This will affect everyone…
With the news of Washington State looking to ban the sale of new internal-combustion-engine vehicles by 2030, 10 additional states and California have decided they want to capitalize on the publicity. Those dozen states announced they will be linking up to kill off new gas and diesel car sales by 2035, forcing anyone who shops within their borders to buy an electric vehicle instead. But wait, it gets better.
Toyota has been warning against this. Read why here.
The states joining in this ban aren’t really a surprise, except for maybe one: California, New Mexico, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, Hawaii, Connecticut, New York, Oregon, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Washington. That means the entire western coast of the United States will supposedly be an EV paradise starting in 2035, unless by some weird turn of events there isn’t the capacity to manufacture enough batteries or city power grids fail catastrophically.
The dozen states not only want to ban the sale of new gas cars within their borders, the coalition asked that the Biden administration introduce standards which would force the rest of the country to do the same. Yes, you read that correctly, it’s not enough to impose this on the residents of these states, whether they like it or not, it must be foisted upon states which don’t want a ban. Perhaps the coalition realizes their citizens could easily go to another state and buy a gas-burning car there, destroying their blockade.
Promoters of this plan argue that air pollution affects everyone, so only having some states choose to force their citizens to buy electric cars isn’t good enough. Instead, the federal government must force all states to force their citizens to buy vehicles deemed “clean” enough to be driven on public roads.
The hope is this shift toward forced electrification, instead of letting the market decide when consumers will start buying EVs, can be tied to the $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan the White House has been working on. At present, that plan calls for $174 billion in spending and tax credits to promote electric car adoption and establish charging stations.
In the letter sent to the White House, the governors of those 12 states seeking to exert control over the remaining 38 ask that President Biden set national standards “to ensure that all new passenger cars and light-duty trucks sold are zero-emission no later than 2035 with significant milestones along the way to monitor progress.”
The letter also argues that this shift away from vehicles which burn gas or diesel will “create high-road jobs.” Not only is this for the environment, it’s for job creation, the very thing we used to hear about pushes for mandating solar and wind power generation not too long ago.
According to Reuters, the Biden administration has not yet commented on the letter.
Some are calling this move “virtue signaling” and it’s easy to see why. After all, there are serious doubts the automotive industry will be able to produce only electric cars in a matter of 14 years. At the present moment EVs make up just a sliver of the market with battery production constraints among other factors hampering efforts to increase market share.
With Chinese-owned Volvo stating all its cars will be electric-only by 2030 and GM setting the goal of killing all gas-powered cars by 2035, many are acting like enacting these bans will go off without a hitch. However, Toyota has warned against such a push. Exactly how so the necessary additional electricity will be produced, let alone all the electric cars, doesn’t seem to be much of a focus in the march.
One voice of reason cited in the Reuters report comes from Rory Gamble, president of the United Auto Workers union. Gamble pointed out making EVs requires fewer workers, so layoffs from automakers could be imminent. Maybe he doesn’t know about all those “high-road jobs” the laid-off line workers will be poised to get immediately.
To think this movement will stop once everyone is forced to buy electric cars is naïve at best. There’s little doubt bans of internal-combustion-engine vehicles being registered and driven on public roads won’t be too long after, all to save the environment.
Source: Reuters
H/T: The Truth About Cars
Lead image credit: Pexels
