California to Stop Sales of new Gas and Diesel Cars by 2035

Can you have enough electricity in CA by 2025 to charge all those new EVs? Unless you get/import more renewables, will have to burn more fossil to supply it.

A good start might be to mandate EV only in the big cities like LA and Bay area.

 

Definitely, 2025 would really put some pressure on carmakers.

Exactly, like London and some other european cities.

 

Given the USA fleet, "The average age for vehicles on U.S. roadways has increased to 11.8 years. Chart courtesy of IHS Markit. Jun 27, 2019" this is fair. Flat rate, 15 years of EV adoption would be ~7% per year. Heck, it might even keep Tesla in Fremont.

Bob Wilson

 

Hmmm, first I heard of that much electricity used to produce a gallon. I just googled it, and got a lot of different results, some more, some less. But they were all from EV proponent sites, and I don't just believe everything I read on the internet.

But having said that, it is definitely a consideration, and will have to do more research just to satisfy my own new curiosity on this fact. I suspect, too, that a lot of the cost to produce a gallon of gas involves more consumption of fossil fuel.

And as we know the cost to produce batteries is not small, too. We are headed in the right direction, though. It's just a matter of how quickly we can get there. Personally, I have always preferred electric everything, whether it is my solar off-grid system for our cabin, electric bikes for 5 years now, and a Prius before my Kona EV. I do still have an ICE car, as currently my EV can't meet all my driving needs. But in a just few more years, that could change. A good off-road capable EV (larger SUV type) would do it. Today, it doesn't exist.

 

By far one of the best threads and most welcome news seen on this site. Strongly concur it needs to be 2025. This 2035 bit is really just the minimum to be consistent with 2050. Its not remotely good enough. But a start. Newsom wants to take 4 years to stop fracking in the state- that is utterly ridiculous. Calpers is still investing in coal! Were going to have to criminalize this stuff more formally. Bans achieve that but its not enough. Calpers is still talking that arse kissing placation stuff of engagement instead of divestment and acting like investment in any kind of coal is not an abandonment of its fiduciary when the only explaination for the behavior is some sort of obvious criminality. Even more gauling when they say its to protect 7% returns. Its to protect natural gas which is where they should have started the divestment. We should have been getting rid of fossil fuels just based on the property model.

 

This is a terrible idea. EVs are in competition with ICE and the last thing you want to do is arbitrary take away that competition with the force of the government. Also, nobody knows what the market will be like in 2035 either, so it's unwise to do a mandate like that. It's unwise to do something that drastic that easily could cause negative impacts to the whole economy. Just let EVs outcompete ICE on their merits without arbitrary government intervention.

Suggesting a ban by 2025 is even worse. An EV truck or full sized SUV don't even exist now and we are only just about to get the first models of those forms. There isn't time for any company to work out any kinks to make sure everything works right. This suggestion is something that only a crazed ideologue would want to pass.

 

Well, you have a point. However without any "incentives" or pressure to do so it will not happen as we've seen. Traditional automakers have absolutely no interest in inventing new technology because it is expensive.

What is the smart thing to do is tax all CO2 emitting technology way more than alternative technology. Gas ex. is way too cheap here in the US. There should be a 30% tax on gas to start with. Or at least increase the tax every year by a couple percent.

That would push innovation, create jobs and generate taxes. And it's foreseeable since everybody knows that it'll get more expensive every year.

Additionally you can add a road tax that is equal to all cars (maybe depending on weight).

 

Well, California is an exception since it's the "black sheep" and a driver of green initiatives in the US. I don't want to imagine where we would be without California!

Uhm, are you sure about your second statement? Just one word: compliance cars!

(Dang, that was two words )

 

No, no, no, I want something much smaller. I currently have a Subaru Crosstrek, which is perfect for my cabin road (mountain FSR road). It has 9.2" clearance with my K02 tires and with the permanent AWD it just glides over the bumps and washboard. It is much better than my previous 4WD truck and the Jeeps, which will rattle your teeth on this road, not to mention bounce around on the rough stuff. The Subaru sticks like glue and I can do the road in about 1/2 the time of my previous truck. It makes the trip a pleasant scenic adventure vs a stressful ordeal.

Subaru/Toyota are coming out with a pure EV in 2022, so will see what that looks like. In the meantime the Crosstrek does the job. It is also a good road trip vehicle (with my stock tires), quiet (much quieter than my Kona) and very good on gas.

My son who has an old 2009 Forester right now (and a Tesla M3), has a reservation in for the Cybertruck. Will see what that is like when it comes out. It might be rugged, but how well can it handle a rough road (smooth). It takes many years (decades actually) to refine a suspension and AWD for best off-road handing (and I don't mean rock crawling). You can't beat the new Subaru's for that.

 

There are incentives. Plus, EVs are supposed to be cheaper and better right? So that means competitors have an incentive to create EVs. The market is going in the direction of EVs. No sense to screw it up by using government regulations to force something.

 

I don't think taxing things higher that are bad for the environment is a government regulation. It just makes sense, just like taxes on cigarettes, since people don't care. They throw junk into the environment, smoke, drive gas guzzlers, because they don't think about anything else but themselves. Unfortunately we all live on the same planet and so our choices affect other people.

