AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris
On Thursday, California regulators voted to require that all new passenger cars and trucks sold in the state run on electricity or hydrogen after 2035, the latest move by state officials to “phase out” the use of all gas and diesel-powered vehicles. In addition to posing a severe challenge for California’s already strained power grid, the decision threatens to send the state’s economy tumbling – likely taking the rest of the country with it.
The new rule, which was released by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) two years after Governor Gavin Newsom first directed the Board to consider such a policy, was hailed as a major victory for environmental activists, even as economists and engineers expressed major reservations. According to the policy, 35% of new passenger vehicles sold by 2026 must produce “zero emissions,” a requirement that climbs to 68% by 2030. By 2035, one-fifth of new car sales in the state can be plug-in hybrids (electric vehicles that switch over to a gas-powered engine for longer distances), but the rest must be powered solely by electricity or hydrogen.
Though California leads the country in number of registered EVs by far – more than 550,000 – that figure still pales in comparison to the more than 30 million total registered vehicles in the state. In the first three months of this year, just 16% of new cars sold in California were electric, a percentage that would have to more than double in just four years in order to be in compliance with the plan.
Conservatives and auto industry leaders have been quick to point out, however, that EVs are hardly the “environmentally friendly,” “zero emission” solution that California Democrats – and the rest of the liberal establishment – have billed them as. Though the vehicles themselves produce zero emissions, they still must be charged using electricity from power generating stations. Even in California, 65% of that electricity is produced using nonrenewable sources. More electric cars means more burning of coal, oil, and natural gas at those power plants. Additionally, EV batteries, which last about 15 years, mostly end up in landfills, where they release dangerous toxins into the environment (and that’s not even to mention the serious environmental and human rights concerns associated with lithium and cobalt mining for EV battery manufacturing).
There are also major doubts about whether or not California’s energy grid will even be able to handle the increase in demand brought on by such a large increase in the number of EVs on the road in such a short time. According to one analysis from the University of Texas, if every vehicle in California were to go electric, the state would need to produce 47% more electricity than it does today. That’s likely unwelcome news for Californians who are already facing rolling blackouts thanks to the state’s overreliance on renewable energy.
Banning gas cars in California is also likely to have ripple effects throughout the rest of the U.S. economy. A number of other Democrat-led states like New York and Oregon have, for instance, indicated that they will follow California’s lead, leaving automakers in a difficult position. Even Virginia has passed legislation that forces it to adhere to California regulations. California alone represents a full 10% of the overall U.S. car market, meaning that its laws can – and have – shaped the direction of the market for the entire country. The problems that this decision poses for California are thus likely to be exported to other states, whether they agree with the policy or not.
With fewer gas cars on the road, many gas stations will likely go out of business, making it more difficult for those with gas cars to get around. In addition to posing a severe burden on people in rural parts of the state, this will also discourage tourism from other states, an industry that contributes more than $100 billion annually to California’s economy.
At the same time as this policy is going into effect on passenger vehicles, a series of perhaps even more devastating laws and regulations are also set to take effect to “phase out” medium- and heavy-duty gas- and diesel-powered trucks. On January 1, 2023, some 76,000 trucks with engines built before 2010 will no longer be allowed to operate under a different set of CARB regulations. By 2040, all new medium- and heavy-duty trucks sold in the state must also be fully electric – posing an enormous cost for transportation companies, which will no doubt be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
The new truck regulations are particularly bad news for California’s vital agricultural sector. California is far and away the country’s most productive agricultural state, accounting for more than 13% of U.S. agricultural production value – some $25 billion annually. The state leads the nation in the production of 77 different crops and livestock, and accounts for more than 99% of U.S. production of 14 specialty crops such as almonds, olives, and raisins.
All of these products have to be transported to the rest of the country. According to USDA data, 95% of the time that means a diesel-powered semi-truck. Even if farms and ranches can afford expensive new electric trucks, and even if California installs thousands of new electric vehicle charging stations specifically for electric trucks, it is powerless to force other states to do so, meaning that produce might have to be shipped via electric truck in California and switched to diesel-powered trucks for the rest of the journey – increasing costs and slowing down shipments. The result is that the nearly one million Californians who work in the agricultural sector are likely to have their lives and livelihoods upended, while the rest of the country can expect to pay significantly more for produce.
