California moves toward phasing out gasoline-powered vehicles

California on Thursday headed toward the end of the era of fossil-fuel vehicles, with regulators adopting the world’s toughest standards for the transition to zero-emission cars.

The California Air Resources Board’s decision to make all new cars and trucks electric or hydrogen by 2035 may reshape the US car market, which generates 10% of its sales in the nation’s most populous state.

But such a radical transformation in what people drive will also require at least 15 times more vehicle chargers statewide, a more robust electric grid, and vehicles that people of all income levels can afford.

“It’s going to be very difficult to get to 100%,” said Daniel Sperling, a member of the board of directors and founding director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis campus. “You can’t wave your wand, you can’t adopt a regulation: people have to buy them and actually use them.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom told state regulators two years ago to adopt a ban on gasoline-powered cars by 2035, one piece of California’s aggressive set of policies designed to cut pollution and fight climate change. If the policy works as designed, California would cut vehicle emissions in half by 2040.

Other states are expected to follow, further accelerating the production of zero-emission vehicles.

The states of Washington and Massachusetts have already said they will follow California’s lead, and many more are likely to do so: New York and Pennsylvania are among 17 states that have adopted some or all of California’s emissions standards, which are more stricter than the federal ones. The European Parliament in June backed a plan to ban the sale of gasoline and diesel-powered cars in the European Union by 2035, and Canada has mandated the sale of zero-emission vehicles by the same year.

California policy doesn’t ban gasoline-powered cars: Starting in 2035, people can keep their current cars or buy secondhand, and 20% of sales can be plug-in hybrids that run on batteries and gasoline. Although hydrogen is a fuel option under the new regulations, cars powered by fuel cells have accounted for less than 1% of car sales in recent years.

The change will dramatically reduce emissions and air pollutants. Transportation is the largest source of emissions in the state, since it represents around 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in the entity. The Air Council is working on a different regulation for motorcycles and heavy trucks.

California plans to power most of the economy with electricity and not fossil fuels by 2045. A plan published by the Air Council this year predicts electricity demand will soar 68%. Currently, the state has about 80,000 public chargers. The California Energy Commission predicted that number would rise to 1.2 million by 2030.

The commission says charging cars will account for around 4% of energy in 2030 when consumption is highest, which is typically during hot summer evenings. That’s when California sometimes has a hard time supplying enough energy because the amount of solar energy decreases as the sun sets. In August 2020, hundreds of thousands of people briefly lost power as high demand outstripped supply.

That hasn’t happened since, and to make sure that doesn’t happen in the future, Newsom, a Democrat, is pushing to keep the state’s last nuclear power plant open beyond its planned 2025 shutdown, and for the state to resort to to diesel generators or natural gas thermoelectric plants as backup when the electricity grid is required.

Today, more than 1 million people drive electric cars in California, and their charging habits vary, but most people end up charging their cars in the evening or at night, said Ram Rajagopal, an associate professor of civil engineering and environmental scientist at Stanford University who has studied the charging habits of cars and the needs of the energy network.

But if more people charged their cars during the day, that problem would be avoided, he said. Switching to daytime charging is “the biggest benefit you can get,” she noted.

Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.