The General Motors EV1 is an early electric car made by GM. It’s often talked about because it was one of the earlier examples of a car designed to run on electricity. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because someone actually drove one every day, which helps explain what it was like to live with.
A purpose-built EV is made for electricity from the start. A conversion is when someone takes an existing gas car and tries to change it to run on electricity. Designing it from scratch usually makes it work better as an EV.
An AC induction motor is the electric motor that turns electricity into motion. It uses alternating current (AC) to spin the motor smoothly. The EV1 used this type of motor as part of its electric power system.
The EV1 was an early electric car made by General Motors. Instead of selling it like a normal car, GM mostly leased it, and later they stopped the program and took the cars back.
A lease-only sales model means customers don’t build ownership rights like they would with a retail purchase. For the EV1, this limited long-term access to the vehicles and contributed to how the program ended—GM could retrieve cars rather than deal with a large used-car market.
Crushing means the cars were destroyed instead of being sold or kept. That’s a big deal because it meant the EV1s weren’t likely to show up later as used cars.
A greenhouse gas emissions inventory is a structured accounting of where emissions come from (often by sector like transportation, buildings, and industry). It’s a foundational step for climate planning because it establishes a baseline before setting targets and strategies.
This is a study of how vulnerable a city or region is to climate impacts. It helps decide what problems to prioritize and where solutions will matter most.
Electric vehicles run on electricity stored in a battery, not gasoline. Because they don’t have tailpipes like gas cars, they can help reduce the pollution people breathe in daily life.
This was a government program (through the EPA) to make school buses cleaner. The goal was to reduce the exhaust kids are exposed to on long bus rides, improving air quality around schools and neighborhoods.
A tailpipe is where a vehicle’s exhaust comes out. The podcast explains that kids can be more affected because they breathe more quickly and are smaller, so the pollution can hit them harder.
Asthma and other breathing problems can get worse when the air is polluted. The podcast is making the point that bus routes expose kids to exhaust for a long time, which can increase health risks.
A diesel particulate filter is a device on a diesel exhaust system that catches the smoky soot before it leaves the tailpipe. It helps make diesel exhaust cleaner by trapping and then burning off that soot.
A Clean School Bus Grant is money provided to help school districts reduce pollution from their buses. Here, it helped pay for cleaner exhaust equipment on diesel buses.
A retrofit means taking something that’s already in use and adding new parts or upgrades to it. Here, it’s about improving older buses’ emissions without buying brand-new buses.
EPA is the U.S. agency that works on environmental rules and pollution control. In this story, they’re involved because they’re funding cleaner school bus projects.
Electric buses are buses that run on electricity stored in batteries instead of diesel fuel. The speaker’s point is that school routes are usually predictable, so it’s easier to plan around the bus’s range.
A climate action plan is a structured set of goals and policies a city uses to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and address climate impacts. The guest ties Menford’s early plan (in 2001) to increased media attention and follow-on interest from other cities. It’s a “policy-to-project” concept: planning can unlock partnerships, funding, and pilot programs like EV deployments.
Brand
Massachusetts
Massachusetts is central to the story because the guest describes how the state’s early adoption of California’s clean air rules influenced automakers to place EVs in the region. The discussion is about how local and state policy can shape what vehicles show up and when. It’s a useful geographic policy context for EV adoption.
The Clean Cities Coalition is a program within the U.S. Department of Energy focused on advancing alternative fuels and reducing petroleum use. In the segment, it’s described as bringing funding for alternative-fuel efforts, which connects directly to why EVs were supported and deployed in places like Massachusetts. It’s an example of how federal programs can accelerate local EV adoption.
Alternative fuels are fuels for cars that aren’t regular gas or diesel. Electricity is one of the biggest examples. In this segment, the guest is saying funding for alternative fuels helped support EV projects.
Clean Air Standards are government rules meant to reduce pollution. When Massachusetts adopted California’s version, it encouraged car companies to bring more cleaner vehicles to the state. That’s part of why electric cars like the EV1 showed up.
A charging station is the fixed equipment that delivers electricity to an EV’s battery. Where it’s installed matters because it affects convenience, access for utilities/maintenance, and how consistently drivers can charge. The host notes the station was placed at City Hall in a “best spot” tied to utility access.
This is about range management—driving in a way that reduces energy consumption so you can go farther on a limited battery. Techniques mentioned include easing off the accelerator, slowing down more gently, and avoiding hard braking. Those behaviors reduce the energy the car must spend to accelerate and help limit losses.
The phrase “fully electric” distinguishes a battery-electric vehicle (BEV) from hybrids, which use both a gasoline engine and an electric motor. Around 2001, hybrids were far less common, so many people didn’t immediately understand that an EV could be entirely powered by electricity. The host describes explaining this distinction to people and getting positive reactions.
