SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California wants electric vehicle sales to triple in the next four years to 35% of all new car sales, an aggressive target set as part of a goal to have gas-powered car sales by the end of the year to be discontinued in the middle of the next decade.
The California Air Resources Board’s proposal would slowly increase sales of new electric, hydrogen or plug-in hybrid vehicles to 100% by 2035. About 11% of all new passenger car sales nationally occur in California, giving the state significant influence over the auto market. Californians would still be allowed to drive gas-powered cars and sell used ones, meaning the emissions that are warming the planet will still emanate from the state’s roads.
The hoped-for boost in sales of electric vehicles also requires a significant expansion of the charging stations. California has a goal of 250,000 charging stations by 2025, and currently there are fewer than 80,000 stations in public spaces or in parking lots of office buildings, homes, and other shared spaces. The California Energy Commission last year approved spending $314 million over three years on car charging stations, and Newsom added more to its proposed state budget.
The release starts a month-long government review process and the plan must be approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The state is unlikely to face opposition from a Democratic White House. The Biden administration recently restored California’s power to set its own emission standards for vehicles under the Clean Air Act, and the president has allocated $5 billion to build more charging stations across the country.
A group representing the auto industry said meeting the requirements will be “extremely challenging”.
Passenger vehicles contribute about a quarter of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions — more than any other single source, according to the Air Authority. The program is part of California’s effort to drastically reduce carbon emissions. Between 2026 and 2040, government experts estimate the program would cut emissions by almost 384 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. That’s slightly less than all emissions from the California economy in a single year.
Elsewhere, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation last month setting a goal for all new vehicles in the state to be electric by 2030, but regulators have until the end of 2023 to say how the state will will get there.
California regulations would require 35% of new vehicle sales for the 2026 model year to be zero-emission vehicles, including battery or hydrogen-powered or plug-in electric hybrids. That’s a sharp increase from 2021, when about 12% of all cars sold in the state were zero-emissions, according to the Air Board. About 1 million of the 26 million cars currently on California’s roads are zero emissions.
This requirement increases to 100% of all new sales by 2035. Up to 20% of sales by 2035 could be plug-in hybrids, which run on a combination of battery and gas power, although regulations increase the ability of such cars to run on battery power alone.
Automakers, including Ford and Toyota, have asked the Alliance for Automotive Innovation for an opinion on the proposal. The group says the industry is “committed to electrification and a zero-carbon transportation future,” but raised questions about the drastic increase in required zero-emission vehicle sales.
“Automakers will certainly work to meet the standards eventually adopted, but these design requirements will be extremely challenging even in California and may not be achievable in all states currently following California’s program,” the group said.
Nine states are following the current California zero-emission vehicle regulations, which set rules by the 2025 model year, and five states plan to join in the coming years. If the federal government approves California’s new plan, the other states would have to decide whether to follow suit. New York is also aiming to phase out gas-powered vehicles by 2035.
The regulations also require electric vehicles to travel at least 150 miles (241 kilometers) per charge, rather than 50 miles (80 kilometers), although most manufacturers exceed that. They offer a battery warranty of eight years or 100,000 miles (161,000 kilometers).
All 17 automakers selling in California would need to hit the 35% sales mark. But there is leeway. California’s existing EV standards allow companies to save credits if they sell a higher percentage of EVs than required, and those credits can later be used to meet sales goals.
Businesses can also make arrangements to count each other’s sales as their own. Electric vehicle maker Tesla has done such deals with many automakers in the past, state officials said.
Some environmental groups said the state should set an even more aggressive schedule, arguing heavily polluted communities can’t wait and making it easier for low-income people to buy electric vehicles.
“There’s no excuse for California to take the slow road to an all-electric future when we’re being gas pump-pushed and facing epic drought and wildfires,” said Scott Hochberg, traffic attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.
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Associated Press journalist Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed.
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This story was first published on April 13, 2022. It was updated on April 14, 2022 to correct the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent expected to be eliminated by the regulations. That figure is 384 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from 2026 to 2040, not the amount saved annually.