With the electric car industry growing and electric vehicle (EV) sticker prices coming down, you may be asking yourself if it’s the right time to go all-electric. Add to that government tax incentives and states like California committing to zero-emissions vehicles by 2035, and it seems like electric is the way to go. This decision isn’t that easy, as you want to make sure you pick the right car for your needs and budget. Here’s how electric vs. gas cars stack up.
How do electric vs. gas cars function?
Before getting into the full comparison, you’ll want to make sure you understand the basic mechanical differences between electric and gas cars. Here’s a simplified version:
Electric cars have no tailpipe because there are no gas emissions. These cars use alternating electric currents, which are electrical currents that move in many directions, to power the vehicle. The car converts direct electrical currents (electricity that only moves in one direction) from the battery to alternating currents using an inverter and induction motor. Then, the induction motor turns the currents into a magnetic field that moves the wheels. Unlike gas cars that have multispeed transmissions, electric cars have a single-speed transmission that sends the power from the motor to the wheels, which causes them to turn. This means there’s only one gear in an electric car in addition to reverse and park.
On the flip side, gas cars use an internal combustion engine to make the car move. Here’s how it works: The engine pulls a combination of gas and air into the engine’s piston, the piston then compresses the mixture and an electrical spark ignites the mixture. The energy from the combustion forces the piston to the bottom of the engine cylinder and the connecting rod at the bottom of the cylinder transfers the energy to the crankshaft, which rotates the wheels. Then, the piston returns to the top of the cylinder, pushing out exhaust from the combustion mixture and releasing the exhaust through the tailpipe. Gas cars use multiple engine cylinders. Oil is used to lubricate the parts, and coolant along with a radiator are used to keep the engine from overheating.
Now that you have a general idea of the different functionalities, let’s get into the full electric cars vs. gas cars comparison.
Electric vs. gas car costs
The cost of owning a vehicle is more than just its sticker price; you’ll also need to factor in long-term expenses like repairs, maintenance, fuel and whether you can offset expenses with tax credits. Here’s how gas and electric vehicles compare:
Upfront costs
On average, electric cars are more expensive to buy than gas vehicles. According to automotive data company Kelley Blue Book, $55,353 was the average price paid for new electric cars in January 2024. For comparison, Kelley Blue Book reported $47,401 as the average price of a new gas car in January 2024 — that’s $7,952 less than a new electric car. But EV prices have been coming down steadily, and the price gap between electric and gas cars continues to narrow. For example, new electric cars cost $66,645 in July 2022 while the average price of a new gas car in July 2022 was $48,182, according to Kelley Blue Book.
When you look at the least expensive vehicles in each category, however, the price difference still feels pretty dramatic. Some new EV models now have starting prices under $30,000, which is substantially higher than the sticker price of the cheapest available new gas cars, a few of which start at under $20,000. Additionally, if you opt for a Level-2 home charger for faster charging, the charger itself will run you $500-$1,000. Its professional installation can add as much as $2,000 to your upfront expense, although your state or electric company may offer incentives to offset that cost.
Winner: Gas cars win for upfront cost.
Fueling/charging costs
Driving a gas vehicle means you’re subject to the fluctuating price of gasoline, which on average, ranged between about $3.25 and $3.95 in 2023. Because electricity tends to be cheaper than gas — and electric vehicles tend to be about three times more efficient than gas vehicles, according to the U.S. Department of Energy — opting for an electric vehicle could offer big savings in fueling/charging costs
. In fact, driving an electric vehicle instead of a similar gas model over 15 years could save motorists as much as $14,500, as discovered by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory.
On a yearly basis, charging an electric vehicle could cost as much as almost 50% to 60% less than going to the gas pump, provided most of that charging is done at home. If you frequently use public charging stations, like Electrify America, costs could begin to approach the price of going to the gas pump.
Winner: Electric cars win for fueling/charging costs.
Maintenance and repair costs
As previously noted, electric cars have simple mechanics compared to gas cars, with fewer fluids to change and fewer parts to replace. Their electrical systems themselves don’t require much maintenance either. This means you should expect to spend less on maintenance and repairs for an EV than you would with a gas car. Even an EV battery, which is expensive to replace, is expected to last 12 to 15 years.
Because of these factors, maintaining an electric vehicle may be as much as a third less expensive than maintaining a gas vehicle over the first five years — and as much as one-half less expensive overall. Over 15 years, an average American driver of an EV might spend as much as $8,000 less on maintenance overall than a driver of a comparable gas model.
Keep in mind that opting for an EV doesn’t mean that you won’t need any routine maintenance at all. Among other things, you’ll still need to maintain your tires, headlamps, wiper blades and brakes (although regenerative braking reduces wear and tear). In fact, EVs often require new tires more often because of the regenerative braking as well as the weight of the vehicle.
On the flip side, gas cars require quite a bit of maintenance, including regular oil changes, routine maintenance (rotate tires, replace air filter, etc.) and special service when the mileage gets to a certain amount.
Both electric and gas cars also have as-needed costs, meaning you’ll have to replace or repair problems as they arise.
Winner: Electric cars win for maintenance and repair costs.
Tax credits
Receiving a substantial tax credit for your new car can go a long way toward relieving the burden of its sticker price. Certain new all-electric vehicles (and some plug-in hybrids) now qualify for a federal tax credit as high as $7,500.
Be aware, however, that these tax credits are not offered for the purchase of any gas vehicles.
Winner: Electric cars win for tax credits.
Environmental concerns
Although cost is usually the biggest factor in deciding what car someone buys, environmental concerns can also play a factor. Here’s how electric and gas cars compare.
Emissions and efficiency
Electric cars are generally more efficient than gas vehicles, converting over 77% of electrical energy received from the grid into operating power at the wheels, according to the U.S. Department of Energy
. Traditional gas vehicles, on the other hand, only convert between 12% and 30% of the energy stored as gasoline into power at the wheels. Be aware that the individual emissions and efficiency of any electric cars you drive will vary, depending on where you live, the vehicle you purchase and how your electricity is sourced.
In terms of emissions, electric cars also tend to be kinder to the planet. The average EV sold in the U.S. produces the equivalent emissions of a theoretical gas car that gets 91 mpg. In fact, in all U.S. locations, the average electric car produces less emissions than the average gas car.
It may seem surprising that electric cars produce any emissions at all, since they have no tailpipe emissions. Instead, electric car emissions are calculated from two other sources: the processing and materials used in their manufacturing, and the electricity used to charge these vehicles.
The one hiccup with electric car emissions is battery recycling, or what happens to the battery when it dies. Battery recycling is in its infancy. While the current process can’t keep up with future EV demand, we will likely see some major developments in the coming years.
Winner: Electric cars win for environmental concerns.
Convenience
Electric cars come with higher upfront costs and lower maintenance costs, are there any trade-offs with convenience? Here’s how the two compare in some daily driving areas:
Charging/filling up
When it comes to gas cars, most drivers don’t worry much about range. After all, the infrastructure is well-established and gas stations are easy to find almost everywhere. In addition, gas cars can go an average of about 400 miles on a tank.
Drivers may be reluctant to purchase an electric car because of “range anxiety” — the worry of getting stranded somewhere with nowhere to charge up. However, although the EV charging station infrastructure isn’t as developed as it is for gasoline fill-ups, it’s been growing. More workplaces are making outlets available to their employees (and visitors), or installing Level 2 charging units, according to the U.S. Department of Energy
. And the US. Department of Energy reports there are now more than 72,000 public charging stations across the country — some of which are DC Fast Charge units.
Depending on the type of driving you do and where you live, the availability of public charging stations may not turn out to be that much of an issue. The majority of available electric cars can go between 110 and 300 miles before needing to charge up, and it’s not unusual for an electric car to have a range of 200 to 300 miles. Use this locator tool to find out if there are public charging stations in your local area — or in distant locations where you plan to drive your electric vehicle — before buying an EV.
