The State of California is apparently going to ask the Environmental Protection Agency if it can ban the sale of new, solely gas-powered vehicles starting in the year 2035. California is the biggest car market in the United States and, given how many other states mimic California’s vehicle regulations, if approved this could have enormous consequences. It’s also not terrible news if you’re a fan of plug-in hybrids.
According to a Reuters report, the California Air Resource Board (CARB) officially put the request in to the EPA. From that report:
The California Air Resources Board (CARB), which approved the plan in August, asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday to approve a waiver under the Clean Air Act to implement its new rules that set yearly rising zero emission vehicle rules starting in 2026 and would end the sales of vehicles only powered by gasoline by 2035.
“These vehicles will permanently displace emissions from conventional vehicles,” wrote CARB Executive Officer Steven Cliff, adding that motor vehicles and other mobile sources are the greatest source of emissions in California.
The Biden administration has repeatedly refused to endorse setting a date to phase-out the sale of gasoline-only vehicles.
There’s a lot going on here. First, I already warned you that the EPA’s proposed emissions rules were going to cause a bunch of people to freak out and, yeah, that seems to be happening. Whereas the Inflation Reduction Act helps ease the burden of shifting production to EVs through tax credits and other incentives, the new EPA guidelines will make it increasingly difficult to sell gas-powered vehicles only.
Unlike Europe, which has essentially agreed to ban gas-powered cars by 2035 with the notable exception of e-fuels, the Biden Administration has been somewhat agnostic about the specific technologies. If companies want to make a bunch of EVs and four super gas-guzzling cars, they can theoretically do that. Hydrogen? Sure. Hybrid? Why not.
That’s not what this is. California, like Europe, is saying no to the sale of new vehicles solely powered by gasoline or diesel. There’s an interesting caveat here, though, in that they’re ok with plug-in hybrids. Obviously, we’re extremely pro-PHEV here and I, in particular, like what CARB’s approach is. Again, from Reuters:
California’s zero-emission rules will cut by 25% smog-causing pollution from light-duty vehicles by 2037. The rules mandate that 35% of the new cars sold be plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV), EVs or hydrogen fuel cell by 2026. That proportion will rise to 68% by 2030 and 100% by 2035.
[…]
CARB’s regulation would allow automakers to sell up to 20% PHEVs by 2035 and by then would need a minimum 50-mile (80.5-km) all-electric range label to qualify.
While this is an aggressive timeline, it is more reasonable than the European standard. Plus, a 50-mile range is accomplishable today. The 2023 Prius Prime already offers 44 miles of EV-only range, for instance. A 50-mile range is currently more difficult for larger SUVs and pickups, but automakers have 12 years to figure that out if this goes through.
What’s not clear, of course, is whether or not the Biden Administration will allow CARB to go forward this. Regulating air quality and vehicle emissions is a federal job, but the Clean Air Act allows states to get a waiver from the EPA to implement their own restrictions.
California will enact another idiotic bill that will have unexpected consequences that they haven’t considered or if they have, gleefully ignore. Since they will ban fuel powered vehicles, they will suddenly discover that a number of lower income people cannot afford them, let alone be able to charge them. They will then enact taxes against the wealthy and impose fees on current owners, and then offer funds to help cover the cost for the poor. Thus driving up the costs for everyone. The electrical grid in California is incapable of producing and delivering the necessary electricity to all these owners, so more taxes and fees will be imposed to upgrade the system 30 years too late. Meanwhile inflation in California will spike as the cost for all of this will drive up consumer costs for everything. Even the tent you’ll need when the state bankrupts you and you become homeless.
The point about the electrical grid is a big one, they were supposed to develop enough renewable energy to replace Diablo Canyon, but didn’t, and had to give it a last minute reprieve to avoid casing a massive electricity shortage – that hasn’t gone away, the plant is still earmarked for closure eventually and demand is only growing, need to build a lot more windmills and solar farms really fast
You could cover the whole Coachella Valley with windmills and solar farms and it wont be enough. You’ll just spoil the landscape and kill dessert tortoises.
“The electrical grid in California is incapable of producing and delivering the necessary electricity” Maybe, but that won’t effect me too much as I make my own electricity. All you California haters probably aren’t aware that every new home now has to have solar. Not enough to fully charge most cars, but you can always add more panels to what your new home has.
