vehicle use information, which will be needed to model effects of a switch to electric versions.

The EVITA project is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.