Beyond charging or gas station availability, something else to be aware of is the time it takes to charge or fuel up. It can take 5 to 10 minutes to fill a gas tank, while electric cars take up to 12 hours with a Level 2 charger and 30-45 minutes with a Level 3 charger (like one you’d find at a public charging station).
Winner: Gas cars win for charging/filling up convenience.
Towing
Both gas and electric vehicles can be used for towing, however towing a heavy load will decrease efficiency in both cases.
For gas vehicles, how much your miles per gallon diminishes depends on how much weight you’re towing, as well as the increased wind resistance. In general, the heavier your load, the worse your gas mileage will be.
Electric cars also suffer decreased range when towing heavy loads. That range reduction was shown to be dramatic in recent tests performed by Consumer Reports, with EVs consistently performing below the estimated reduced range for a tow. Because public charging stations aren’t as plentiful as gas stations yet and because charging takes more time than gassing up, EVs may not be practical for long-distance towing, although they may be well-suited to short-distance tows.
Winner: Gas cars win for towing.
Availability
Visit any new car dealer and you’ll find a wide variety of gas vehicles to choose from. Buying a new electric car isn’t always so easy. Demand for environmentally friendly electric cars is rising faster than dealerships have been able to keep up. In fact, a 2023 Sierra Club study found that 66% of American car dealers didn’t have a single electric car (or plug-in hybrid) for sale. Additionally, some dealerships didn’t want to carry electric vehicles, with 45% of the dealers in the study who didn’t have available electric cars stating that they wouldn’t choose to offer them. In such instances, you’d have to find a dealer with electric cars in stock or order one directly from the carmaker.
Winner: Gas cars win for availability.
Closing thoughts
Both gas and electric cars come with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. EVs are the clear winner environmentally, as well as for fuel efficiency, maintenance costs and tax incentives. However, electric car range is very strongly affected during towing, charging takes longer than gassing up and it can be difficult to find new EVs at dealerships. Gas vehicles come out on top when it comes to sticker price, range, long-distance towing and fueling convenience while lacking in fuel efficiency, maintenance costs and environmental impacts. Ultimately, you should choose the vehicle that best fits your budget and lifestyle.
It’s a town worthy of its own reputation in Northern California, but few associate Oakland with luxury. They’d be wrong.
This urban cultural center takes you from the Pacific Ocean all the way to redwood forests. It’s complete with plenty of surprising locations to call home. And, although the average two-bedroom rental price is $4,514, what we’re after is something a bit more on the pricer side.
If you double that average and add a little more, you’ll hit the price tag at The Skylyne. It’s home to the most expensive apartment in Oakland. We’re talking about paying $10,840 per month for this three-bedroom, three-bath unit. It’s not only in a great spot in Oakland, but the building has more than enough amenities to make the price tag worth it.
Life near a lake
The Skylyne has it all, including an incredible location in the vibrant city of Oakland. Known for both its arts scene and connection to racial and social activism, the city is a popular place to call home. Getting to the penthouse of this building is an impressive feat.
The most expensive apartment in Oakland sits high up on the 25th floor. From this height, you get some of the best city views, including a lake in one direction and the California mountains in the other.
Situated in the Mosswood neighborhood, The Skylyne puts residents just a bike ride away from Lake Merritt, one of Oakland’s most prominent features. A recreational hub, this three-mile-wide lagoon offers all kinds of water sports and nature trails. It’s also home to the oldest designated wildlife refuge in the U.S.
For some close-by urban exploration, check out Temescal and Pill Hill, two bordering neighborhoods. Both areas have unique features to occupy your time, including Temescal Alley, labeled the hippest street in the East Bay. When it’s time to take a trip across the bay to San Francisco, it’s only a 26-minute BART ride to the heart of downtown.
A home at the top
Saying you live in the penthouse at The Skylyne is impressive enough, but then you get to take a peek inside the 1,877-square-foot apartment. Not only are there three bedrooms and three bathrooms but all the natural light you could want. Floor-to-ceiling windows take advantage of the panoramic view.
Within each of those bedrooms, you’ve got oversized closets and access to AT&T gigabit fiber internet. For some fresh air, you not only have balcony space, but the rooftop amenities are right down the hall.
Stroll into your chef’s kitchen for the big jackpot. You’ll find quartz countertops and stainless steel appliances, a microwave, disposal and dishwasher.
Additional in-apartment amenities include wood-grain flooring, keyless apartment entry and an Electrolux washer and dryer. It’s a veritable grab bag of goodies for the $10,000+ price tag.
Amenities that keep coming
It’s perfect that the most expensive apartment in Oakland sits on the top floor of The Skylyne since that’s where its best amenities are, too. On the roof, you’ll find the Sky Kitchen and Lounge and the Sky Splash Deck with a pool and spa. The rooftop is also equipped with outdoor fire pits and barbecues so the party never has to stop.
There are plenty of social spaces throughout the building. You’ll find a flex fitness studio and fitness club for keeping in shape. There’s a sports lounge and game room for some recreational fun, too. When you need to get out of your home office, hit up the co-working lounge, as well.
Movie nights get taken up a notch with a screening room, and game nights with neighbors are easy, thanks to a social room.
If you’ve brought a furry friend with you to The Skylyne, they’ve got their own set of amenities. Take them to the Woof Deck, complete with a paw spa.
Giving special attention to the types of transportation common in Oakland, amenities extend to all kinds of vehicles. There are charging stations for electric cars and Wheel Works, a DIY bike shop.
You may never want to leave the most expensive apartment in Oakland with so many extras at your fingertips.
How to afford $10,840 in rent
Paying this much per month in rent isn’t easy to budget for. Living the affluent lifestyle in Oakland means having the paycheck to back it up. Many experts suggest you not spend more than a third of your pre-tax income on rent. This means you need to rake in about $390,240 per year to stay within a safe range.
It’s possible to land a job in the techie East Bay with this kind of salary, but consider what else that’s purely Oakland that money could get you:
4,927 amazingly beautiful Fortune Cookie Factory fortune cookies. They’ll blow what you get with take-out out of the water. This is where the fortune cookie folding machine was invented.
722 hours of kayaking on Lake Merritt
451 visits to the Oakland Zoo
309 Blue Bottle Coffee blend boxes to give friends and family a taste of Oakland coffee
54 meals (without the drink pairing) at Commis, one of the only Michelin-starred restaurants in Oakland. There’s no ordering a-la-carte, just a multi-course tasting menu.
While it’s not necessarily realistic to buy almost 5,000 fortune cookies, it’s interesting to think how much $10,840 in rent really is each month. You got to live large to factor this apartment into your budget.
Alternative options for high rollers
If a $10,000 payout in rent isn’t your thing, but you have a little extra money to burn, Oakland has a lot of other options all over town that don’t hold back when it comes to luxury living.
These apartments offer up lots of rooftop amenities and that modern, urban vibe that pairs so well with the real heart of Oakland.
Penthouse aspirations
We all aspire to live the high life someday, and with the most expensive apartment in Oakland, you’re physically on top. The penthouse unit may cost you $10,840 a month, but hitting the literal top is an impressive benchmark for anyone. Whether you’re already there or still climbing, enjoy the ride.
The rent information included in this article is accurate as of September 2021 and is used for illustrative purposes only. The data contained herein do not constitute financial advice or a pricing guarantee for any apartment.
Lesly Gregory has over 15 years of marketing experience, ranging from community management to blogging to creating marketing collateral for a variety of industries. A graduate of Boston University, Lesly holds a B.S. in Journalism. She currently lives in Atlanta with her husband, two young children, three cats and assorted fish.
Car subscriptions allow drivers to swap out their cars for a new one every few weeks or months (depending on the service), for a set monthly fee.
Buying a car can be a daunting process, especially as the auto market reels from a period of high prices, soaring interest rates and supply chain issues. Car subscriptions can be a flexible and convenient alternative to buying a car, depending on your needs and budget.
What are car subscriptions?
Car subscription services allow drivers access to new cars and other benefits, for a monthly fee.
