This project provides a variety of benefits to the UCSC community:

Environmental: this zero-emissions vehicle will be used to replace gasoline-powered vehicle miles to transport students to UCSC’s Año Nuevo Reserve. Therefore, we will directly, and dramatically, reduce the carbon footprint of our transportation needs for many years into the future.

Financial: By acquiring an all-electric vehicle dedicated to student transportation to research sites, we seek to ensure equal opportunity across socio-economic classes of students while dramatically reducing our carbon footprint in daily research and teaching activities. Currently, undergraduate student involvement at the reserve is limited due to the cost of operating a lab-owned university truck. In many cases, students are asked to drive personal vehicles and their research projects are turned down if they do not have access to a private vehicle. Access to an all-electric vehicle will ensure that students, regardless of current financial status, will be able to conduct their own thesis projects at world-class research sites like the Año Nuevo Reserve while simultaneously reducing their carbon footprint.

Societal: In addition to making this electric vehicle available for use by users in the UCSC community, the vehicle will be used to transport students conducting a variety of research projects – including climate change research. This will allow the students to “practice what they preach” by carrying out their climate-change research in a manner that minimizes their own carbon footprint.