Governor Jerry Brown last week declared that California should have 5 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030. He signed an executive order Friday, upping his earlier goal of just 1.5 million EVs by 2025.
It's a tall order no matter how you slice it, but a new report out today from the nonpartisan think tank Next 10 says the state's on track to at least meet Brown's first goal.
California is significantly upping the ante in its quest to get more electric cars on the road.
In his final State-of-the-State address this week, Governor Jerry Brown laid out the state’s ambitions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Then, he dropped something startling.
“To meet these ambitious goals,” Brown tossed out almost casually, “we’ll need five million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030, and we’re gonna get there, believe me.”
So I spent some time at the 2018 Washington Auto Show, reviewing a whole host of light-duty vehicles – everything from pickup trucks and cargo vans to sports cars, with a few “classics” interspersed in there for good measure.
Two in particular caught my eye: the latest iteration of the Nissan Leaf all-electric battery-powered sedan and the experimental FCR (short for “Fine Comfort Ride”) fuel cell-fired prototype built by Toyota.
So why should truckers care about these small vehicles; ones that can’t haul a decent of load of freight?
For more than 50 years, California has reliably called on growth in gasoline tax revenues to offset the maintenance cost of its massive freeway and highway system. But what if those revenues eventually peak, and then, decline?
Later this fall, the Golden State’s next round of higher gas taxes and vehicles fees will begin a two year rollout. As part of Senate Bill 1, passed this April, total state petrol taxes will rise from the current .27 cents to .47 cents per gallon, creating a wave of new revenues between $4.7 and $5.66 billion per year, for the next 10 years.
Californians can’t shake their love affair with cars – and pickup trucks and SUV’s. That’s hurting the greenest state in the union’s much-publicized crusade against climate change.