Much like car leasing or renting, drivers don’t own the vehicle during the time of subscription or after. However, unlike traditional car leasing, which typically offers three-year contracts, car subscription services allow customers to change their car for a new one every month or every couple of weeks. Subscribers also get the flexibility to end their subscriptions after only a couple of months.
Car subscription services are offered by independent rental companies, automakers and dealers. Examples of automaker-backed subscription services include Care by Volvo and Porsche Drive. These programs operate via franchised dealer networks, but not all dealers offer them.
Independent companies like FINN offer subscriptions to a variety of automakers like Audi, Chevrolet, Jeep and Ram, and allow subscribers to swap out cars every six to 12 months. Similarly, the car rental service Hertz allows drivers to exchange cars up to twice a month, through the service Hertz My Car.
How do car subscriptions work?
To join a subscription service, you must meet the program’s insurance, credit and driving history requirements. If approved, you can go to a subscription center, which are typically franchised dealers, or download the company’s app to begin using their service.
Most car subscription services come with a one-time enrollment fee in addition to the monthly fee. Enrollment fees typically cost a few hundred dollars — Hertz My Car charges $250 while Porsche Drive charges $595 for a one-month membership or a multi-vehicle subscription, for example.
Monthly subscription costs also vary among services and even model type: The Care by Volvo monthly price starts at around $915 for a C40 Recharge Plus model and goes up to $1,100 for an XC90. Similarly, Hertz has three program tiers, the lowest of which costs $599 per month (plus taxes) for compact and mid-size sedans and the highest of which costs $1,399 per month (plus taxes) for SUVs, large trucks, luxury sedans and the like. Most subscription program monthly fees also include benefits like insurance coverage, maintenance, 24-hour roadside assistance and more. Many offer complimentary delivery and pickup as well.
The vehicles available to drive will depend on the inventory at your local franchised dealer. And when you subscribe through a third party company like Hertz, you may not get the model you pick if the car is not available.
When your term is over, you can choose to cancel your subscription or return the car for a new one. Note that most of these programs have monthly mileage caps — 1,250 for Care by Volvo, for example. If you go over your allotted miles per month, you won’t be able to purchase more, and will be charged a fee for each additional mile you drive.
Should I join a car subscription service?
Car subscriptions are flexible and convenient: There’s no down payment required, you’re not saddled with monthly payments nor locked into a long contract. However, there are some downsides to consider.
As with renting or leasing, subscribers don’t own the car they’re driving, which means their monthly fee payments don’t go toward having equity in the car. And these fees can be hundreds of dollars more costly than monthly leasing or finance payments. Additionally, because you don’t own the car, you’ll have to pay for any excess wear and tear at the end of your term, which can be costly depending on the damage.
Keep in mind that some third-party subscription services don’t operate in every state and have very limited coverage, which means not all drivers can use them.
Despite these constraints, car subscriptions can offer access to newer cars, electric cars and luxury car models if you have the budget and want to drive a new car every month or so. Plus, if you’re shopping for a specific make or model, a car subscription can be a good way to test drive a car for an extended period of time to see if you like it. But subscribing to a car service likely won’t make sense for the average driver.
Outside of buying a home, purchasing a vehicle can be one of your most costly expenses. Early this year, as the cost of new cars reached new heights, many drivers held off on signing on the dotted line.
But the industry is finally shifting as vehicle inventory stabilizes and manufacturers offer more incentives. Brian Moody, executive editor at Autotrader, says it’s good news for those looking to buy. Consider how the industry’s current state might make this fall season a fine time to finance a new set of wheels.
New vehicle prices are holding steady
The average price Americans paid for a new vehicle in August was almost flat compared to one year ago, according to data from Kelley Blue Book (KBB). It now stands at $48,451, an increase of less than $50 from last year. Growing vehicle inventory and incentives helped make prices more accessible.
Even more remarkably, new vehicle transaction costs are down 2.4 percent compared to January, which KBB called “the most significant decrease in the past decade.” But despite prices’ downward trend, high interest rates have made many hesitant to set out to the dealership. These rates offset any wins that a lower price tag carries.
“The other costs associated with buying a new car specifically are higher,” Moody says.
According to recent Bankrate data, new car buyers getting a 60-month car loan received an average interest rate of 7.51 percent in late September. Without a down payment, a rate like this can mean a monthly payment of up to $970 for the average new car.
Interestingly, though, higher interest rates have positively impacted the bottom line for car buyers, Moody explains.
“In a way, they’re playing to the consumer’s benefit because ultimately you have to pay what you have to pay, but it is helping the prices stay steady because the dealers and the people who are pricing these know they can’t just keep raising the price,” he proposes.
Dealerships know the challenges shoppers face and aim to avoid pricing out entire populations before arriving at the dealership. With this in mind, many dealers have adjusted by upping dealer incentives.
Increase in dealer incentives
A dealer incentive is a perk offered to buyers by the dealership. These can be cash rebates, lower rates or vehicle upgrades. Last year, incentives were low due to supply chain issues. With demand high and supply low, dealers had little reason to offer generous incentives.
But these buyer perks jumped for the eleventh consecutive month in August, KBB found. The average incentive package was 4.9 percent of the entire price, up 2.3 percent at the same time last year. But still, these incentives remain historically low.
For context, incentives back in August 2020 averaged 10.8 percent of the average transaction price (ATP). However, some vehicle sectors offer incentive rates close to pre-pandemic levels. Of the sectors with the highest incentives, the high-end luxury segment provided the most for its buyers, reaching 10.1 percent of ATP.
Vans, small and midsize pickup trucks and high-performance cars held the lowest available incentives in August.
A high down payment also helps to offset the price
Another way to save money on your monthly payment is to put down a large down payment — ideally, at least 20 percent. Calculate how much more money down can save you.
Available vehicle inventory has grown
The pandemic resulted in supply chain issues across industries, including the automotive sector.
That meant fewer new vehicles were produced, resulting in higher prices. Even those who could afford higher-priced vehicles could not find their desired car.
But there has finally been a shift in the market. Data from Cox Automotive in early September, ahead of the ongoing United Auto Workers strike, reported 2.06 million in total inventory, which has not happened since April 2021.
“There’s tons of supply versus, say, a year or so ago, when we were talking about not much inventory in terms of new cars, especially,” explains Moody. But now, he says, “There’s an abundant supply.”
On top of overall inventory growth, a larger variety of vehicle types has also positively shifted the market. The EV sector, for example, had vehicle availability above the industry average in early September, according to KBB. The sector boasted incentives averaging 8.1 percent of ATP.
Moody explains that an increase in electric car models leads to increased competition, which is favorable even for those not looking to drive green.
“That’s the story that I think people miss about electric cars. Everyone gets all hung up on, ‘Well, I don’t want to drive an electric car, and why are they forcing us,’” Moody quips.
But more choices mean more competition across automakers and thus more consumer benefits, Moody concludes.
Not all vehicles cost the same
For example, purchasing a compact car will save you additional money over a larger truck. Check out Bankrate’s best-value cars before shopping for the best deals.
How to save for future vehicle purchases
Although vehicle prices have remained steady, and the increase in inventory bodes well, prices are still very high. And growing inflation and moves made by the Federal Reserve will make financing your vehicle more expensive.
Consider the following tips to get the best deal on your next auto loan purchase.
Buy electric. While EVs tend to carry a higher initial cost, they can cost less throughout ownership. On top of this, August data showed a continued decline in electric vehicle prices, driven by Tesla’s price cuts.
Consider shopping with a credit union. With high interest rates, it is wise to compare multiple lender options. Check out credit unions, as they often offer lower rates than dealerships and online lenders.
Improve your credit. The stronger your credit score is, the more competitive your rates will be. Before applying for a loan, try improving your credit to secure the best rate.
Apply for loan preapproval. While not all lenders offer this perk, loan preapproval will give you a firm idea of the expected cost and leverage for negotiation.
Outside of these tips, Moody has straightforward advice for those who might purchase a car this year: “Just don’t overextend yourself.”
While purchasing a flashy luxury vehicle can be tempting, it is not worth the risk if it pushes your budget over the edge. Take the time to calculate the true cost of ownership, including any additional costs, and consider how your terms will impact your monthly payments.