So what they are telling me is that my gas tax is going up and I’ll have a new EV tax that will show up on my already inflated power bill..
“A 50-mile range is currently more difficult for larger SUVs and pickups, but automakers have 12 years to figure that out if this goes through.”
Well you could make them smaller. Took me about a second to figure that out.
Get rid of the tax subsidies for heavy vehicles, because why should my taxes pay for ludicrously large cars. That’s another couple of seconds.
Not a lot of engineering involved, maybe five years if they are slow walking it.
We probably should do that, since most light trucks are now sold for personal transportation use, those tax incentives were built around the idea that trucks were used primarily by businesses for utilitarian purposes, which is no longer the most common situation. I’d also say we shouldn’t have separate CAFE standards for light trucks and passenger cars anymore either, since the market has basically eliminated the latter category almost entirely, but moving to hybrids kind of takes care of that anyway.
Don’t you love how politicians virtue signal by passing regulations far in the future that won’t work. It’s pretty narcissistic to be able to predict the technological future 13 years in advance, like others of have mentioned the fuel economy standards just made everything bigger, PHEVs make everything heavier and more unfixable with more waste. The people that have available charging and can save money will already switch to PHEV by themselves, but there are countless people that will lose money if forced into one. This is just a virtue signal won’t help the climate or people’s health or our economy in any positive way.
Disagree on some points. Yes, a byproduct of fuel economy standards could be larger vehicles, 100% give you that one. But the prevalence of catalytic converters and… Well, all of the emissions everything would take issue with the rest. Air quality is considerably better now than at any point since cars became an Thing. Just as government dollars incentivize things like oil production, they can disincentivize things like cigarettes. This tells industry where to direct its production, and allows people to move in the direction they want to be moving (which is clearly electrification, if sales are any indicator). The VAST majority of people would be driving electric cars if they were available and affordable, which legislation like this encourages.
Certainly personal choices dictate vehicle size, but overall weight is a byproduct of continued NHTSA requirements for safety equipment. Some of this seems legit, others seem to be a side effect of distracted drivers. Perhaps it would be better to go 5th Element here and have immediate tickets for driving infractions based upon GPS and Cabin Video info?
Air quality is an externality and therefore is in the jurisdiction of the government, I’m happy that cars are as clean as they are because without the government involved they would still be dirty. Cars are so clean now that they basically don’t contribute to bad air. Fuel economy is not an externality, it directly affects the consumer and better fuel economy will be achieved without government intervention. I for one would have an electric car if it could save me money, but it cannot. I have 3 newer cars that I put a combined mileage of under 30,000 miles a year, if one of them was electric I would basically have to junk it when the battery went dead in 10 years because of age not mileage, where my gas cars will still be perfectly usable. PHEV cars will need new batteries in probably 5-10 years because of all the cycles, so a car with only 50,000 miles will need a multi thousand dollar service to stay on the road. 50,000 miles only costs $10,000 in gas at 25 mpg ($5 gallon on CA) so with electricity prices today there is no way the consumer saves money with a PHEV.
“Fuel economy is not an externality, it directly affects the consumer and better fuel economy will be achieved without government intervention“
You are kidding, right? Government fuel economy testing is done to a test cycle, which pretty much everyone says is unrealistic because pretty much everyone refuses to drive in a way that maximises economy. Wealthy car owners have zero incentive to even try to improve fuel economy.
If the government insisted all cars were 1980’s Citroen AX Diesels (yes, I know, crash safety, tiny and carcinogenic particulates) then everyone would be getting 50-100 mpg.
Also fuel economy doesn’t just direct affect the consumer, it also directly affects the climate, and all of us.
Again, I’m not an American and this feels like some sort of political thing that I’m understanding wrong.
It takes a long time to design and produce a car, the cars on the roads today don’t necessarily reflect what consumers want right now. They reflect the bets that car companies made years ago about what would sell and what wouldn’t. So if you think that makes sense, then saying that this is purely a virtue signal doesn’t quite make sense, because there’s actually a practical aspect to it.
As a result of this legislation people who can’t afford new EV’s should get more options. You can say it’ll drive up the price, but cars are already expensive, how much more of an effect will this have? Is the other option to leave it to the market? There’s two problems with that, it still means that mostly rich people buy EV’s and people who are looking for a cheap car will be in for a used market full of old ICE vehicles because high priced EV’s will hold their value.