EV stands for electric vehicle, and the episode is addressing a common misconception that EVs can’t handle long-distance travel. The hosts contrast the idea with the reality that any car—gas or electric—requires stops during a cross-country trip (gas stops vs charging stops).
A fossil fuel vehicle is a car that runs on gasoline or diesel. The episode uses this term to make a practical comparison: long-distance travel requires stopping for fuel, which is analogous to stopping for charging in an EV.
This was a big U.S. government program that injected money into the economy. The episode mentions it because some of that money was aimed at climate and energy-efficiency projects, which can help the systems EVs rely on.
It means trying to put less pollution into the air. With EVs, the idea is that switching from gas cars to electric cars can help reduce harmful emissions.
Concept
saving the planet (metaphor)
They’re talking about “saving the planet” as a way to describe climate goals. The point is that you don’t need to be perfect—just keep making progress in the right direction.
Terraforming means trying to change a planet so people could live there. In this conversation, it’s used more like a big-picture idea about the future, not a practical EV topic.
Colonizing Mars means building a permanent human presence on Mars. The hosts are contrasting that far-future plan with what we can do right now on Earth.
HVAC is the system that controls heating and cooling in a building. Keeping it maintained—or upgrading it—can reduce energy use. It’s an important part of making buildings more efficient.
Term
heat pot
They’re talking about replacing a gas heating setup with an electric heating option. The key idea is not to replace working equipment too early, because that wastes resources and money.
Natural gas is a fuel used for things like heating buildings. The discussion is basically saying: don’t replace gas equipment immediately just to “go all electric” if the old system still has useful life.
End-of-life planning means you plan for replacement before things break down completely. Instead of changing equipment too early (wasting money) or too late (risking failures), you schedule upgrades when they make sense.
Concept
decentralized vs centralized fleet management
They’re comparing two ways cities can run their vehicle programs. In one model, each department handles its own vehicles; in the other, one central person manages the fleet. Central control can help make EV and replacement decisions more consistent.
A fleet manager is like the “vehicle planner” for an organization. They decide which vehicles to use and when to replace them so the fleet runs efficiently. Centralized control usually makes those decisions easier to coordinate.
Route optimization means planning the best path for vehicles to take. If routes are smarter, trucks and buses drive less and waste less energy. That can also reduce pollution.
It means choosing the right kind of vehicle for the work. If you use a vehicle that’s bigger than you need, you waste energy and money. Matching the vehicle to the job helps cut costs and pollution.
Concept
EV webinar
They’re referring to an online talk about electric vehicles. It’s being used as background for the discussion, not as a technical vehicle detail.
Blink is a company that provides and runs EV charging stations. The city helps with the construction work, and Blink takes care of operating the chargers.
This is backup power for EV chargers. If there’s a disaster and the grid goes down, the chargers can still work so people can charge enough to get to safety.
Hurricane Sandy was a big storm that caused major damage, especially in parts of New York. The point here is that it showed where systems weren’t ready, which pushed cities to plan better for future emergencies.
The speaker references a climate action webinar series designed to share lessons learned across locations. In context, it’s about transferring resilience and EV infrastructure strategies from one community to others.
Zoning and permits are the local rules that decide where something can be built and what requirements it must meet. EV chargers aren’t just “plug in and go”—cities may need to approve locations and construction details first.
Electrification means switching more of everyday life—like cars and buildings—from gas or other fuels to electricity. That creates new work for cities because they have to build and manage the new systems.
On-street EV charging is for people who park on the street instead of in a driveway or garage. It usually means the city has to set up designated spots and make sure there’s power available.
Concept
Amsterdam EV charging model (everyone brings their own charger)
The Amsterdam example is about how a city can make public charging easier to use. Instead of every charger being a totally custom project, the public setup is standardized so drivers can plug in with their own gear.
The Dodge Charger is a car model people recognize, and it can be part of a discussion about how electric cars get charged. The key point in your quote is that at some places, you may need to bring your own charger so you can plug in and charge your car. People also need to know what kind of charging connection will work there.
This is about thinking in terms of total pollution (greenhouse gases) rather than one project. The point is that some efforts may not matter as much as you’d think compared with the biggest sources of emissions. It’s a way to decide what to focus on first.
This means the pollution from city/county activities, like city vehicles and city buildings. The speaker’s point is that it’s important, but it’s often not the biggest source of emissions in the whole community. So cities should also help residents switch to cleaner choices.
This means using two kinds of clean energy at once. Geothermal uses heat from underground, and solar uses sunlight. Together they can make a building cleaner, which supports the bigger goal of reducing emissions.
The segment frames EV adoption as part of a broader decarbonization effort, not just a vehicle purchase. It highlights that barriers include more than sticker price—like understanding options and vehicle types. This is a useful lens for listeners because EV decisions are often influenced by education and local support.
The segment discusses how local governments can influence EV adoption and mobility by shaping programs, incentives, and infrastructure planning. The idea is that policy can help residents transition to cleaner, healthier, and potentially lower-cost transportation options.