Moody says a successful purchase requires three things. Buyers should be realistic about the price, look for the most attractive incentives and have a strong credit score.
With those in mind, Moody thinks drivers “can find a good deal and can potentially be paying less from here on out going forward.”
ETFs are tradable funds that investors can buy and sell on stock exchanges all day. They typically hold a basket of assets, such as stocks or bonds, and mirror the moves of another underlying index. Since its start almost three decades ago, the ETF industry has taken the financial world by storm, and there are thousands of different ETFs on the market that investors can choose from.
But each investor is different, and some ETFs likely won’t be a good fit for their portfolio or strategy. Learning to choose or pick ETFs that do fit your strategy can take some practice, but it’s good to have some guidelines in mind.
How Do I Pick an ETF?
There’s no right or wrong way to pick an exchange-traded fund (ETF), but you can follow a process to help you determine which securities may be the best fit for you. It starts with picking an asset class.
Step 1: Pick the Asset Class
Because the performance of an ETF is so closely tied to an underlying index, investors need to first decide which underlying asset class they want exposure to. The main asset classes are stocks, bonds, currencies, and commodities.
Risk is generally inversely correlated to return. So riskier assets have the potential to deliver greater returns, while safer assets tend to deliver reliable, albeit smaller, returns. Stocks are considered to be a riskier, more volatile asset class. Commodities even more so. Meanwhile, bonds tend to be safer but also deliver more muted returns.
Keep in mind, just because an investor buys an ETF that gives them exposure to one asset class, that doesn’t preclude them from buying another that invests in another market. In fact, it’s a healthy portfolio diversification strategy to allocate one’s money into different asset classes, a practice known as asset allocation.
Step 2: Narrow the Focus
Once an investor has chosen their asset class, they can dive deeper within that market. When it comes to stock ETFs, this usually involves picking an industry – like technology or financial – that they’d like to get greater exposure to. Equity ETFs may also focus on a specific attribute a stock can have. Or dividend ETFs, which hold shares of companies with regular payouts.
For bond ETFs, investors can decide between funds that invest in U.S. government-bond versus bonds issued by countries abroad, as well as investment-grade (higher quality) company debt versus high-yield (junk) bonds.
More recently, thematic ETFs have taken off. These are stock funds that tend to be much narrower than the traditional sector ETF. They can focus on a niche subsector, like robotics, electric cars or blockchain, or even modern trends, like the gig economy or working from home.
There are pros and cons to thematic ETFs: while they’re often marketed as a convenient way to wager on an investment story, they also tend to underperform the broader market. Thematic ETFs have also been criticized for being too narrow and not offering the wide breadth that ETFs were originally designed to offer.
Step 3: Explore Different ETF Strategies
ETFs began as a way to provide investors access to broad markets with a single investment. Since then however, the popularity of the industry has led to the creation of numerous different kinds of ETFs, some of which employ complex strategies.
Here are some of the different ETF types:
• Leveraged ETFs allow investors to make magnified bets on different assets or markets. So instead of replicating the move of the underlying index exactly, leveraged ETFs will produce a move that’s 2x or 3x.
• Inverse ETFs let investors wager against an asset, so shorting or betting that the price of a market will go down. So if on a given day, the underlying market goes down, the inverse ETF’s price will go up.
• Actively Managed ETFs invest in assets without following an index. While ETFs are usually a form of passive investing–the strategy of tracking another index–actively managed ETFs are like stock-picking strategies packaged into a tradable fund.
• Smart-Beta & Factor ETFs use a rules-based system — such as stock weightings, valuations, or volatility trends — to choose the investments in a fund. These funds are often considered a hybrid between passive and actively managed ETFs.
• Currency-Hedged ETFs are funds that let investors wager on a basket of overseas stocks, while mitigating the risk that stems from currency fluctuations.
Step 4: Look at ETF Costs
A fundamental reason why ETFs have become so influential is their low cost. Low ETF fees have compressed costs across the board in asset management. The average expense ratio of most ETFs has fallen over time. Expense ratios are a percentage of assets subtracted each year. So, an expense ratio of 0.45% means that the charge is $4.50 for every $1,000 invested each year.
Because the vast majority of ETFs tend to be passive, they tend to be much cheaper than mutual funds, many of which are still actively managed. More complex ETFs like leveraged funds, or actively managed ones, tend to have higher expense ratios. But some passive ETF fees have hit rock-bottom levels.
Step 5: Other Ways to Analyze ETFs
What about how well an ETF has done? Should that matter? While profitability can make an investment look more attractive, it shouldn’t be the only factor investors use when determining which ETF to buy. That’s because in investing, past performance is not indicative of future results.
For ETFs, another key measure of performance is how well it tracks the underlying index. Tracking errors, when a move in the ETF veers from one by the market it’s designed to track, can come up from time to time, particularly in leveraged funds or ones that invest in stocks overseas.
Looking at the assets under management (AUM) can be a helpful way to pick an ETF. A larger AUM can signal an ETF’s popularity, which in turn makes it more likely that it’s liquid, or easy to trade without impacting prices.
How to Find an ETF’s Holdings, Prospectus, and Fact Sheet
Another touted perk of ETFs is their transparency. Investors can look up what’s exactly in a fund by going to the ETF provider’s website and searching for the fund. Contacting the ETF provider directly for this information is also possible. ETF providers are required to update this information regularly.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation also requires that ETF providers make easily available an ETF’s prospectus. The prospectus has information about the ETF including its investment objective, the risks, fees, as well as expenses. For investors interested in an ETF, one of the most important things they can do is research the fund by carefully reading the prospectus.
Similarly, ETF fact sheets act like quick summaries of the fund, giving key information like performance, the top holdings, and other portfolio characteristics. ETF providers typically produce fact sheets every quarter and make them available on their website.
The Takeaway
Choosing an ETF from the thousands out there can seem daunting, but taking a step-by-step approach can help individuals sort through the multitude of options. A key step investors can take in researching ETFs is reading the fund’s prospectus, where they’ll find vital information on the investment objectives as well as potential risks.
Considerations include which asset class an investor wants to invest in; how broad or narrow of an exposure they want; costs — which are usually shown as expense ratios; and lastly, an ETF’s size can give clues on the popularity and liquidity of the fund. One ETF, on its own, can provide some diversification. However, some people choose to use a number of ETFs as building blocks to assembling a well-balanced portfolio.
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High above the Las Vegas Strip, solar panels blanketed the roof of Mandalay Bay Convention Center — 26,000 of them, rippling across an area larger than 20 football fields.
From this vantage point, the sun-dappled Mandalay Bay and Delano hotels dominated the horizon, emerging like comically large golden scepters from the glittering black panels.Snow-tipped mountains rose to the west.
It was a cold winter morning in the Mojave Desert. But there was plenty of sunlight to supply the solar array.
“This is really an ideal location,” said Michael Gulich, vice president of sustainability at MGM Resorts International.
The same goes for the rest of Las Vegas and its sprawling suburbs.
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Sin City already has more solar panels per person than any major U.S. metropolis outside Hawaii, according to one analysis. And the city is bursting with single-family homes, warehouses and parking lots untouched by solar.
L.A. Times energy reporter Sammy Roth heads to the Las Vegas Valley, where giant solar fields are beginning to carpet the desert. But what is the environmental cost? (Video by Jessica Q. Chen, Maggie Beidelman / Los Angeles Times)
There’s enormous opportunity to lower household utility bills and cut climate pollution — without damaging wildlife habitat or disrupting treasured landscapes.
But that hasn’t stopped corporations from making plans to carpet the desert surrounding Las Vegas with dozens of giant solar fields — some of them designed to supply power to California. The Biden administration has fueled that growth, taking steps to encourage solar and wind energy development across vast stretches of public lands in Nevada and other Western states.
Those energy generators could imperil rare plants and slow-footed tortoises already threatened by rising temperatures.
They could also lessen the death and suffering from the worsening heat waves, fires, droughts and storms of the climate crisis.