Look, I don’t like that this response is longer than your original post, that’s always a sign of taking things personally. I think it strikes a chord because I want governments to take this kind of responsibility because I don’t see consumers or car companies doing it.
I have no problem with car companies making cars that consumers want, I just have a problem with the government picking the winners 13 years in advance. I mean planes will still fly with jet fuel in 2036 and trucking will still use diesel in 2036, so we will still have to use the portion of the barrel of oil that is gasoline, I mean we can’t store it forever, nor can we pump it back in the ground. Also where is all the electricity going to come from, I was an investor in a windmill company and it took 5 years for permits for wind turbines and an additional 10 years for permits for transmission lines, so all in 15 years before they could even break ground, I don’t see the current government cutting any red tape, I mean they just prevented mining for lithium on federal land in NV, where are we going to get the lithium to make these batteries?
Haven’t many manufacturers said they won’t be making new gas-powered cars by then anyway? This just means there’ll be a strong used market.
This article and headline are not up to the Autopian’s usual standards. They are very misleading.
“end the sales of vehicles ONLY powered by gasoline” (emphasis mine)
This is COMPLETELY different than banning cars with gasoline engines, which is what the title sounds like. Is it intentional to drive outrage and to drive clicks? I’ve seen the slack discussions on good titles, how did this one get through?
They only want to require that cars be hybrids (or pure EV) and have some degree of non-gasoline power. 50miles means that most cars will operate on electric for most commuters, but cars WILL be allowed to have gasoline engines for power and distance.
Let’s review for reading comprehension:
Autopian: “ban all new gas cars” => OMG, this is crazy!! No more gas engines!! Ma Freedoms!
vs
“end the sales of vehicles only powered by gasoline” => So all cars will have acceleration boosting electric motors? Only hybrid supercars by 2035? Cool!!
Still much better than others I’ve seen this morning. “California banning gas engines!” and the like. At least the included “sale of new”.
The headline might not have it, but did you happen to notice the whole second half of the article talks about hybrids?
I definitely read the article, and I did make my way down to the clarifications. But that’s really hiding the nuance, and leading with an inflammatory headline.
It’s Matt, he is still very much Jalopnik, probably should have stayed there with Ralph.
He is also From New York, new york, where cars are not really able to be enjoyed.
This is good. Cali emissions means some of the most populous states will about instantly copy-paste the regulations. Improved air quality with centralized emissions or no-emission power generation and less fuel being burned is good.
Add in that global warming is proceeding way faster than even some previously pessimistic scenarios outlined and business as usual means our planet will be uninhabitable in some regions in 30 years. Transportation accounts for a good chunk of that. Between being boiled alive when wet bulb temperatures mean sweating or dealing with lithium mining damage, I’ll take the latter.
While I’m fine with EVs, I wish the focus was more on actually trying to consume less energy. If everyone is piloting 450 mile range SUVS with enormous batteries, we’re not going to see a whole lot of environmental benefits, at least globally.
As for people who hate mandates, I get it, and I’d prefer we just tax the hell out of the gas guzzlers and be done with it. But we have such a conspicuous consumption problem that is so ingrained into much of American culture that I’m not sure taxing is going to move the needle. Not that any politician is willing to commit the political suicide that is a gas tax. We can’t even seem to make that happen to fix our damn roads.
I also think the mandates aren’t actually going to come to fruition. We’ll be seeing that can kicked down the road half a dozen times.
100% this. Every economist will tell you that you subsidize what you want more of and tax what you want less of. Yet here we are with insanely low gas taxes, low sales taxes (consumption tax) and high (relative) income taxes.
Instead of setting long term mandates about what people can and can’t drive, we should be setting long-term increases in consumer carbon tax (gas tax), increasing yearly through 2035. To make it politically palatable, give those taxes back through refunds and credits elsewhere. Then let consumers and manufacturers make their own decisions about power trains and vehicle sizes. They’ll figure out how to consume less gas in the most efficient way possible, guaranteed.
By just mandating electrification, you’ll end up with more expensive vehicles and people using their plug-in F350s just like their old gas-only ones. Cuz gas is still cheap and easy to use.