Notably, these new rules must all be approved by the Biden administration under the provisions of the 1970 Clean Air Act. While officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are expected to do so without delay, they may want to reconsider, lest they risk throttling the country further toward economic ruin.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @Shane_Harris_
Such legislation here in Minnesota would kill people in droves. Imagine having your EV’s battery go dead in the middle of a blizzard! We get winter storms here with wind chills down to minus 45 below and 50 mph winds blowing snow so thickly that you can’t see past the end of your car hood. We are taught from an early age that if you’re stranded in a blizzard, you do not leave your car because if you get disoriented and lost in the whiteout trying to walk somewhere, you’re dead. With a gas vehicle, you can idle the engine for a few minutes every hour in order to run the car heater and keep yourself from freezing to death. So, what would we have with EVs? Thousands of vehicles stranded on I-35 near the Iowa border with corpses in them?? Lord God of heaven and earth, cause the voters to rise up and evict these self-absorbed loonies who couldn’t care less about practical truths!
Dumba$$e$! How do they think electric cars are charged? If they destroy my ability to drive when and where I want, I will be angry.
When are they going to start voting people with some smarts and common sense in that state? Do not have the resources, the money and oh!!!! Just think of all those cars plugged into the grid…better get those coal power plants built because wind turbines are not going to do it.
California tries to affect the rest of the country with everything they do but it’s all bluster, dim wittedness, arrogance, stupidity and shortsightedness. For what now, 30-40 years they’ve had a thing called California emissions standards. Go to California, Los Angeles surrounding area it’s a sh*thole. Roads aren’t maintained, trash everywhere, the smells, it’s revolting. There isn’t any community pride. I’ve spent substantial time in both the west and the east coasts, and yes the east coast has dirty smelly cities as well. Everything about California screams “don’t come here”!. I would rather move to a state that has optimism, hope, vibrancy and the rising on it. California has the opposite and a sunset. The emission standards were never adopted by the rest of the country. So California can push even more people away, destroy even more of its tax base, become even more run down. Eventually it will need republicans to fix all the stupid democrats have done to it or it will be the next Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore.
The author raises many points that are accurately stated to show the folly of CARB. The author fails to note, however, the reality that Democrat leadership does not care about any reality other than their own. They are too heavily invested, literally, in the EV production market to allow any other options to exist. Bottom line: They do not care. And they have rigged the election system in this state such that CA is only a 1 party system. And they want to spread that same system across the rest of the country.
The Democrats are absolutely BRAIN DEAD! Give me a break for Pete’s sake. They want absolute control over our lives. Ain’t gonna happen. They forget there are more of us ‘little folk’ running around who are fed up with this nonsense than these mental midgets can count. VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE!!!!
They really have done a snow job in the gullible. EVs will deplete the lithium with only 10% of the demand for vehicles. And the power grids will fail, most likely in the hottest days or coldest days, when people need AC and heat. But sheeple will be happy that they live in a government project and have blankets.
Where’s ALL the Electric Jets, Planes, and Ships?
That’s right, aoc said we can use UNICORNS to Fly everywhere. And we can take the Train to Hawaii.
Also, where are the Mechanics to Fix those JUNK and DANGEROUS Electric Vehicles?
Don’t forget, they DO EXPLODE on impact. FACT.
California governments (State, County, City) are out of their minds. They do not appear to have one logical brain between them.
We can fight this all we want but the future is before us – the gas vehicle’s days are numbered. But, we are doing a very poor job of selling the future to those who prefer to live in the past, especially old guys like me. Look around and see the things that didn’t exist in numbers just a short 10 years ago. Computers, cell phones, internet, ridge wallet, etc. Adapt, overcome and move on. OK, I agree California is a little above and beyond reality, they always have been. But they’re moving in the right direction which is more than most of us are. There is much to do – the price has to come down to a reasonable affordable level. $45-60 has to be cut in half, milage has to double at a minimum, 600 miles on a full charge. Charging needs to be worked out. Why can’t the top, hood and trunk be a solar panel that can charge the car continuously? The speed doesn’t have to be 0-60 in 3 sec, use that energy to improve milage at 60 and block the speed at 80. The vehicle has to set a minimum of 4 and up to 8 adults. But, I don’t live in california, I’ll go the heat pump and solar panels but I’ll keep my Forester and I’m not ready to give up my Corvette nor can I afford the EV model in research.
If a light weight passenger vehicle, its heaviest component being the lithium batteries, can only achieve 300 miles between charges how can a heavily loaded truck in addition to its battery load be able to transport all this agricultural product to market? Add to this MORE batteries means LONGER charging time, where in line will be my passenger vehicle waiting? California be dammed, they already added all this antipolution devices to my gasoline car cutting its economy, now building my grocery bill to buy and operate an expensive electric vehicle; why isn’t there an effort to capture and fuel electric vehicles on static electricity, it is very cheap and available to all, just ask any thunderstorm.
I find it hard to believe that the powers that be don’t realize the damage this will do to the economy. Food prices will be going up even more, and supply problems will get worse then they are now. This has to be an intentional tanking of the economy.
This is what happens when the dems take control of every facet of life. What’s next, banning auto and truck parts to move their agenda a little faster? But I’ll use an electric uhaul to move out of this hell hole.