Researchers have found there’s not nearly enough space on rooftops to supply all U.S. electricity — especially as more people drive electric cars. Even an analysis funded by rooftop solar advocates and installers found that the most cost-effective route to phasing out fossil fuels involves six times more power from big solar and wind farms than from smaller local solar systems.
But the exact balance has yet to be determined. And Nevada is ground zero for figuring it out.
The outcome could be determined, in part, by billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
The so-called Oracle of Omaha owns NV Energy, the monopoly utility that supplies electricity to most Nevadans. NV Energy and its investor-owned utility brethren across the country can earn huge amounts of money paving over public lands with solar and wind farms and building long-distance transmission lines to cities.
But by regulatory design, those companies don’t profit off rooftop solar. And in many cases, they’ve fought to limit rooftop solar — which can reduce the need for large-scale infrastructure and result in lower returns for investors.
Mike Troncoso remembers the exact date of Nevada’s rooftop solar reckoning.
It was Dec. 23, 2015, and he was working for SolarCity. The rooftop installer abruptly ceased operations in the Silver State after NV Energy helped persuade officials to slash a program that pays solar customers for energy they send to the power grid.
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“I was out in the field working, and we got a call: ‘Stop everything you’re doing, don’t finish the project, come to the warehouse,’” Troncoso said. “It was right before Christmas, and they said, ‘Hey, guys, unfortunately we’re getting shut down.’”
After a public outcry, Nevada lawmakers partly reversed the reductions to rooftop solar incentives. Since then, NV Energy and the rooftop solar industry have maintained an uneasy political ceasefire. Installations now exceed pre-2015 levels.
Today, Troncoso is Nevada branch manager for Sunrun, the nation’s largest rooftop solar installer. The company has enough work in the state to support a dozen crews, each named for a different casino. On a chilly winter morning before sunrise, they prepared for the day ahead — laying out steel rails, hooking up microinverters and loading panels onto powder-blue trucks.
But even if Sunrun’s business continues to grow, it won’t eliminate the need for large solar farms in the desert.
Some habitat destruction is unavoidable — at least if we want to break our fossil fuel addiction. The key questions are: How many big solar farms are needed, and where should they be built? Can they be engineered to coexist with animals and plants?
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And if not, should Americans be willing to sacrifice a few endangered species in the name of tackling climate change?
To answer those questions, Los Angeles Times journalists spent a week in southern Nevada, touring solar construction sites, hiking up sand dunes and off-roading through the Mojave. We spoke with NV Energy executives, conservation activists battling Buffett’s company and desert rats who don’t want to see their favorite off-highway vehicle trails cut off by solar farms.
Odds are, no one will get everything they want.
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The tortoise in the coal mine
Biologist Bre Moyle easily spotted the small yellow flag affixed to a scraggly creosote bush — one of many hardy plants sprouting from the caliche soil, surrounded by rows of gleaming steel trusses that would soon hoist solar panels toward the sky.
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Moyle leaned down for a closer look, gently pulling aside branches to reveal a football-sized hole in the ground. It was the entrance to a desert tortoise burrow — one of thousands catalogued by her employer, Primergy Solar, during construction of one of the nation’s largest solar farms on public lands outside Las Vegas.
“I wouldn’t stand on this side of it,” Moyle advised us. “If you walk back there, you could collapse it, potentially.”
I’d seen plenty of solar construction sites in my decade reporting on energy. But none like this.
Instead of tearing out every cactus and other plant and leveling the land flat — the “blade and grade” method — Primergy had left much of the native vegetation in place and installed trusses of different heights to match the ground’s natural contours. The company had temporarily relocated more than 1,600 plants to an on-site nursery, with plans to put them back later.
The Oakland-based developer also went to great lengths to safeguard desert tortoises — an iconic reptile protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, and the biggest environmental roadblock to building solar in the Mojave.
Desert tortoises are sensitive to global warming, residential sprawl and other human encroachment on their habitat. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated tortoise populations fell by more than one-third between 2004 and 2014.
Scientists consider much of the Primergy site high-quality tortoise habitat. It also straddles a connectivity corridor that could help the reptiles seek safer haven as hotter weather and more extreme droughts make their current homes increasingly unlivable.
Before Primergy started building, the company scoured the site and removed 167 tortoises, with plans to let them return and live among the solar panels once the heavy lifting is over. Two-thirds of the project site will be repopulated with tortoises.
Workers removed more tortoises during construction. As of January, the company knew of just two tortoises killed — one that may have been hit by a car, and another that may have been entombed in its burrow by roadwork, then eaten by a kit fox.
Primergy Vice President Thomas Regenhard acknowledged the company can’t build solar here without doing any harm to the ecosystem — or spurring opposition from conservation activists. But as he watched union construction workers lift panels onto trusses, he said Primergy is “making the best of the worst-case situation” for solar opponents.
“What we’re trying to do is make it the least impactful on the environment and natural resources,” he said. “What we’re also doing is we’re sharing that knowledge, so that these projects can be built in a better way moving forward.”
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The company isn’t saving tortoises out of the goodness of its profit-seeking heart.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management conditioned its approval of the solar farm, called Gemini, on a long list of environmental protection measures — and only after some bureau staffers seemingly contemplated rejecting the project entirely.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife show the bureau’s Las Vegas field office drafted several versions of a “record of decision” that would have denied the permit application for Gemini. The drafts listed several objections, including harm to desert tortoises, loss of space for off-road vehicle drivers and disturbance of the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, which runs through the project site.
Separately, Primergy reached a legal settlement with conservationists — who challenged the project’s federal approval in court — in which the company agreed to additional steps to protect tortoises and a plant known as the three-corner milkvetch.
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The company estimates just 2.5% of the project site will be permanently disturbed — far less than the 33% allowed by Primergy’s federal permit. Regenhard is hopeful the lessons learned here will inform future solar development on public lands.
“This is something new. So we’re refining a lot of the processes,” he said. “We’re not perfect. We’re still learning.”
By the time construction wraps this fall, 1.8 million panels will cover nearly 4,000 football fields’ worth of land, just off the 15 Freeway. They’ll be able to produce 690 megawatts of power — as much as 115,000 typical home solar systems. And they’ll be paired with batteries, to store energy and help NV Energy customers keep running their air conditioners after sundown.
Unlike many solar fields, Gemini is close to the population it will serve — just a few dozen miles from the Strip. And the affected landscape is far from visually stunning, with none of the red-rock majesty found at nearby Valley of Fire State Park.
But desert tortoises don’t care if a place looks cool to humans. They care if it’s good tortoise habitat.
Moyle, Primergy’s environmental services manager, pointed to a small black structure at the bottom of a fence along the site’s edge — a shade shelter for tortoises. Workers installed them every 800 feet, so that if any relocated reptiles try to return to the solar farm too early, they don’t die pacing along the fence in the heat.
“They have a really, really good sense of direction,” Moyle said. “They know where their homes are. They want to come back.”
Primergy will study what happens when tortoises do come back. Will they benefit from the shade of the solar panels? Or will they struggle to survive on the industrialized landscape?
And looming over those uncertainties, a more existential query: With global warming beginning to devastate human and animal life around the world, should we really be slowing or stopping solar development to save a single type of reptile?
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Moyle was ready with an answer: Tortoises are a keystone species. If they’re doing well, it’s a good sign of a healthy ecosystem in which other desert creatures — such as burrowing owls, kit foxes and American badgers — are positioned to thrive, too.
And as the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, human survival is inextricably linked with a healthy natural world.
“We take one thing out, we don’t know what sort of disastrous effect it’s going to have on everything else,” Moyle said.
We do, however, know the consequences of relying on fossil fuels: entire towns burning to the ground, Lake Mead three-quarters empty, elderly Americans baking to death in their overheated homes. With worse to come.
The shifting sands of time
A few miles south, another solar project was rising in the desert. This one looked different.
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A fleet of bulldozers, scrapers, excavators and graders was nearly done flattening the land — a beige moonscape devoid of cacti and creosote. The solar panel support trusses were all the same height, forming an eerily rigid silver sea.