If a Nickel per gallon Gas tax increase is detrimental to your finances, then what you’re doing to create income obviously isn’t working…
So screw the Poors for being Poor?
I’m still generally not a fan of absolute bans of new ICE vehicles. It feels like nanny state finger wagging in light of numerous other sources of CO2 that are largely unquestioned (private jet travel for the rich, anyone?), and I feel as if there are better ways to incentivize EV adoption or discourage ICEs. At the same time, the exception for PHEVs makes it something less than completely draconian and somewhat palatable. If we’re being honest, they’ll be required for certain use cases and populations for decades more, even if your average driver makes the switch to a full BEV. At least this seems to recognize that.
I still hope that other states and the EPA resist going this far, this quickly. I have concerns about adequate capacity of the electric grid and the ability to deploy enough charging infrastructure in a reasonable amount of time or scale battery manufacturing quickly enough. It’s frustrating because I’m not at all a climate skeptic and fully support BEVs and PHEVs. But I feel like people with good intentions will push mandates and sort of hand wave any potential logistical problems or just expect people to “do more with less.” Not really a way to get people on board IMO.
The only things I like about these decisions is that it’s helping push people to the right directions, but I do hope the vast majority of the laws or bills are modified/delayed/etc when we actually get there. I think EVs will eventually be great for the vast majority of drivers and users, but we’re still in the early Beta phase. There are still a lot of growing pains that need to be addressed and I don’t think will before these deadlines come up. It’s definitely interesting to watch though…
Not to get overly political, but we’ll see how other states react to Cali’s plan given the general polarization of the electorate and red state legistatures’ tendency to rapidly copy each other’s actions. If CA continues down its path of banning gas only vehicles, its realistic to think high population red states like TX and FL will go out of their way to protect ICE sales or at least make EV ownership as inconvenient as possible to “level the playing field.” .
Already have. TX has legislation in place guaranteeing petrol vehicles will continue. Also new registration fees for EV’s (which is good, as they avoid a gas tax) but are so high, that they’re punitive. $400 on initial registration and $200 a year, on top of normal fees.
We won’t even discuss that they’re 90% of the way to removing required safety inspections, but retaining the fee, of course.
Let us cut to the chase: Every person and lawmaker should admit openly what their end goal is. Do you believe that humans should travel less and have a lower impact on the Earth? Or do you believe humans should have liberty to travel freely, governed by existing laws? Or something else?
If the powers that be openly admitted their end goals, there would be revolution.
Or the third option, have the liberty to travel freely while governed to have a lower impact on the Earth. If you can travel twice as far with half the environmental impact, that’s a huge win.
That is what we have today because cars are far cleaner today than in the past. Thus we get back to my original point: What is the end goal? How far should the lagal restrictions go?
f-ing insanity
Tax gas and let people decide for themselves.
Or both. Have an increasing gas tax, and use that tax to fund the alternative fuel incentives
Incentives, sure.
Mandates, never.
I wouldn’t mind a higher gas tax if it looked like it actually went to fix the roads, but I suppose that’s a different discussion.
Meh, that just screws over folks for whom the cost is high enough to matter. If you’re going to push change via tax apply it to the purchase based on some mpg threshold. Pressures the mfg to drive toward that threshold and drive consumers away from options that don’t meet it without penalizing those that make the desired descision.
Those folks are getting screwed anyways by the mandatory electric components being added to every vehicle. Not a ton of affordable PHEVs out there.
If your heart bleeds for them, you could distribute the carbon tax revenue as a universal basic income, which would still incentivize people to cut back.
In this case, what’s the downside?
We tried implementing fuel economy standards and the market responded by first lobbying for a sliding scale based on vehicle footprint, then proceeded to make all of their cars larger to meet the standard (and classify damn near everything as a light truck). Fuel economy of trucks has gone up a smidge but the CUVs don’t match the sedans they replaced.
Pure EVs are not the answer though. People have grown accustomed to driving all day with minimal inconvenience and are unwilling to accept anything without a massive battery. PHEVs are really a good answer because a) the batteries are 5-10x smaller, lessening impact (we have no idea where to get all the minerals for the packs, but the whole world is going electric in 10 years? Yeah, that’s not a national security issue at all, and there certainly won’t be a new OPEC), b) that smaller battery will disproportionately affect vehicle pollution as most people will rarely run the engine, particularly in dense cities which need air quality improvements, c) gas savings will more easily offset battery costs, including future replacements, d) since it can act as a plain hybrid to boost the gas engine, vehicles can use smaller (and less complex/not boosted to hell) engines which get better gas mileage, and e) since the engine is really only coming on for highway trips, the damn thing will last more or less indefinitely.
