ELY, Minnesota — Brian Peterson is driving through the pitch-black, achingly cold northern Minnesota night through a series of firsts.

It’s the first time he’s driven his all-electric Tesla Model S this far, testing the limits of what he can do on a single charge. In a couple of hours, he’ll become the first person to use arguably the most remote Tesla charging station in the country, and he’ll very likely be the first person to take an electric vehicle through the dense wilderness that separates Ontario and Minnesota, also known as “The Boundary Waters.”

“The start of trend,” says Peterson, who supports no half measures on the road to a fossil-free future.

“All these costs with fossil fuels include a degradation that no one factors in,” Peterson tells me as we drive to the Tesla charging station in Ely (pronounced “E-lee”), Minnesota. Even as gas prices sit at near-term record lows, Peterson knows all-electric is the future. “If I was driving a gas-powered car, I would think the same thing … We have to stop using fossil fuels.”