Once again we see a handful of non elected government bureaucrats making decisions that affects the lifestyle and economic consequences of millions of Americans. California has long been the progressive leader in dictating to the state and in essence the country the future of automotive innovation. Except this time they have gone too far!
The technology and necessary electrical grid is decades away from making this a reality. Setting arbitrary deadlines has never worked out the way the planners plan. California can’t even handle the power grid it has today. They continue to have brownouts and restrictions on electrical usage. It’s time to take the politics out of the equation and let electric car manufacturers compete against gas powered vehicles in the open market.
They can’t use “pollution” as a measure because today’s cars and trucks are very low emission vehicles. There will be much more pollution producing the power to coal and natural gas plants to produce the energy than all of the gas powered vehicles on the road. Perhaps in 2070 we’ll have the technology to produce clean energy cars but they probably won’t be powered by batteries.
Crazy people in government…We cannot afford electric cars…chargers are costing way too much to install plus electric service costs. Vote November 8th!
That will not work very well here in Montana when you have to travel hundreds of miles to get anywhere! Even the major cities, such as they are along I 90 are two hours apart.
Let’s get one thing correct, if California fails, the rest of the country would do alright, in fact if the entire left coast falls into the Pacific, real America would be handed a grand favor…
Good for California!
The global marketplace wants EVs.
Why does the GOP fight wars they cannot win?
we don’t have a logistics problem in the US we have a California problem.
So, go to Nevada and buy a gas powered F-150 and come back home to California.
This ignores the fact many of us have solar at hour houses and batteries to store energy. When I charge my EV at home, the electricity comes from the batteries, not the grid.
All electric vehicles will always suffer with two major problems: short driving distances before being required to be recharged, 150-200 miles, and long charge times, 4-8 hours. It is like having a car that has a five gallon tank and you can only use a hose the size of a coffee stirrer to fuel up. People that are struggling to pay $5 a gallon gas are not going to have the money to shell out 65K to 120K for an electric car. BTW Those batteries can only be recharged so many times before they have to be replaced and that is a 15K to 20K job.
Democrats are nothing but a pack of malevolent Satanists, filthy Ahrimanic Marxist Berliner Jews, and whitetrash AngloIrish tyrants posing as Americans.
Atlas Shrugged… Who is John Galt?
It will be a disaster for the Democrats. Make plans for turning California purple.
It is time to be very specific about electric vehicles (EVs) are NOT “Zero emission vehicles”, EVs are emission relocation vehicles (ERVs) that are every bit as dependant on oil
This has to be a left-over April Fool’s Day joke. I really don’t see how Californicators can make that law stick as it applies to out-of-California licensed vehicles. and National highways. However, California has a history of getting away with stunts like that which are grossly unfair and probably illegal.
Hmm. Motor powered boats, commercial ships, boats, ships, and livestock (including horses) all have emmisions! Is California going to tax or ban them for odorous too???? Is California gonna tax people in the state when they have diarrhea too for excessive emissions??? And what about other fossil fuel items like motors, stoves, big trucks, farming plows???
This country is so screwed up that we allow leftist to run us down the cr*pper. Vote this fall and know who you are voting for. Send the leftist packing.
When the price of an EV is competitive with conventional internal combustion engines, people might consider moving over to them. But the infrastructure can in no way support a full EV fleet. Can you imagine the lines to charge your car when many are also waiting to get to the chargers, each taking 1/2 hour? Rolling brown outs will be the norm to support all the chargers, rationing of electric. And with EVs, the car can be controlled remotely(for software updates) so if it’s not your day to charge, they can deny you access to chargers or just shut your car off. Let’s also face the facts that oil drilling,shipping, burning is a polluting business, no worse, I suspect than lithium mining, so that argument is weak. If they can get EV range up to 600 miles and provide ample charging locations with FAST charging (like the time for a standard tank fill up), then maybe they will be ready. I still wouldn’t pay the stupid money they are asking for them, though, and that seems to be going up, up, up daily.
I would rather fill my tank with gas in 3 minutes than pay $20 and hang out for an hour while my E-vehicle charges.
Don’t ruin your mostly correct argument with a baseless “fact”, it colors and degrades your efforts.
EV batteries can be, and are, recycled. Over 96% of these batteries will wind up in new batteries and that process can repeat indefinitely, and the elements do not degrade when recycled, but actually become more pure than as originally mined and refined.
This is a closed-loop process, projecting to reduce the need for actual mining by 90% over time.
The biggest problem in mass adoption of EV’s is actually the power infrastructure, the power lines and transformers that will be needed to deliver the new demand for electricity. And that holds true for any electricity generation process, wind, solar, geothermal, water power, gas oil and coal.