Seriously, as an example, say ford brings out an f150 phev with a simple v6 engine and 50 miles of electric range. Most people would see eco boost levels of performance around town while using 5-10x less fuel over the life of the truck. The cost of the hybrid system would probably be similar to the current up charge to get the eco boost over the base v6 anyways, and the only time performance would suffer is when pulling 6k+ pounds at 70 mph.
Or, heaven forbid we put in some infrastructure (and protective laws) that enables us to not have to drive massive cars everywhere. I love cars but the idea we have no choice but to sit in gridlock everyday, when small motorcycles and e bikes could virtually eliminate traffic jams overnight, is baffling. At least let it be a damn option.
Or, heaven forbid we put in some infrastructure (and protective laws) that enables us to not have to drive massive cars everywhere. I love cars but the idea we have no choice but to sit in gridlock everyday, when small motorcycles and e bikes could virtually eliminate traffic jams overnight, is baffling.
Small motorcycles and e-bikes might be fine in California and Florida but lethal in Minnesota or other very cold weather states with icy roads. Besides lots of countries like India have long adopted small motorcycles and bicycles yet traffic jams are still a thing.
If you’re looking for better infrastructure how about better internet so more people can work from home? It kills me how so many companies (looking at YOU Yahoo!) whose entire business IS enabling people to use the internet to do things remotely (and securely) claim they can’t make WFH work. Part of that however would be to disincentive corporate real estate. A lot of the push of getting people back to the office are building owners with empty, non revenue generating buildings.
It’s not meant to imply that e-bikes and motorcycles could be used every day, by every person, but getting even a small portion of people out of single cars can have a large impact on congestion and overall emissions. I just can’t think of a valid reason, beyond laziness and car maker lobbying, why alternate forms of transportation are so shunned in this country (talking bikes, people are too shitty here to advocate for public transportation). Countries like India are just so backed up because there’s too many damned people-imagine if they were all in f150s.
Again, I like nice cars and fast shit, but am amazed that it was considered normal for me to commute by car approximately 45 minutes per day then spend an hour at the gym. With a modest e-bike, good bike path and a few well placed bridges, I could have easily commuted in an hour, skipped the gym, and halved the wear and tear going onto my car.
I’m sure people here are rolling their eyes but remember, if you don’t have to rely on it to get to work, you can buy a much cooler car.
People traveled all over the country for years in Aircooled VW Beetles, small Fiats, Pintos, Vegas, Chevettes, Gorillas, Civics, etc., and survived to tell about it.
Fewer people are having kids of late, precluding the need to own an F150 or Suburban as a daily driver.
Tax on horsepower, whether ICE, or EV.
Inslee in WA is wanting to follow suit. I got nothing against EVs.. I’d like to have a performance EV whenever I can afford one… but I don’t see why they’re mandating this. Outside of big cities like Seattle and San Francisco and LA, the infrastructure just really isn’t there yet. And why not let the market decide?
The market has already decided: increasingly huge cars and trucks with massive engines.
The market mostly doesn’t care about reducing emissions. The market exists to make money, you can’t abdicate moral decisions to a system based on making a tiny minority rich.
Well, you can, but you really shouldn’t.
So you think this mandate is morally right?
Ignoring the moral aspect for a second: this mandate is technically wrong. If the goal is to lower CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels you should control the sale of the fuel, and not a technology that can burn a carbon neutral fuel. It’s stupid.
Morally should governments make laws to improve things? Yeah, sure. Vote them out if you don’t like them.
I’m not American though, so I’m probably doing politics wrong.
Not true really. Our messed up fuel economy, emission, and safety regulations are heavily manipulated which created a market that favors bigger and bigger SUVs and trucks.
It all depends on what one means by “the market.” The manufacturers who lobbied for those regulations are certainly part of the market. Was the market manipulated to their benefit? Sure, and they’ll certainly try to push for whatever regulations make them the most money pretty much every time. That’s part of the market’s effect.
No to this BS.