“Life cycle” means the full cost of owning a vehicle over time, not just what you pay at the dealership. With electric cars, you usually skip things like oil changes, which can lower maintenance costs.
Oil changes are something gas cars need regularly to keep the engine lubricated. Electric cars don’t use engine oil the same way, so they usually don’t need oil changes.
Concept
EVs for All America
They mention a group called “EVs for All America.” The point is to keep the conversation about electric cars focused on real-world benefits instead of political arguments.
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Hello everyone and welcome to Kilowatt, a podcast about electric vehicles, renewable
energy, autonomous driving, and much, much more.
My name is Bode, and I am your host, and on today's episode, we are going to sit down
and talk with Kim Lundgren, Kim-founded Kim Lundgren Associates, and they mostly work with
cities and towns on sustainability, although they do stuff outside of that as well.
And we're certainly going to talk about that, but we're also going to talk about Kim's journey
and sustainability and how she got to where she is today.
But we're going to start the conversation off with the EV1, because Kim actually had
an EV1 as her daily driver, so she has lots of cool stories about it.
And if you're not familiar with the EV1, General Motors built the EV1, and it was their
first attempt at a modern electric car.
So electric cars have been around for a very long time, but from 1996 to 1991, GM tested
out the EV1, which was a car that was actually designed and built from the ground to be an
electric vehicle, not just some kind of conversion.
It had a lightweight frame, it was a two-seater, had an AC induction motor.
Most of these EV1s were leased in places like California and Arizona, and I believe all of
them had to be leased.
You could not purchase these cars to own.
GM eventually decided this was not the path they wanted to go.
They pulled the plug on the program, and then they took all the cars back, and then famously
to the anger, I'm probably not the right word, but to the frustration of many just crushed them.
I actually have a friend who worked for GM at the time, and one of his jobs was to take
important parts out so that they could be crushed.
Kim tells us all about her experiences with that car,
and honestly, it was just a super fun way to start that conversation.
So with all that said, let's welcome Kim to the show.
Thank you so much. Appreciate you having me.
Yeah, so we're going to talk about a couple of different fun things, and it's really interesting
that you're coming on today because immediately after this, I'm talking to a group, a political
action group that wants to take the politics out of EVs and renewable energy.
These two episodes are going to dovetail nice together, and they'll be released in the same
week. But let's start off with you. You are the founder of Kim Lundgren Associates,
which would be weird if you weren't, but you are.
Can you tell us a little bit about KLA? And then from there, I want to talk a little bit
about your kilowatt Kim and your EV1 experience.
Yeah, bringing it way back. So I can even start backwards there, actually. So
I've been spending most of my career the last 25 years working in and with local governments,
so city towns, counties across the U.S., specifically to take action on climate change.
So we do everything here at KLA from greenhouse gas emissions inventories, climate vulnerability
assessments. So essentially looking at where are the emissions coming from, and then how are the
impacts of climate change that we're already feeling disturbing our community? And where do
we have weaknesses in each of our systems, human systems, economic systems, infrastructure,
natural resources, things like that. And then we help them identify goals and strategies and actions
to move forward on that. I think the biggest thing we focus on is helping them really understand
that this is a real threat to their community that they have to move the needle on. And that
involves bringing everyone to the table so that everyone's aware of what this means for the community
and recognizes that there's so many solutions, including electric vehicles, that are right
there at our fingertips right now and can really be something that folks move forward with.
I think folks have a hard time thinking about this global issue. And so we try to remind them
that it might be a global issue, but the impacts are being felt locally. And so also are the
solutions are available locally, and we really need everyone to play their role. So this is the
kind of work I've been doing for 25 years, starting working for a local government just outside of
Boston called Medford, Massachusetts. Yeah, you talked a little bit about, and I think
kind of doves tells nicely into the EV1, but you talked when you were at Medford, you got a,
was it a grant from the government or just some money from the government to
convert school buses to not electric or not even biodiesel necessarily, but just to be
a little bit cleaner. Yeah. Yeah, so it's called the Clean School Bus Program. And I think it was
it was an EPA program. It was still active up until a couple of years ago. I don't know if
it currently is, I would clear on that one. But the whole idea of it is, hey, kids are on school
buses, you know, some kids all over the country are on for quite a long time every day. I know
my daughter's on her bus for almost two hours a day. So there and back, it's a long trip for her.
And so when you think about children, they breathe, they're actually lungs move much
faster, they're smaller, they take in air and in and out faster. And so the toxins that come out of
the tailpipes of different vehicles, they breathe that in more. And so asthma and other respiratory
issues are a huge challenge. So the whole idea, and again, this was, I want to say 2002 or 2003
when we got the Clean School Bus Grant, the idea was, hey, diesel particulate filters can be put
on these big diesel buses to make it so that what is coming out the tailpipe is much cleaner and
more appropriate for the for the children. And so it was a big deal for us at the time. It was
over half a million dollars we got in Medford. We were the first ones in the country to actually
get a grant from the EPA School Bus Clean School Bus Program that didn't own their school buses.