When I asked Carl Glass — construction manager for DEPCOM Power, the contractor building this project for Buffett’s NV Energy — why workers couldn’t leave vegetation in place like at Gemini, he offered a simple answer: drainage. Allowing the land to retain its natural contours, he said, would make it difficult to move stormwater off the site during summer monsoons.
Safety was another consideration, said Dani Strain, NV Energy’s senior manager for the project. Blading and grading the land meant workers wouldn’t have to carry solar panels and equipment across ground studded with tripping hazards.
“It’s nicer for the environment not to do it,” Strain said. “But it creates other problems. You can’t have everything.”
This kind of solar project has typified development in the Mojave Desert.
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And it helps explain why the Center for Biological Diversity’s Patrick Donnelly has fought so hard to limit that development.
The morning after touring the solar construction sites, we joined Donnelly for a hike up Big Dune, a giant pile of sand covering five square miles and towering 500 feet above the desert floor, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The sun was just beginning its ascent over the Mojave, bathing the sand in a smooth umber glow beneath pockets of wispy cloud.
On weekends, Donnelly said, the dune can be overrun by thousands of off-road vehicles. But on this day, it was quiet.
Energy companies have proposed more than a dozen solar farms on public lands surrounding Big Dune — some with overlapping footprints. Donnelly doesn’t oppose all of them. But he thinks federal agencies should limit solar to the least ecologically sensitive parts of Nevada, instead of letting companies pitch projects almost anywhere they choose.
“Developers are looking at this as low-hanging fruit,” he said. “The idea is, this is where California can build all of its solar.”
We trekked slowly up the dune, our bodies casting long shadows in the early morning light. When we took a breather and looked back down, a trail of footprints marked our path. Donnelly assured us a windy day would wipe them away.
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“This is why I live here, man,” he said. “It’s the most beautiful place on Earth, in my mind.”
Donnelly broke his back in a rock-climbing accident, so he used a walking stick to scale the dune. He lives not far from here, at the edge of Death Valley National Park, and works as the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity’s Great Basin director.
As we resumed our journey, the wind blowing hard, I asked Donnelly to rank the top human threats to the Mojave. He was quick to answer: The climate crisis was No. 1, followed by housing sprawl, solar development and off-road vehicles.
“There’s no good solar project in the desert. But there’s less bad,” he said. “And we’re at a point now where we have to settle for less bad, because the alternatives are more bad: more coal, more gas, climate apocalypse.”
That hasn’t stopped Donnelly and his colleagues from fighting renewable energy projects they fear would wipe out entire species — even little-known plants and animals with tiny ranges, such as Tiehm’s buckwheat and the Dixie Valley toad.
“I’m not a religious guy,” Donnelly said. “But all God’s creatures great and small.”
After a steep stretch of sand, we stopped along a ridge with sweeping views. To our west were the Funeral Mountains, across the California state line in Death Valley National Park — and far beyond them Mt. Whitney, its snow-covered facade just barely visible. To our east was Highway 95, cutting across the Amargosa Valley en route from Las Vegas to Reno.
It’s along this highway that so many developers want to build.
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“We would be in a sea of solar right now,” Donnelly said.
Having heard plenty of rural residents say they don’t want to look at such a sea, I asked Donnelly if this was a bad spot for solar because it would ruin the glorious views. He told me he never makes that argument, “because honestly, views aren’t really the primary concern at this moment. The primary concern is stopping the biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis.”
“There are certain places where we shouldn’t put solar because it’s a wild and undisturbed landscape,” he said.
As far as he’s concerned, though, the Amargosa Valley isn’t one of those landscapes, what with Highway 95 running through it. The same goes for Dry Lake Valley, where NV Energy’s solar construction site is already surrounded by energy infrastructure.
What Donnelly would like to see is better planning.
He pointed to California, where state and federal officials spent eight years crafting a desert conservation plan that allows solar and wind farms across a few hundred thousand acres while setting aside millions more for protection. He thinks a similar process is crucial in Nevada, where four-fifths of the land area is owned by the federal government — more than any other state.
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If Donnelly had his way, regulators would put the kibosh on solar farms immediately adjacent to Big Dune. He’s worried they could alter the movement of sand across the desert floor, affecting several rare beetles that call the dune home.
But if the feds want to allow solar projects along the highway to the south, near the Area 51 Alien Center?
“Might not be the end the world,” Donnelly said.
He shot me a grin.
“You know, one thing I like to do …”
Without warning, he took off racing down the dune, carried by momentum and love for the desert. He laughed as he reached a natural stopping point, calling for us to join him. His voice sounded free and full of possibility.
Some solar panels on the horizon wouldn’t have changed that.
Shout it from the rooftops
Laura Cunningham and Kevin Emmerich were a match made in Mojave Desert heaven.
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Cunningham was a wildlife biologist, Emmerich a park ranger when they met nearly 30 years ago at Death Valley. She studied tortoises for government agencies and later a private contractor. He worked with bighorn sheep and gave interpretive talks. They got married, bought property along the Amargosa River and started their own conservation group, Basin and Range Watch.
And they’ve been fighting solar development ever since.
That’s how we ended up in the back of their SUV, pulling open a rickety cattle gate off Highway 95 and driving past wild burros on a dirt road through Nevada’s Bullfrog Hills, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
They had told us Sarcobatus Flat was stunning, but I was still surprised by how stunning. I got my first look as we crested a ridge. The gently sloping valley spilled down toward Death Valley National Park, whose snowy mountain peaks towered over a landscape dotted with thousands of Joshua trees.
“Everything we’re looking at is proposed for solar development,” Cunningham said.
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Most environmentalists agree we need at least some large solar farms. Cunningham and Emmerich are different. They’re at the vanguard of a harder-core desert protection movement that sees all large-scale solar farms on public lands as bad news.
Why had so many companies converged on Sarcobatus Flat?
The main answer is transmission. NV Energy is seeking federal approval to build the 358-mile Greenlink West electric line, which would carry thousands of megawatts of renewable power between Reno and Las Vegas along the Highway 95 corridor.
The dirt road curved around a small hill, and suddenly we found ourselves on the valley floor, surrounded by Joshua trees. Some looked healthy; others had bark that had been chewed by rodents seeking water, a sign of drought stress. Scientists estimate the Joshua tree’s western subspecies could lose 90% of its range as the world gets hotter and droughts get more intense.
But asked whether climate change or solar posed a bigger threat to Sarcobatus Flat, Cunningham didn’t hesitate.
“Oh, solar development hands down,” she said.
Nearly 20 years ago, she said, she helped relocate desert tortoises to make way for a test track in California. One of them tried to return home, walking 20 miles before hitting a fence. It paced back and forth and eventually died of heat exhaustion.
Solar farms, she said, pose a similar threat to tortoises. And at Sarcobatus Flat, they would cover a high-elevation area that could otherwise serve as a climate refuge for Joshua trees, giving them a relatively cool place to reproduce as the planet heats up.
“It makes no sense to me that we’re going to bulldoze them down and throw them into trash piles. It’s just crazy,” she said.
In Cunningham and Emmerich’s view, every sun-baked parking lot in L.A. and Vegas and Phoenix should have a solar canopy, every warehouse and single-family home a solar roof. It’s a common argument among desert defenders: Why sacrifice sensitive ecosystems when there’s an easy alternative for fighting climate change? Especially when rooftop solar can reduce strain on an overtaxed electric grid and — when paired with batteries — help people keep their lights on during blackouts?
The answer isn’t especially satisfying to conservationists.
For all the virtues of rooftop solar, it’s an expensive way to generate clean power — and keeping energy costs low is crucial to ensure that lower-income families can afford electric cars, another key climate solution. A recent report from investment bank Lazard pegged the cost of rooftop solar at 11.7 cents per kilowatt-hour on the low end, compared with 2.4 cents for utility solar.
Even when factoring in pricey long-distance electric lines, utility-scale solar is typically cheaper, several experts told me.