Basically, California, Newsome, Inslee, and their ilk can take an aerial intercourse.
Why do PHEVs all seem to have such very short all electric ranges? Is it because there isn’t enough room for bigger batteries (or they’d be too heavy)? Or price?
I suspect it’s because it’s easier to slap a bigger battery in an existing hybrid (I’m looking at you, old Plug-In Prius and Ford Energis) than it is to engineer your car as an “extended-range EV” (Volt, arguably the BMW i3) from the ground up.
Plus, the “modified hybrid” approach seems to get better fuel economy while burning gasoline; I think my gen1 Volt’s numbers are something in the 35 city/41 highway range when I’m in Hold mode.
Even the short ranges save a lot of gas. With a Gen1 Volt, I got about 200 miles per gallon over the 5 years I owned it, with a 40 mile electric range and a 8 mile commute to work each way. My commute was always all electric, but I got about 37 mpg when I needed to go farther for other errands. Most of my gas was burned on long trips (500-600 mile runs each way).
We just finished our first 1000 miles in our 2021 BMW 330e which just has a 20 mile electric range. We were 81.5% electric use and used just under 5 gallons of gas so far. My wife is driving this one and has about a 7 mile total commute each way. It also saves a lot of gas because many of her trips are short (often a mile or so). she’s doing 2 trips to the school for drop-off and pick-up, a few miles to work, and maybe a short run to a store or restaurant in the evening. If we do that in a gas car, we are typically getting 15-20 mpg because the engine doesn’t even have time to warm up. An electric motor doesn’t care. We are getting at least 37 mpg on average but I won’t know for sure until I fill the car up and see how much was used. The 12 kwh battery and hybrid equipment adds 440 pounds in the 330e but has more power and torque, so the performance is similar to the 330i, but with better efficiency. You do lose lightness, but it’s still a really fun car and I’m very happy with the compromise. If you consider the battery is about 1/8 the size of something like a Ford Lightning, you could manufacturer batteries for 8 low range PHEV’s vs. 1 electric truck. I guarantee that will save more gas. PHEV’s don’t do any better than a hybrid with a much smaller batter if you can’t plug it in (hopefully nightly), so there’s still an issue for many apartment dwellers. The nice thing with a PHEV though is that a standard receptacle is usually fine for overnight charging since the batteries are smaller.
It’s the tradeoffs involved, I think. The more battery you add, the more you spend, the harder it is to package the battery, and the more the car weighs (and the less efficient it is on gas). So companies try to find the range and mpg that will sell their vehicle while spending the least on making it. Somewhere along the line, anything over 25 miles seemed like the number, but competition is changing that.
This is odd. A couple of years ago a lot of people were lambasting PHEVs as the worst of both worlds. They claimed the technology would only slow down electric acceptance while still being polluters. I can’t keep up. I still think it’s ridiculous to set a firm date. The market will decide. When gas stations become few and far between and electric prices become reasonable then the great revolution will happen.
I’m usually not much of a fan of what a lot of California does, and am still something of a skeptic on mass EV adoption in the timeframes being discussed, but I don’t have much of an issue with this. There isn’t much of an excuse for why all, or at least most, ICE cars aren’t hybrids right now. It could have been done 10+ years ago, there really isn’t much downside from the end user perspective. Want a pure EV? Great, not sure a pure EV will really fit your lifestyle? Fine, get a PHEV, between the two it seems to cover all bases.
And can we get a Hurricane PHEV version of that new Charger concept, please?
This is the way.
btw, my wife’s RAV4 prime averages 50+ electric miles during warmer months…that’s with a 18kwh battery that has about 14kwh useable. No reason that Toyota couldn’t make a PHEV 4Runner with a 25-30kwh battery that achieved 35-40 miles of range.
usage will always matter, but for a ton of people that would really check a lot of boxes.
Friend of mine, whose not a car person, wanted to replace his early 2000s (9th gen?) Corolla. His sister was willing to sell her RAV4 Prime to him for like $27K during the pandemic when things were going bananas. I told him if he didn’t buy it, I would at that price (to sell it).
Boston area, vast majority of trips are local, free charging at where he lives. In the 18 months he’s had it he’s put like 27,000 miles on it somehow, but has been averaging nearly 175mpg since it’s only occasional family trips where it really has to run the engine. Again, free charging, which is a big deal when electricity here right now is $0.485/kWh.