I know, a completely weird concept ...

 

Well, all the oil consumed in California isn't drilled and refined in California, so it doesn't make sense attribute all of the estimated kWhs to the Californian grid. This isn't a peg against you, but many people misuse lifecycle/upstream statistics because they don't really understand what these statistics are or how they work. It's fine use them plainly when you are comparing things to get a ballpark idea (in this comparison it's comparing total energy use over the whole market), but the comparison starts to fall apart once you get more granular. The way that oil extraction, refinement, and transportation use energy - electricity in particular - is different than how an EV will use electricity, so the comparison breaks down further. It's just something to think about. EVs do present a unique challenge to the grid, but it's a challenge that will be overcome.

More food for thought on how you got to the 8 kWh number. As you are aware, Crude Oil as a product has alternative uses. This means all of the energy used to refine crude oil can't go into the total energy use for motor gasoline.

I also noticed some oddities with the other points outlined in the second list

>Gas that powers the car to get to the gas station
This would be double counting the gas used. Why a person is driving their car isn't relevant to the calculation being made if the purpose of the calculation is to figure out how much energy it takes to get the oil from the ground to the tank.

>Production, Transport and Preparation of food for the truck drivers, gas station workers, refinery works, drilling site workers
This is unnecessary because the workers would still be eating food if they worked in another industry.

>The above items for the accountants and other supportive staffing
Same here.

>Keeping the lights on 24/7 at all applicable facilities, even when not actively operating the equipment
This one is more ambiguous because I'm not sure what facilities you are referring to. For example, it wouldn't make sense to include any of the energy used by the convenience stores at gas stations because they have the alternative use of being a convenience store. Plus, many of these stores will just switch from having gas pumps to electric chargers, so there's no real difference anyways.

>The electricity used to manufacture all applicable equipment
by equipment do you mean the pumps and tanks at the gas stations? If so you would also have to do the same for EV Chargers to make a fair comparison.

>The electricity used for making the oil and fuel for all applicable equipment
May not be worth looking into because it's likely going to be a rounding error. Let's just say that the pumps have some special kind of oil they put inside the motor. The energy used to make that small amount of oil will then be divided by the total number of gallons pumped by the pump, which easily could be in the 10s of thousands. More work than is necessary.

 

Taxes are a form of government regulation. No way around that.

The type of tax being described here is called a Pigouvian tax, where a tax is applied on a perceived negative externality in the market. I'm well aware of the intent and philosophy behind the tax. But here's the issue - cigarettes and alcohol aren't the same as motor gasoline. It is already cheaper for people to consume neither cigarettes or alcohol. While these taxes are marginally effective, the tax is essentially penalizing someone for consuming too much of what is essentially a luxury good. Motor gasoline, however, isn't the same as cigarettes or alcohol. It is something that people - and the market in general - can't go without yet. A tax on gas essentially penalizes people for consuming a product that they can't easily consume less of or stop consuming at all. It's essentially a regressive tax.

It will take time for EVs to disseminate throughout the entire used car market. Right now, there are more new ICE cars sold per year than there are total EVs

 

Got this from my ICE car forum (also a hot topic there). Needless to say, they take a different view. But some good points, and would make 2025 esp challenging. In particular, the grid upgrade requirements, and the effect of no sun at night (for solar), and variability of wind, too. Would need to buy a lot of home batteries, and given that availability for car manufacturers is a major issue, not to mention expense, it would mean quite an additional home battery cost (for those that can even do it), to store electricity when it is available.

In BC, we have a graduated plan, and not 100% ICE free until 2040, which I think is more reasonable.
https://electricenergyonline.com/article/energy/category/environment/18/847714/province-puts-in-place-rules-for-100-electric-vehicle-sales-by-2040.html

But here is the excerpt from the ICE forum:
FB - The problem will be that the infrastructure needed to support the migration of MILLIONS of gas powered vehicles will require significant additions to the electric grid.
Unlike many states, the entire transportation system in CA is based on the automobile.
The geniuses behind this decision probably think that solar will provide for this.
It can't - At least not reliably.
Having worked for SoCalEdison for quite a few years, every engineer I talked to was scared poopless about major service disruptions related to having 25% or more of generation capacity via variable resources (wind and sun) because they are not scaleable by demand.
Hot and cloudy? Generation capacity of a solar plant can easily drop 90% to 95% of rated capacity while demand soars.
Not a recipe for a great outcome, and this very situation just occurred without a massive requirement for new capacity this edict would entail.
Unlike fueled generators, you can't turn the sun up or down, or make the wind blow because you want to.
The other big hurdle will be that a good deal of demand by electric car charging will occur without any solar generation capability being available...
At night, when people come home from work.
The grid will need some serious upgrades just to support the additional volume of kilowatts, and car chargers are heavy hitters on load demand.
If everyone in California had an electric car tonight, no one would be able to charge a car tomorrow as the demand would literally kill the grid.
Of course all of this capacity and significant enhancement needs to the grid can be easily overcome in a state facing bankruptcy.
I think an additional question should be asked.
Is this "mandate" likely to happen.
My vote -- Nope.