We kind of set a precedent for that because, you know, and you can understand, you can appreciate
how EPA wants to have more control over, okay, if we're retrofitting school buses,
we want to give money to folks who own the buses. But we made a case that more than 30% of school
districts in the US do not own their school buses, they lease them from the private sector.
And then by doing so, by allowing us to have the funds to retrofit school buses from a private
vendor, we were actually bringing value to the entire Boston Metro region to all the other
cities and towns that were using that particular vendor. So, yeah, that was a pretty proud moment.
No, for sure. Like, I'm an engineer on a ladder truck, so when I'm doing my walk around,
I have to have the truck on. And anytime I walk on the tailpipe side, and that tailpipe is huge
for a big old fire truck like that, I hold my breath for as long as I can. Because I have,
I mean, there are just certain things I have to do next to the exhaust, and I don't want to breathe
any of that stuff in. I mean, I'm on the last half of my life, but I want that to remain to be good.
I want it to continue to be good and be healthy. So I think this is great. And I love that more
and more school districts are going with the electric buses. And I think over time, you know,
that's an easy convert, because they typically have the fixed routes, and they can, you know,
it's not a mystery. My kids, we live, I don't know, maybe three miles from their school. And
technically, we kind of live close enough where they might have to walk, but they'd have to cross
a major intersection. And that's why we get a school bus. So it might not even be three miles.
But, you know, that's not a very, they're picking up, I don't know, a busload of kids.
They're not traveling all that far to pick up that busload of kids.
No, no, they can definitely do their route on a charge.
Yeah, for sure. You're for sure. So in Menford, you had the opportunity to drive an EV1 and not
just drive it once. Like this was your drive around car for the city. Kind of tell me what
that experience was like. And what are some of the joyful moments and maybe not so joyful moments?
Because, you know, 2000 and would you say 2003, 2005, when you had this car?
We got the cars in 02. And I think, I mean, I know the model was the original model was like
in 1996. I can't remember if they had, if mine was a little bit newer than that,
like a 98 or something. But so what had happened was Menford, when I started with the city,
I was hired to basically write a climate action plan for them. So we got a lot of attention
because Menford, Massachusetts, which if folks that listen in know the area back in the day,
like Menford was not really known as being environmentally friendly in any way, shape,
or form. And so when Menford had the first climate action plan in Massachusetts in 2001,
we got a lot of press around that. And, you know, it wasn't Cambridge, it wasn't Boston,
it wasn't, you know, the richer towns. It was just standard. I always called ourselves like
average Joe kind of city. And so a lot of other cities along the way were calling us, calling
our mayor, I mean, like, or calling me and say, my mayor said, I need to call you and find out
what you did, because we figured if Menford's doing something on climate change in early 2000,
we can do it, right? It's like, we really were that post a child. So as part of that,
we started getting more attention. There's a program called the Clean Cities Coalition,
that's part of the United States Department of Energy. And I had started attending meetings
for that they were bringing funding in for alternative fuels. That's what Clean Cities has
always focused on. Well, back then, in the early 2000s, Massachusetts adopted the California
Clean Air Standards. And so all of the car companies were like, Oh, let's get some electric
vehicles on the ground in Massachusetts. And part of that was the EV1 was one of them. So
they got consigned to us as state and local government officials. We were able to receive
the EV1s. We also got through Clean Cities for no charge to keep where the think neighbors,
the Ford think neighbors, which I deployed over at my the cemetery in the parks department and
things like that. But the EV1, which is what you're most interested in. So they really wanted us
kind of testing this out. And so what they gave us was almost like a package. So they came into
City Hall, they literally installed put in a charging station for me right at City Hall actually
ended up getting like the best spot. Because that's where the utilities work. So we have that it's,
I mean, you've probably seen the car before shows just like a little two seater. It felt like
a spaceship. It really did. I actually picked up my grandmother one time in it and she was just
blown away by it because that's it's just like this is like a spaceship. So it was a tiny little
two seater. They GM gave us a cell phone as well because they wanted us to push the limits of it
and see how far we could go with it and not be scared that we'd get stuck. So we had a cell phone
with like, you know, a tow truck on dial to come get us. I never got stuck. I definitely pushed it
the limit. And that's when, you know, you learn pretty early like, Oh, I can adjust my driving.
I'm going to take my foot off the gas a bit. I'll slow down, you know, not hit the brakes so hard,
just finding that way to minimize how much of the battery that we were using. I think one of the
biggest, I guess, most interesting moments I had with the EV because I would drive it all around town
all around the city of Medford and wherever I went, I pretty much took it.