There is no such thing as ‘free charging’.
Someone is paying the tab.
Why is this the way?
I’m not anti-EV… but I don’t see why banning new gas car sales makes sense. EVs aren’t terribly “green”… they just transfer the pollution to a different sector (energy production, mining for rare earth metals, and potentially toxic used batteries). I think the crazy torque and acceleration are cool in EVs, gliding around silently is neat, less maintenance is a plus, and I’m all for high mpgs and lower energy costs… I just don’t get why mandating this makes sense.
Why not let the market decide? And why not wait until the infrastructure is better?
Given all the ways we subsidize oil (and externalize its negative effects to the environment and the population) I’d argue the market is already weighted, and has been for years.
I don’t know enough about subsidizing oil to agree or disagree with you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Even if they don’t get a waiver, hopefully it’ll help be a wake up call to manufacturers PHEVs are a way to bridge the gap between gas engines and electric motors at a cost point consumers can afford. Keeps the weight of batteries and it’s consequences down, no worries about range, and can be done to any model.
With the cost of living and carmakers increasingly driving up prices, I wonder if there there should be an allowance specifically for small, low-emission gasoline vehicles – something like meeting Euro 7 emissions standards, > 45MPG, engine capacity 1.5L or less – which would encourage carmakers to bring affordable models from the European and Asian markets that would make a negligible impact on emissions, but drive down the average cost of new cars and get more people into safer, less poluting cars rather than sticking with older gas guzzlers.
Part of the issue is that distances are so flipping vast in the US compared to Europe and much of Asia, and road trips are a cultural institution in a way they are not over there. A “road trip” in Europe is more likely to happen by train and bicycle.
That means vehicles tend to be larger and heavier for creature comforts on long drives, which means bigger engines and gas tanks.
A 1.0L engine in a tiny car won’t be fast or safe enough against the average US fleet.
https://www.whatcar.com/ford/fiesta/hatchback/10-ecoboost-hybrid-mhev-125-active-5dr/99071#specification
0-60mph in under 10s (not the fastest but no slouch), 124mph top speed, big enough to carry 4 people comfortably. In the previous generation one I often did 350 mile trips with no problems at all so I don’t see why this wouldn’t be big enough or fast enough to work in the US?
What abut semi trucks or construction equipment or commercial trucks?
Not relevant for this, apparently.
The Advanced Clean Cars II regulations apply to light-duty passenger cars, pickup trucks and SUVs. It doesn’t affect commercial vehicles, construction equipment, etc.
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/advanced-clean-cars-program
New diesel trucks are banned in 2036, must be zero emission a few years later
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/28/california-bans-the-sale-of-new-diesel-trucks-by-2036.html
Do something really meaningful that makes a bigger difference: fly less.
Or don’t have children.
Children are one of the leading causes of unnecessary jet travel, after all.
Unnecessary consumption in general.
… Consumption in general.
Children are the reason why I won’t consider any sort of jet travel at all, haha.
Or go nuke and kill the humans – Earth’s problems are solved.
Right. It’s virtue signaling at best.
whynotboth.gif
This pretty much means that you can have your 2035 Chev Corvette ZR1 with its supercharged mid mounted 6.4 litre V12 and another 150 kW of electric motor sitting in the bell housing… what’s to hate?
People who can’t afford a ZR1 wanting to get a new affordable gas car but can’t?
Don’t worry, there weren’t going to be any affordable gas cars anyway.
I’m confused.. there already are?… Civic, Mazda 3, Corolla… a Nissan Versa starts in the mid teens.
… no one puts a poster on their bedroom wall of their dream Nissan Versa.
Our two (non-vintage cars) are hybrids. We’re serious about a plug-in hybrid next year when the lease is up. EV mode covers 90% of our driving around town, the hybrid is needed for our long trips to Tahoe or the Seattle area (from Nevada City CA). So, this change falls right into our nearer term plans.
I just did Sacramento to Twin Falls Idaho in a Model 3. There is a lack of DC Fast charging in the Nevada City area still so a PHEV makes sense. In Twin Falls charging was pretty limited, like one Tesla Supercharger location and one CCS location but it easily worked. The PHEV benefit is that there is more choice now and more coming in regard to vehicle type.