Currently, less than 3% of California vehicle sales are electric.
Assemblyman Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat, thinks that is not enough.
To induce drivers to purchase electric vehicles, California Considers a $3 Billion Electric-Car Rebate Push sponsored by Ting.
The bill has passed the state Assembly and is advancing in the state Senate, which is expected to take up the bill once it clears a final committee next month. Gov. Jerry Brown has set ambitious goals for zero-emissions vehicles; he hasn’t said whether he would sign this bill.
A $5,000 tax credit in Georgia helped the state become the second-largest electric vehicles market in the U.S. after California until the state tax credit was eliminated in July 2015, according to Edmunds, a website that tracks automotive sales. After the change, sales in Georgia fell to 2% of all U.S. electric vehicles sold in 2016 from 17% in 2014, according to the site.
Funds for the proposed rebate will come from existing programs, Mr. Ting said, with one source being the state’s cap-and-trade program, which requires industry in California to pay for greenhouse gas emissions. That program faces a key test on Monday, with state lawmakers having scheduled a vote on whether to extend the program from 2020 through 2030.
Make the Planet Great Again
The Telegraph reports France to ‘Ban All Petrol and Diesel Vehicles by 2040’.
France will outlaw the sale of all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, its new environment minister, Nicolas Hulot, has announced.
It will also ban any “new project to use petrol, gas or coal”, as well as shale oil, by that date.
The radical measures were unveiled at a press conference as part of French president Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to “make the planet great again”.
Europe All-Electric by 2035
Dutch bank ING says Electric Cars to Account for All New Vehicle Sales in Europe by 2035.
All new cars sold in Europe will be electric within less than two decades, driven by government support, falling battery costs and economies of scale, a Dutch bank has predicted.
However, ING warned that with battery-powered vehicles accounting for 100% of registrations in 2035 across the continent, European carmakers would lose out to their rivals in the US and Asia who already lead on battery production.
The forecast is much more aggressive than most other projections, such as the UK’s National Grid which on Thursday said it expects 90% of new cars in Britain to be electric by 2050.
By 2024, the report’s authors forecast that in Germany the cost of ownership for an electric car – including buying and fuelling it – would be the same as a conventional petrol or diesel model.
The bank said the shift to electric will be underpinned by falling battery costs.
Motorists’ concerns over “range anxiety” will also evaporate in the 2020s, ING said, as the distance between charges goes from the 100-150 miles of most models today to 400 miles and above in the next decade.
Tony Seba, an economist at Stanford University in the US who has published research on the cars, said: “Our findings clearly indicate that essentially all vehicle miles travelled will be electric by 2040 [worldwide].
“The car industry faces an imminent technology disruption by AEVs [autonomous electric vehicles] in the early 2020s. Even without autonomous technology, the internal combustion engine car industry will have been long decimated by 2040.”
Three Questions
- Assuming this ambitious plan hits reality, where will all the electricity to charge the batteries come from?
- Assuming a battery charge will last 400 miles, up from the current 150, is that range really long enough? Here’s a quick calculation: at 70MPH the longest one could drive would be 5.7 hours.
- What is the recharge time?
I suppose battery-changing stations could theoretically work. So could a car swapping scheme, assuming no one owns their own car.
Even if the report is one-third-accurate, major disruptive forces in the auto industry are in play.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