One time I was sitting at a red light and it was like spring or summer. So I had the windows open
and I had a guy on a bike pulled up right next to me and said, Oh my gosh, it is such a pleasure
being behind your car. There's no, there's no fumes coming out. And he's like, what kind of car is
that? Everyone would always say that. What kind of car is that? What is that thing? But you know,
the thing that was really interesting to me and this kind of dovetails into some of the work I do
now, which is when I would explain to people that this is a fully electric car. Now, you know,
you have to think back 2001, there were barely any hybrids on the road. And so we explained that
this is a fully electric car. They'd say, wow, that is so cool. And then without skipping a beat,
and this happened so consistently, the next comment would be, Oh, but you can't drive across the
country with that. And I'm like, I don't drive across the country. I don't even know what,
why you're suggesting that, but it was so interesting that that piece every time folks would
say that. And to think of like, and I would say, how often do you drive across the country? And
most of them never had, but yet they had that in their mind, that that was a total limitation. And
I can't possibly get an EV. And I still find that people have that thought today, which to me is
just absolutely crazy, because even if you drove a fossil fuel vehicle across the country, you'd
have to stop to gas it. Yes. Yeah. So you left Medford to start a KLA. And was that always your
plan was to have your own business? Or was this just something where you were the first in the
area and then all of a sudden you just got a lot of buzz and? Yeah. So I actually, I was in Medford
for about four or five years. And then I went, I went to a nonprofit called Ickley, local governments
for sustainability, which was a, or is an international membership association of local
governments that work on climate sustainability. So I was still doing the same work for, that
I was doing for Medford, but now I was providing support to local governments. Initially in the
Northeast Mid-Atlantic, then throughout the country, I started opening regional offices
for that nonprofit. I was there for five, four or five years. And then I went to the private sector
and started doing consulting. So I kept getting hired for these new things. So Medford hired me,
I was the first environmental agent, wrote that first climate action plan. Then I went to Ickley
and they hired me to build their first regional office to do this work. And then after I left that,
and I went to the private sector, I got hired by a big engineering firm to build their municipal
climate and energy practice, which at the time that was the Obama administration had put out the
first round of ARA, ARPA, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the first one that he had
done. I think Biden did another one, but so a lot of the economy wasn't so great. And so a lot of
those engineering companies were trying to get more public sector work. And because there was
this federal dollars that were focused on climate, energy efficiency, I had a few different firms
that were asking me to come build that practice for them. So I went and did that. And so it was
like, when I started to look back, it's not like my plan had ever been, I'm just going to be this
entrepreneur starting this. An entrepreneur wasn't even a word when I was in school, right? Like
that wasn't a thing. So I just, you know, when you start looking back at your career after a
certain point, you're like, oh, well, I was the first one to have that job. And I created this
department and I did this, and then I created this and I did that. And so I had been creating
in building businesses and practices my whole career at that point. I just had the luxury of
getting a salary while doing it. And so it really was no different sort of in my mind. It was no
different to just start my own thing and do, you know, build something from scratch because it's
kind of all I have done. As now that it's been 10 years with KLA, it is different for sure. And
of course, having to go through COVID as a business owner and having employees. When you get to
employees, that's when it all becomes very different. And being responsible for other
people's, you know, well-being and ability to take care of themselves, you know, that's a stress.
So, but yeah, it wasn't really a vision I had set out. I think for me, it was, I'm kind of a
ask for forgiveness person. I'm just not going to fall in line if I don't agree with it. If it's
like, well, we're just doing this because we were told we're doing this, like that's just not who I
am. So I can't, I can't fall in line with that, especially if it's like goes against my values
or feels counted to the work we're doing. And so in the space that I'm in, where the focus is trying
to, as I like to say, you know, stop humanity from going extinct rather than what so many others
like to say of saving the planet. You know, I like to remind people that the planet would probably
be better off without humans, actually. I think the other systems would flow much nicer. So let's
put it in perspective. What we want to do is be able to stay here on this awesome planet
as a civilization that works with it rather than trying to dominate it or fight against it
by destroying it and all those things. So for me, it's being able to live my values and make the
decisions that can can align with that. And that's everything from I've turned down projects and
partnerships. If folks aren't in alignment, there's a lot of big firms out there that do the kind of
work I do, but they also have folks and they also have folks, excuse me, that are building pipelines
through Native American lands. You know, it's like, Oh, I'm sorry. So let me get this straight.
You're making probably way more money from, you know, drilling for this oil or building this
natural gas pipeline. But you think you have a right to tell cities how they should reduce their
emissions. It just tells a little hypocritical to me. Yes. You're speaking to my soul. I have
very similar values almost to the detriment of my career. If I can't get behind it, I put no value
in it. Not to say if somebody likes K-pop, and I'm not a big fan of K-pop, I can still appreciate
that you like something. But if it's something that really is core to me, I'm out and I'd have
zero qualms about being out, even if there's a big paycheck at the end. Right. Well, sometimes
we have to do that. And I feel like, you know, where everything's at right now in the world,
we're constantly being asked to question our values and recognize the decisions that we're
making. And there's so many people in my space who've been in my space for years who still say,
well, I can't afford an electric car. I'm like, okay, in my experience,
you can afford what you prioritize. You find money for the things you prioritize. And so
we couldn't afford two Teslas. We couldn't afford that. So we'll downsize to one car.
