It\u2019s been a weird and confusing few weeks for the auto industry\u2014especially for those who hoped to see more batteries on the road in the coming decade.<\/p>\n
Just this month: Ford announced<\/a> a retrenchment in its EV<\/a> business, canceling some battery-powered vehicle plans and delaying others; the European Commission proposed to backtrack its goal to transition fully<\/a> to zero-emission cars by 2035; the US government said it would loosen rules<\/a> that would have required automakers to ratchet up the fuel economy of their fleets. BloombergNEF projects<\/a> 14 million fewer EVs will be sold in the US by 2030 than it did last year\u2014a 20 percent drop.<\/p>\n What has not changed, it seems, is California\u2019s interest in shifting to cleaner transportation. \u201cThe state is doubling down on our zero-emission vehicle deployment, providing market certainty, and continuing to lead on clean transportation regardless of policy reversals elsewhere or shifts by automakers,\u201d Anthony Martinez, a spokesperson for Governor Gavin Newsom, wrote in a statement to WIRED. He said the governor\u2019s \u201ccommitment to accelerating California\u2019s clean transportation transition hasn\u2019t changed.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2020, Newsom became one of the first lawmakers in the world to commit to full electrification when he signed an executive order<\/a> directing state agencies to create rules that would ban the sale of new gas-powered cars in the state by 2035. Those rules eventually aimed to ratchet up the share of battery-electric vehicles, with an ultimate goal of a mix of pure EVs and plug-in hybrids. (The PHEVs could only account for about 20 percent of sales.) Several other states, including Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Washington State, pledged to do the same.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the GOP-led Congress revoked, through legislation<\/a>, California\u2019s power to set its own clean air regulations. The state responded with a lawsuit, which is still being argued. Meanwhile, Newsom signed another executive order<\/a> directing state agencies to further the state\u2019s electrification goals in other ways.<\/p>\n Now auto industry experts and players say the state\u2019s determination to push through policy and market changes to meet its now half-decade-old goal may be overly ambitious.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting to 100 percent might be challenging,\u201d says Stephanie Valdez Streaty, the director of industry insights at Cox Automotive. \u201cThere are a lot of headwinds.\u201d<\/p>\n A coalition<\/a> of California business groups have argued that the state\u2019s goals even for next year\u2014a requirement that 35 percent of model year 2026 vehicles sold are zero-emission\u2014aren\u2019t realistic, and that California should push back its goals for zero-emission new car sales. (Enforcement of the rules is paused while the larger battle with US Congress plays out.) Zero-emission cars accounted for 21 percent of the overall annual state new car sales as of the fall, according to<\/a> the California New Car Dealers Association, well below the 35 percent goal. \u201cThe timeline needed to be adjusted,\u201d says the group\u2019s president, Brian Maas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a weird and confusing few weeks for the auto industry\u2014especially for those who hoped to see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15913,7,9,8,6996,443,15755,6774,56800,8076,5409],"class_list":{"0":"post-104821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-batteries","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-cars","13":"tag-climate-change","14":"tag-electric-vehicles","15":"tag-energy","16":"tag-evs-and-hybrids","17":"tag-infrastructure","18":"tag-policy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}