California is on pace to exceed its goal of 1.5 million electric cars on the streets by 2025, according to a new report from public policy think tank Next 10.
Nearly 350,000 electric vehicles have been sold in the state, and 2017’s growth rate in sales was almost 30% higher than 2016’s rate, the report found. Researchers credited reduced battery costs, lowering the overall price tag of the vehicles, and strong demand worldwide as key drivers of the increase in sales.
The Trump administration hopes to keep federal car-emissions standards aligned with California’s as U.S. and state officials conduct crucial talks on reviewing the rules, a top Environmental Protection Agency official said.
“The overarching goal of those conversations is to maintain or retain one national program,” Bill Wehrum, the assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, which oversees vehicle tailpipe emissions, said in an interview. “Maintaining that status quo is important.”
Despite a slow start, California should be able to hit its ambitious goal of putting 1.5 million zero-emissions vehicles, or ZEVs, on the road by 2025, according to a new study.
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.