We made a decision. We made a priority in that, you know, we were able to make that work for our
family. But because we, this was a value we held highly. And so I'm definitely getting to the point
where, you know, when I started doing this work, we were not seeing the impacts of climate change
like we are today. And it's so blatant in our face that it's really hard to ignore. And so I'm at
the point where it's like, we as folks who are really driving this movement, we have to be practicing
what we preach. And we're not going to be perfect. That is for sure. My husband has tried to stop
his purchases from Amazon. He's working on that. We're not perfect by any means. But we're doing
the things that we can do. And we're constantly improving and demonstrating that. And that's all
I ask of others to do is really think about if you have made it a priority to do that. Because,
I mean, you know, your audience knows there are so many options for electric cars these days. And
if you're buying a brand new car, any kind of brand new car, then you can find an electric vehicle
that is in that price range. So, you know, it really just depends on how folks prioritize
things, including their values. Yeah, I put more, and I got to be careful how I say this,
I put more value and consistency over perfection. But also that doesn't mean if you consistently
have the wrong, if you're consistently doing the wrong things and coming up with the wrong outcomes,
I don't think that's helpful. But if you're trying to move in a positive direction in your life,
whatever that happens to be, as long as you're consistent, you don't need to be perfect because
nobody, that's a high bar and you're just going to give up if you're trying to be perfect.
I would do what I say. I think it's, I've always, you put something that I always thought was really
funny into when you were talking about saving the planet, not saving the planet, but saving,
you know, the people. So, one of the tropes in science fiction is like the aliens have ruined
their planet. Now, they're looking for new planets to either A, ruin and steal all their resources
or B, re-inhabit. And we're kind of doing that with what we've got here. It's like, well, Mars is
the next step. And it's the phone. No, because we'll all be dead before Mars is ready to terraform
and maybe even if it even works. So, this is the current step. We need to sure look at colonizing
Mars someday. That might be neat. But for now, we know that this works. That's right. And life
started here for a reason and not on Mars. And so, I'll choose Earth. I'll, I'll stick here.
Others can go, but I'll be, I'll be one of those old curmudgens, I guess, that just insist on
sticking with the old planet. Yeah, I mean, what do we have here? We have jungles, we have forests,
we have oceans. We don't have red sand. I mean, I guess we do, but we don't have it in abundance.
That's right. We don't have an entire planet of just carbon dioxide.
Almost. We almost do. We're so close. That's their plan. It's too hard to get to Mars. So,
let's turn this planet into Mars. Ah, I didn't, we just figured it out.
What's the opposite of terraforming?
Um, I do not know.
I don't know either. But, um, okay. So, I could go on this all day long. But, so with, with KLA,
when you, when a city approaches you, what is kind of like the, the, what are the most common
things that you see? What are the most common things that questions that you ask to kind of set
them straight for a, a reasonable, because we have New York City, we have LA, but with them we
also have teeny tiny cities and not everybody's going to be able to make the same financial
commitment. So, what are kind of some common things spread across multiple sized cities
that they can do to one, you know, they can just do right now and, and two, that would be,
you know, kind of low-hanging fruit.
Yeah. So, you'd be surprised how many local governments across the country have already
been taking action for so long. You know, when I was doing this in Medford, we were not alone.
There were others that were doing it. And now there's thousands of communities that have gotten
engaged in some fashion and some because they've had no choice because they have been hit and had
to make adjustments, but others because maybe their community is pushing them to do it. And so,
there's a lot of different things that local governments can do. When we're talking about
their government operations specifically, so the things that they really control very tightly,
a lot of the actions, as you can imagine, are going to also save money and create efficiencies
for them. So, if they're looking at improvements in their buildings, for example, you know,
you know, we'd like them to go way beyond lighting at this point. And lighting is just such an
obvious and easy one, but wanting them to think bigger picture about some of the mechanical systems
and whether or not there's proper insulation, kind of windows that they have, really thinking
about those things. But the big thing with all of this is, is to integrate it into their daily
operations and wherever they can into their maintenance. Now, local governments, state
governments, federal governments, even lots of private sector are very terrible in my experience
at maintaining things, but it's really an important part of, you know, keeping any asset
working well, you know, just like with your vehicles, you have to maintain your vehicle,
you have to take care of it, you have to take care of your buildings and your HVAC systems
and things like that. So, any community or local government that is already paying attention to how
often they need to, you know, even changing out filters and things like that, upgrading their
systems when it's time. So, we don't want folks who just built a brand new building, a new school,
or whatever, like, oh, well, you didn't go all electric there, rip out that natural gas stuff
and put it in a heat pot now. That doesn't make sense either, that's wasteful. So, we want folks
to be looking as we're nearing end of life. So, we've got big decisions that are coming up. We're
it's 15, 16 years old, we're already starting to have issues with it. We know a new one's coming,
let's plan for that. And so, a lot of it is helping them plan better. It's the same with their vehicles.