“It’s three to six times more expensive to put solar on your roof than to put it in a large-scale project,” said Jesse Jenkins, an energy systems researcher at Princeton University. “There may be some added value to having solar in the Los Angeles Basin instead of the middle of the Mojave Desert. But is it 300% to 600% more value? Probably not. It’s probably not even close.”
There’s a practical challenge, too.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated U.S. rooftops could generate 1,432 terawatt-hours of electricity per year — just 13% of the power America will need to replace most of its coal, oil and gas, according to research led by Jenkins.
Add in parking lots and other areas within cities, and urban solar systems might conceivably supply one-quarter or even one-third of U.S. power, several experts told The Times — in an unlikely scenario where they’re installed in every suitable spot.
Energy researcher Chris Clack’s consulting firm has found that dramatic growth in rooftop and other small-scale solar installations could reduce the costs of slashing climate pollution by half a trillion dollars. But even Clack said rooftops alone won’t cut it.
“Realistically, 80% is going to end up being utility grid no matter what,” he said.
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All those industrial renewable energy projects will have to go somewhere.
Sarcobatus Flat may not be the answer. Federal officials classified all three solar proposals there as “low priority,” citing their proximity to Death Valley and potential harm to tortoise habitat. One developer withdrew its application last year.
Before leaving the area, Cunningham pointed to a wooden marker, one of at least half a dozen stretching out in a line. I walked over to take a closer look and discovered it was a mining claim for lithium — a main ingredient in electric-car batteries.
If solar development didn’t upend this valley, lithium extraction might.
On the beaten track
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The four-wheeler jerked violently as Erica Muxlow pressed her foot to the gas, sending us flying down a rough dirt road with no end in sight but the distant mountains. Five-point safety straps were the only things stopping us from flying out of our seats, the vehicle leaping through the air as we reached speeds of 40 mph, then 50 mph, the wind whipping our faces.
It was like riding Disneyland’s Matterhorn Bobsleds — just without the Yeti.
Ahead of us, Muxlow’s neighbor Jimmy Lewis led the way on an electric blue motorcycle, kicking up a stream of sand. He wanted us to see thousands of acres of public lands outside his adopted hometown of Pahrump, in Nevada’s Nye County, that could soon be blocked by solar projects — cutting off access to off-highway vehicle enthusiasts such as himself.
“You could build an apartment complex or a shopping mall here, and it would be the same thing to me,” he said.
To progressive-minded Angelenos or San Franciscans, preserving large chunks of public land for gas-guzzling, environmentally destructive dirt bikes might sound like a terrible reason not to build solar farms that would lessen the climate crisis.
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But here’s the reality: Rural Westerners such as Lewis will play a key role in determining how much clean energy gets built.
Not long before our Nevada trip, Nye County placed a six-month pause on new renewable energy projects, citing local concerns about loss of off-road vehicle trails. Similar fears have stymied development across the U.S., with rural residents attacking solar and wind farms as industrial intrusions on their way of life — and local governments throwing up roadblocks.
For Lewis, the conflict is deeply personal.
He moved here from Southern California more than a decade ago, trading life by the beach for a five-acre plot where he runs an off-roading school and test-drives motorcycles for manufacturers. His warehouse was packed with dozens of dirt bikes.
“This is my life. Motorcycles, motorcycles, motorcycles,” he said, laughing.
Lewis has worked to stir up opposition to three local solar farm proposals. So far, his efforts have been in vain.
One project is already under construction. Peering through a fence, we saw row after row of trusses, waiting for their photovoltaic panels. It’s called Yellow Pine, and it’s being built by Florida-based NextEra Energy to supply power to California.
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Lewis learned about Yellow Pine when he was riding one of his favorite trails and was surprised to find it cut off. He compared the experience to riding the best roller-coaster at a theme park, only to have it grind to a halt three-quarters of the way through.
“I don’t want my playground taken away from me,” he said.
“Me neither!” a voice called out from behind us.
We turned and were greeted by Shannon Salter, an activist who had previously spent nine months camping near the Yellow Pine site to protest the habitat destruction. She and Lewis had never met, but they quickly realized they had common cause.
“It’s the opposite of green!” Salter said.
“On my roof, not my backyard,” Lewis agreed.
Never mind that conservationists have long decried the ecological damage from desert off-roading. Salter and Lewis both cared about these lands. Neither wanted to see the solar industry lay claim to them. They talked about staying in touch.
It’s easy to imagine similar alliances forming across the West, the clean energy transition bringing together environmentalists and rural residents in a battle to defend their lifestyles, their landscapes and animals that can’t fight for themselves.
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It’s also easy to imagine major cities that badly need lots of solar and wind power — Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix — brushing off those complaints as insignificant compared with the climate emergency, or as fueled by right-wing misinformation.
But many of concerns raised by critics are legitimate. And their voices are only getting louder.
As night fell over the Mojave, Lewis shared his idea that any city buying electricity from a desert solar farm should be required to install a certain amount of rooftop solar back home first — on government buildings, at least. It only seemed fair.
“Some people see the desert as just a wasteland,” Lewis said. “I think it’s beautiful.”
The view from Black Mountain
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So how do we build enough renewable energy to replace fossil fuels without destroying too many ecosystems, or stoking too much political opposition from rural towns, or moving too slowly to save the planet?
Few people could do more to ease those tensions than Buffett.
Our conversation kept returning to the legendary investor as we hiked Black Mountain, just outside Vegas, on our last morning in the Silver State. We were joined by Jaina Moan, director of external affairs for the Nature Conservancy’s Nevada chapter. She had promised a view of massive solar fields from the peak — but only after a 3.5-mile trek with 2,000 feet of elevation gain.
“It’ll be a little StairMaster at the end,” she warned us.
The homes and hotels and casinos of the Las Vegas Valley retreated behind us as we climbed, looking ever smaller and more insignificant against the vast open desert. It was an illusion that will prove increasingly difficult to maintain as Sin City and its suburbs continue their march into the Mojave. Nevada politicians from both parties are pushing for legislation that would let federal officials auction off additional public lands for residential and commercial development.
Vegas and other Western cities could limit the need for more suburbs — and sprawling solar farms — by growing smarter, Moan said. Urban areas could embrace density, to help people drive fewer miles and reduce the demand for new power supplies to fuel electric vehicles. They could invest in electric buses and trains — and use less water, which would save a lot of energy.
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“As our spaces become more crowded, we’re going to have to come up with more creative ideas,” Moan said.
That’s where Buffett could make things easier.
The billionaire’s Berkshire Hathaway company owns electric utilities that serve millions of people, from California to Nevada to Illinois. Those utilities, Moan said, could buck the industry trend of urging policymakers to reduce financial incentives for rooftop solar and instead encourage the technology — along with other small-scale clean energy solutions, such as local microgrids.
That would limit the need for big solar farms — at least somewhat.
Berkshire and other energy giants could also build solar on lands already altered by humans, such as abandoned mines, toxic Superfund sites, reservoirs, landfills, agricultural areas, highway corridors and canals that carry water to farms and cities.
The costs are typically higher than building on undisturbed public lands. And in many cases there are technical challenges yet to be resolved. But those kinds of “creative solutions” could at least lessen the loss of biodiversity, Moan said.
“There’s money to be made there, and there’s good to be done,” she said.
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It’s hard to know what Buffett thinks. A Berkshire spokesperson declined my request to interview him.
Tony Sanchez, NV Energy’s executive vice president for business development and external relations, was more forthcoming.
“The problem for us with rooftop solar,” he said, is that it’s “not controlled at all by us.” As a result, NV Energy can’t decide when and how rooftop solar power is used — and can’t rely on that power to help balance supply and demand on the grid.
Over time, Sanchez predicted, a lot more rooftop solar will get built. But he couldn’t say how much.
Rooftop solar faces a similarly uncertain future in California, where state officials voted last year to slash incentive payments, calling them an unfair subsidy. Industry leaders have warned of a dramatic decline in installations.
As we neared the top of Black Mountain, the solar farms on the other side came into view. They stretched across the Eldorado Valley far below — black rectangles that could help save life on Earth while also destroying bits and pieces of it.