It currently takes about 20 years to get all the approvals to install power delivery infrastructure, and entrenched bureaucracies do not relinquish power easily.
“”California’s War on Gas Vehicles””which doesn’t begin until 13 years from now, you idiots.
“”California’s War on Gas Vehicles””actually los angeles has the largest fleet of clean burning natural GAS vehicles on the entire planet.
so what you really meant to say was “”California’s War on Gasoline Vehicles””
you really are idiots.
People really need to read, learn aobout these EVs and protest. The last thing on my list to buy would be an electric vehicle. it does not do a thing to help the environment. Where does the energy come from to create electricity…and what would happen, if the grid went down? I have read many horror stories coming from people in the news about the horrrendous fires their batteries created…and the massive amount of water it takes to put them out. On one occcasion, 220,000 gallons of water to put out one fire??? I don’t think this is environmentally sound. These vehicles today will only go a short distance, before needing to be recharged. Recharging stations are costly; and time consuming; especially when necessary to wait in line. What about replacing a battery? This is not enviromentally sound…where does the battery go? I have heard horror stories about the cost of batteries too. In some cases almost the cost of buying the car. Thanks, but no thanks. I would not want an electric vehicle, even if some one offered to give me one free.
ls
Simple solution; Sell NO vehicles to Commiefornia. Let Atlas shrug, and watch the fruits and nuts there squirm
The whole thing is a joke. The false news about climate change has the left going bonkers. God created the world and everything in it. That includes the weather. We will never control it. As for outlawing gas cars, it’s impossible. What about planes, trains, motorcycles, rec. vehicles, Need I go on!! Mid terms are around the corner. Stop listening to the news, left wing propaganda and stop these people in there tracks.
What can the “little guy” do that cannot “afford” an electric car? Everyone does not have $100,000 etc. in their bank accounts…This is a crazy world we live it…I am almost 100 and glad to be “exiting!!” Our so-called “Leaders” themselves are lost souls. God PLEASE Bless America!
The market for used ICE vehicles will explode and people will keep their existing cars forever.. The roads in CA will look like Cuba after a while.
There goes our economy! California people are nuts!
WHEN WILL THE SAN ANDREAS FAULT SEND california INTO THE OCEAN, TODAY ?
Typical Newsome grandstanding w/o a basis. They’ll lose in court big time.
At least 10-20 times a day I hear of some idiocy of California and thank our gracious God that I got out of that state (forever) a little over 20 years ago.
Having retired from GM I’d guess that will stop any further MPG improvement development efforts impacting emissions for everyone who can’t buy an EV or can’t charge any they have.
I live in CA and I WILL NEVER drive an electric vehicle. Too many catch fire while charging….no place to put dead batteries……cost is way out of my $$$ range. Our Governor is a jackass.
All Electric. Nice. Wont sll enough gas to make it profitable. Soi no ga. . Charge at niten no power, water is to low to generate. Wheres my Cantalope I orded 6 days ago. ??? I had to stop 5 times to recharge. Hay Cal! ! ! . Why dont u slide off into the sea and be done with it.
I am convinced that the Buyden Administration WISHES to destroy American democracy, in order to replace it with a left-wing totalitarian state. This is the true objective of today’s Democrap Party. In furtherance of that objective, destruction of our country’s economy is a very helpful tool, which these unconscionable laws will accelerate. We MUST elect a vast Republican majority in the next two elections. And, to that end, we must ALL get out to vote. Do not trust that the Red Wave is coming — it depends upon voter turnout, and complacency will doom us.
Here in southeastern Michigan it’s still the “Motor City” with the auto industry affecting the entire state. The Big 3 (I won’t even try for the others on this) are already laying off. This was the news last week: About 3,000 white-collar workers at Ford Motor Co. will lose their jobs as the company cuts costs to help make the long transition from internal combustion vehicles to those powered by batteries.
Leaders of the Dearborn, Michigan, automaker made the announcement Monday in a companywide email, saying that 2,000 full-time salaried workers would be let go along with another 1,000 contract workers.
So far that doesn’t touch union employees. Ford plans half of its global production to be electric vehicles by 2030. They also say their work force is too large and “The cuts may not be over.”
This attempt to force gas-powered vehicles to follow the horse-&-buggy will touch everybody and this article makes it clear it is proceeding both without guarantees to help the environment nor handle such drastic deadlines.
I currently live in Southern California in 13 years I will be 87 years old. Now if I still have good health and still driving, then I’ll just have to move to Texas.
Thank you for reporting on this. I wanted more info from a reliable source, which you are.
California has no problem killing
America as does the puppet biden. Let California become its own country and the democrats I think will be voted out. F Cally and F dems. I think we have seen Paul Reveres ride again. Too arms, too arms, the commies are coming.