A lot, you know, it really depends on how they operate. So, some communities are,
everything's super decentralized. Every department, if they have a car or vehicle of some sort,
they take care of it. Other places where it's more centralized, like in New York City,
you're going to have a lot more control by the fleet manager who can decide, okay,
this is what we're changing out for this. Easy things they can do without even buying new vehicles,
like, I mean, for buses, any type of transit, route optimization, same thing with your trash trucks,
even your street sweepers. Like, if we're being smart about our routes, then we can really minimize
how much fuel we're using or, you know, emissions that we're putting out there. If you look at
the application of the vehicles, what is it being used for? Hey, I know the engineers really want
this huge big truck, but they don't need that. They're just driving around looking at things,
they're not even bringing equipment with them. That's being brought by public works or something,
right? So, really, right sizing your fleet to make sure that you're putting the right vehicle
in the right application for what's needed. Those are some quick, easy little things.
Yeah. So, I watched, and I mentioned this to you earlier, but I watched the
one of your webinars on EVs, and you had somebody from New York, somebody from Houston,
and I'm blinking on where the other person was from.
San Antonio and, yeah. Yes. But what I found interesting is the person from San Antonio,
she said that even though San Antonio is a big city, they don't have the same budget
that maybe a big city of a similar size would have. So, one of the things that they did was
they were able to partner with Blink, for instance, for charging infrastructure. The city kind of had
to put in, you know, they had to dig, you know, do the actual manual labor of digging the ditches
and stuff like that or digging the trenches to get the charges where they needed to be,
but then Blink operated the chargers. I think this is a, you know, that kind of thing is a
really interesting way to do things. But one of the other things that I thought was interesting
was the gentleman from New York had said that they are using, they have covered parking that
is just for emergency power to power vehicles. That covered parking doesn't go back into the
grid or anything like that. That's there to charge vehicles and not just city vehicles.
It can be used in an emergency to charge citizens vehicles so that they can get to safety if need
be. Do you have other examples of that kind of, you know, resourcefulness in getting things done?
Oh gosh, yeah. I think at the local level, you kind of have to be resourceful in many ways. And a
lot of what you're seeing there from New York is a result of Hurricane Sandy. And what often happens
is when we do have a massive event happen in any community, again, as I said, like it might be
global issue, but it's felt locally. That's when we see all the vulnerabilities, all the things we
weren't prepared for. What weren't we ready for? And so a lot of what you're referring to there
from New York came out of, wow, we weren't prepared for this. We weren't expecting, you know, water
to come all the way up to city hall, come up through the subways and all of that. And so,
you know, so I think you're seeing that we're learning and local governments are pretty good
at trying to stay connected, not just across the US, but across the world like, hey, here's something
we learned from this situation and how others can benefit from it. That was really the point of our
climate action series there, the webinar series. So like, hey, this is happening other places,
this is how you can do it. The public-private partnership you mentioned with San Antonio,
that came up a lot with EV charging because, you know, you have to think about it from the
perspective, you've got like Silicon Valley and other places always innovating, while our local
government policies and zoning and building permits are not innovating at that speed.
And so what ends up happening is, you know, a project will come forth in the cities like,
we don't even know what to do with this. And that happened a ton with EV charging and, you know,
around 2005, 2006, you started seeing a lot more of these requests coming in. And now they're like,
we have to create a whole new policy for this because we don't even know
what to charge. You know, we don't have a program for that. So there's a lot of
learning quickly and local government trying to keep up with the innovation that's happening
around it. I think that they've done a good job of it at this point in their trying to keep up, but
they can't keep the staff. They can't pay what private sector pays typically. They do tend to
still have better benefits, but I think it is challenging for local governments in general.
And now I think back a lot, you know, the last 20 years when I haven't been in local government
just working with it, but even since I was in local government, there have been an exponential
amount of new burdens on the local government staff that they never had before. I mean,
obviously, COVID created a whole nother set of issues that local governments all of a sudden had
to figure out how to deal with. But everything with electrification, whether it's buildings,
transportation, none of that was planned for. People who live in, you know, triple-deckers in
Cambridge want to have an EV charger, but they don't have a driveway or a garage. What are we
doing? How do we put this just on the street? We don't have a program for that. Now they do.