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Moan believes the key to balancing clean energy and conservation is “go slow to go fast.” Government agencies, she said, should work with conservation activists, small-town residents and Native American tribes to study and map out the best places for clean energy, then reward companies that agree to build in those areas with faster approvals. Solar and wind development would slow down in the short term but speed up in the long run, with quicker environmental reviews and less risk of lawsuits.
It’s a tantalizing concept — but I confessed to Moan that I worried it would backfire.
What if the sparring factions couldn’t agree on the best spots to build solar and wind farms, and instead wasted years arguing? Or what if they did manage to hammer out some compromises, only for a handful of unhappy people or groups to take them to court, gumming up the works? Couldn’t “go slow to go fast” end up becoming “go slow to go slow”?
In other words, should we really bet our collective future on human beings working together, rather than fighting?
Moan was sympathetic to my fears. She also didn’t see another way forward.
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“We really need to think holistically about saving everything,” she said.
The sad truth is, not everything can be saved. Not if we want to keep the world livable for people and animals alike.
Some beloved landscapes will be left unrecognizable. Some families will be stuck paying high energy bills to monopoly utilities, even as some utility investors make less money. Some tortoises will probably die, pacing along fences in the heat.
The alternative is worse.
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If you spot a Tesla on the road, you may be impressed by the sleek style of the car, but you may also find yourself wondering: How do you take an electric car like that on a road trip? How do you refuel conveniently? The answer is EV charging stations. As electric vehicles grow in popularity, so does the demand for these stations — making the sector an especially hot one for investors.
If you want expert advice on building an investment portfolio that serves your current and future needs, consider working with a financial advisor.
What Is an EV Charging Station?
An EV charging station is essentially a gas station for electric vehicles (EVs). According to the U.S. Department of Energy, while most EV owners have charging stations at their homes, there are tens of thousands of EV charging stations across the country. Whether these are public charging stations or workplace charging stations, they serve the same purpose of recharging the batteries of electric cars.
While the purpose of an EV charging station most resembles a gas station, the actual process is more like recharging your phone. As you might have a phone charger at home but also carry one with you to the office, if you have an EV, you might be best served by having a residential EV charger while still having access to public EV charging stations or an EV charging station at your work.
Are EV Charging Stations Good Investments?
EV charging stations can be good investments as the market for EVs and the accompanying infrastructure to power them grows. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is increased consumer demand for EVs and many reasons to believe that that interest will continue to grow.
In 2011, electric cars made up 0.2% of all car sales in the United States. By 2021, that number had swelled to 4.6%. Some research projections say that EV sales could make up as much as 52% of all car sales by 2023.
While environmental concerns have been a major concern for EV drivers historically, cost savings also figure prominently in the move to EVs. Studies find that EVs can save their drivers as much as $12,000 over the life of the vehicle, and that fuel savings alone can be $4,700 or more in the first seven years of owning the vehicle.
Further savings are available for EV buyers thanks to government policies. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allotted a tax credit worth of up to $7,500 for EV buyers until 2032. That same bill committed $7.5 billion to build out national EV charging infrastructure.
Between personal reasons, cost savings and ongoing improvements to the affordability and battery life of EVs, it’s clear why investors would consider EV charging stations a wise investment.
How to Invest in EV Charging Stations
EV charging stations can be a wise investment for business owners. EV charging stations can be expensive to install, but the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has set aside $1.5 billion to help states build and expand their EV charging networks. Look into your state’s EV charging station plan to see what assistance is available to you—for instance, in Illinois, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency will offer a rebate of up to 80% of eligible project costs.
Once you’ve set up your charging station, you can charge drivers for the electricity they use to recharge their cars, using a business model similar to a gas station. But EV charging can also generate income for your business in less straightforward ways.
Say you own a restaurant and decide to install a charging station. A driver on a road trip looking for a charging station sees your restaurant is nearby and decides to pull in and charge their car. Charging takes between 20 and 55 minutes—the perfect amount of time for that driver to grab a bite to eat as well. This strategy can apply to a variety of retail establishments, including shops, bars, convenience stores and more.
If you’re not a business owner or don’t want to create and maintain your own EV charging station, there are other ways to invest. You can invest in the companies that are creating and selling the charging equipment and technology, such as Tesla, Chargepoint or Tritium, by purchasing stock. You can also invest in EV-related mutual funds or exchange-traded fund (ETFs).
The Bottom Line
As EVs become more popular, the demand for charging stations will continue to rise. Business owners who invest in EV charging stations can enjoy an additional revenue stream as well as the potential for increased foot traffic and a new customer base. Individual investors who see the promise of the sector can buy in via stocks or ETFs.
Tips for Green Investing
Consider talking to a financial advisor about the pros and cons of green investment strategies and how you might implement them in your portfolio. Finding a financial advisor doesn’t have to be hard. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with up to three vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. If you’re ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.
Want to take a look at what your portfolio will look like in a decade? SmartAsset’s investment calculator can help you do just that. Enter how much you have invested, how much you’re contributing and what rate of return you expect. We’ll then show you your investment growth five, 10 or even 30 years into the future.
When it comes to the best apartment amenities, what’s popular in 2017 may surprise you. According to Apartment Guide research, many of those searching for an apartment tend to focus on individual apartment features rather than community features. However, many apartment hunters weigh community features at approximately the same level of importance as how many bedrooms they’re looking for, so community features matter. Those who want community features, however, tend to weigh them as highly as features of each apartment, so community amenities really matter as well.
According to our data, apartment renters love their pets with most of the apartment searches looking for either pet friendly communities or apartments that allow pets. Being able to do the laundry also ranks supreme, with an in-unit washer and dryer at the top of the wish list for many renters. Additionally, keeping cool is also a big concern for renters, with many looking for air conditioning or a community pool as an amenity.
You’re ready to start your search for a new apartment. You’ve selected the neighborhoods you like and made a budget so you know what you can afford. Now it’s time to narrow down your search by determining which apartment amenities you might need.
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As a recap, here’s what recent ApartmentGuide searches show as the most popular amenities:
The Most Popular Apartment Amenities in 2017
In-unit washer and dryer
Air conditioning
Pets allowed
Furnished apartments
Dishwasher
Washer and dryer connections
Some utilities included
Balcony
Cable ready
All utilities included
The Most Popular Community Amenities in 2017
Pet friendly
Garages
Swimming pool
High speed internet access
Fitness Center
Laundry Facility
Covered Parking
Gated Access
Wireless internet access
Access to public transportation
Growing in popularity
These lists are never set in stone. What’s important now may not be in the future, and amenities we barely think about now become must-haves in the future. We took a look at some industry trends, and found these amenities, while not yet on this list, are on the way up.
More elaborate fitness centers: It’s not enough just to have weights and exercise machines. Everything from adding tennis or basketball courts to having full, complimentary yoga classes are becoming more common.
Bike-friendly amenities: More people are getting around on their bikes, so amenities such as bike storage and repair are becoming much more sought after by renters.
Online payments and maintenance: Do you really want to call the front office to get something fixed? Does anyone like writing checks for rent? Being able to handle these online is especially attractive to younger renters.
Package lockers: We get far more packages than we used to – have you seen how many people buy everything through Amazon? – so having somewhere to keep them other than at your front door is incredibly attractive to renters.
Electric car charging stations: More electric cars means more people needing somewhere to plug them in overnight.
Hardwood floors: Not all the rising amenities are new things. Having your apartment look good on the inside is a strong desire, and carpet or tile just doesn’t do it for some people.
What would the world be like if almost anybody could ride a bike effortlessly, at any speed they choose, regardless of physical fitness, hills, headwinds, or drag from the bike trailer full of kids and groceries?  What if even those of us who are not athletes could get all the glorious benefits of cycling including invincible […]
Make the earth-friendly investment that is living in a green apartment community.
The post How Apartments Are Going Green: 7 Environmental Design Features to Look For appeared first on The Rent. Blog : A Renterâs Guide for Tips & Advice.