Folks are working on that. I was actually just in Europe and everywhere. Oh my god. But Amsterdam
is a great example. Everywhere you went, there's it looked like a parking meter, but it's not. It's
an EV charging and everyone just brings their own charger. Well, Kim, how would people find out what
you're doing and where would they go to find more about you? So, of course, I'm on LinkedIn,
Kim Lundgren, and kimlundgrenassociates.com is the website. You can find more information there
about us. We also have a YouTube page. We've got some videos of our team and our clients.
But one big thing I do want to make sure I leave behind is the other part, the other part of
the local government work on climate. It goes beyond their emissions and their buildings and
fleet. And because when you look at everything from a greenhouse gas emissions perspective,
local government operations, like in the whole scale of a community, are typically
less than 3% of total emissions. So when we're talking about a time when we have very limited
resources, both staffing, technical and financial, we want local governments to, yeah, great that
you updated that high school to be geothermal with solar and all these EV charging. That's great
because you had to update that building anyways. But we don't want folks just going overboard on
government operations when the emissions are in the community. And I think local governments tend
to spend a lot of time in what they can control, which is awesome. And we love that. And I think
they tend to underestimate and undervalue the role they can play as an influencer to their
community. So they're doing these things to lead by example to show it can be done. Great. But then
how are they helping the community members make these decisions? A lot of what we talk about
when we engage with the community and their community members is trying to understand what are
the barriers for you to decarbonize your home, to move to an electric vehicle. Yes, we hear money
a lot, the cost of it. But that's not all we hear. A lot of folks just truly do not understand how
many different vehicle types there are. They're like, well, I don't want a Tesla. Like, okay,
you don't have to have a Tesla. There's a million other options out there today. And local governments
have an important role to play as at least here in the US, you still have a majority of folks who
still have trust in their local government differently than higher levels of government.
You could see your mayor in the grocery store. They are right there with you and they're learning
and living with you. So they are a trusted source. They can engage folks more effectively
and they can create enabling environments to get folks to make the behavior changes that are needed
to create those bigger sustainable communities. So a big thing that KLA is pushing right now
is trying to get local governments to really own that role that they have to help their
community members move to solutions that aren't just about the climate, but are going to be healthier
for them, cleaner for them. And in some cases are going to help them save money. And of course,
you know, life cycle, looking at an electric vehicle, you can still save quite a bit of money
when you're not having to bring in for oil changes and all the other things a lot. So there's real
opportunities there for local governments that we're trying to help them take full advantage of.
So we can all stay on this plant. Perfect. Kim, thank you so much. I really hope that
one day you come back again and we can, I honestly could talk to you for another hour easily
because this doesn't feel like we've been talking for 45 minutes. So thank you for coming on.
I'll put all the links in the show notes. Thank you so much. Well, likewise, and I will certainly
stay in touch. Are you on LinkedIn? Yes. Okay, I'll find you there as well. I'm glad
we were able to connect and thanks so much for having me today. Thank you. Take care.
All right. Once again, I would like to thank Kim for coming on and being so generous with her time.
And then I'd also like to thank Matthew for ranging the interview and just kind of being the
go-between to make sure all the schedules lined up. So Matthew, thank you so much.
Yeah, I'm going to put all of Kim's information in the show notes. So please go check out and see
what she's doing. She is also on LinkedIn, so you can reach out to her as well. I'll put the links
in the show notes for that. And yeah, folks, that is it for me today. Next episode, we're going to
talk to Max Patton, who's with EVs for All America, which is a bipartisan group to kind of take the
stigmatism or the politics out of how your car is propelled, which I think is great. I just noticed
that I am losing my voice. So I'm going to go ahead and end that here. Thank you all for listening
to the show. If you want to email me, you can do so. It's bodi.bode.ie at 918digital.com. You can
support the show at support to kilowatt.com. And then you can find me on LinkedIn. And my
LinkedIn is just Bodi Grim, B-O-D-I-E-G-R-I-M-M. Thank you everybody for listening. I hope you
enjoyed this episode and I will talk to you soon.
If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help
the show to grow. Thank you for listening.
About this episode
Kim Lundgren talks about her 25-year career helping local governments tackle climate change, from emissions inventories and vulnerability assessments to practical steps like building upgrades, fleet planning, and route optimization. She also shares memorable stories from driving a GM EV1 as a daily car in Medford, including the public reaction it got and the early misconceptions people had about EV range. The conversation keeps circling back to local action, values, and how cities can lead by example.
In this episode, we chat with Kim Lundgren, the founder of Kim Lundgren Associates (KLA). Kim shares her journey from being an pioneer in municipal climate planning to driving an original GM EV1 as a city official in the early 2000s. We explore the role local governments play in decarbonizing our communities, the evolution of clean school bus programs, and why "right-sizing" municipal fleets is a low-hanging fruit for sustainability. Kim provides a grounded perspective on why we aren't just "saving the planet," but rather ensuring humanity can continue to thrive on it.
