Analysts and conservatives believe a Democrat-led plan to propose a ban on gas-powered cars in California later this year is a pie-in-the-sky scheme that ignores important factors about the state’s auto industry.
Assemblyman Phil Ting plans to introduce a bill in January that would ban the sale of gas-powered cars produced after 2040. The Democratic lawmaker said California drivers must adopt electric vehicles if the state is going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – but some are scoffing at the push.
“The market is moving this way. The entire world is moving this way. At some point you need to set a goal and put a line in the sand,” Ting told reporters Friday. Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have joined his push to wipe out the state’s fossil fuel industry.
“It’s an important conversation to have and we’re glad it’s starting to get some traction,” said Gina Coplon-Newfield, an official with the Sierra Club who works on promoting green energy technology. Ting and Sierra Club are meeting some stiff resistance from people who suggest the idea probably not doable.
Kerry Jackson, a fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based free-market non-profit group, for instance, told reporters that the push to force citizens to abandon their gas-powered cars is another example of the state’s overzealous environmentalism.
“The reaction is like, ‘Gee, somebody has been reading The Onion and they got taken in by the parody,” he said, responding to lawmakers’ desire to delete the fossil fuel industry. “But then it fades a little bit and you go, ‘Yeah, this is California.’”
Electric vehicle sales in California amount to less than five percent of the state’s overall car sales, despite the Golden State’s title as a champion for the electric vehicle market. Analysts, meanwhile, believe the market for these types of vehicles is not anywhere near large enough to overcome gas-powered cars.
“I think really the lag here is consumers,” Jessica Caldwell, an analyst with Edmunds, told reporters Friday. “For the automakers, they have to balance the lawmakers’ desires versus what they can actually sell.”
Ting is one several California Democrats pushing to increase incentives for drivers to adopt electric vehicles. His overall push could hit stiff resistance from an unlikely foe: Democrats who are still tied in with the state’s strong manufacturing unions.
Democrats passed an amendment to a California program earlier this month requiring manufacturers verify that they are “fair and responsible in their treatment of workers” before they can take advantage of a $2,500 rebate encouraging citizens to buy Tesla vehicles.
The legislation was a shot across the bow of Tesla, a company that relied on a $82.5 million subsidy from the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project, which gives extra incentive to 32,842 Tesla buyers in seven years.
California’s legislature defeated a pair of bills that would have required all electricity in the state to come from non-carbon sources by 2045. Unions vehemently opposed the bill, primarily because they feared the bill didn’t do enough to help protect union workers.
The bill was derailed despite California’s huge Democratic margins in both houses and the Gov. Jerry Brown, who consistently promotes himself as a climate change warrior. Activists were disappointed that unions stymied the effort.
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Phil Ting is a total idiot and stupider then a sack full of stones i’m telling you enviromentalism a form of insanity cuased by too many veggieburgers and watching Al Bores dumb movies and hearing or reading his idiotic poem
California, DON’T WAIT!… Ban all fossil fuels NOW!!! Live the dream!
No body walks in L.A.
Do electric cars levitate in traffic jams? No.
Do you shut off the AC in a traffic jam? No.
Better learn to walk in L.A.
In 2015, there was a total number of approximately 14.5 million automobiles registered in California with Plug-in electric cars represented about 0.5% of the passenger fleet on the Californian roads. The Plug-in electric cars include Hybrid’s so the total number of EV’s is actually less than ½ of 1 percent.
Assemblyman Phil Ting’s proposal is pure fantasy. But Hell, it’s not his money. Building the electrical infrastructure to support this massive and unattainable pipe dream would be beyond the ability of Californian tax payers to finance. Then you have the problem of no 7/24 reliability with “sustainable” solar and wind electrical generation. Or he could legislate 1 to 3 hour days to get around that problem.
But wide spread EV usage and expansion of WIND and SOLAR electrical generation pose grave consequences for the environment. The mining, production and recycling of all three pose huge pollution issues that cannot be ignored or legislated away.
And EV’s are a poor choice to start with. EV batteries are parasitic. A battery is basically useless, an anchor, until charged at about 80% efficiency…..wasteful. Charged or not a modern EV battery weights as much as 4 full grown adults, a constant loading to overcome when putting the EV in motion….wasteful. And when the EV is not in use it must be plugged in or it will discharge over time to the point of being useless….wasteful again.
Only a politician would propose such a huge wasteful investment in inefficiency and think himself a genius.
Pretty sure that EV’s use kinetic energy recovery , so that the battery mass isn’t as parasitic as you suggest. Hybrids make more sense to me, you’re less likely to get stranded.
Formula One cars are hybrids.
You really think kinetic energy recovery contributes much to the charging of batteries?
Of all the poltical creatures in the world the demacratic donkey is the stupidists one around this ting idiot needs send to the assylum for the policly brain-dead
Isn’t it time California politician’s worked on solving real problems instead of the earth has a fever poppy cock .
The climate models grossly overstated warming and humans are not going to control the climate , something we barely understand .
The real denier’s are people who think Mother Nature has given up her day job .Why not tell the people of California where the pixie dust is coming from to pay pension obligations . Is the answer to separate and create a CAL-Peso ? Do they have a choice but keep the distractions coming until something blows the lid off the fiscal fraud that is California financial mismanagement ?
What are they going to do when the boomers retire and tax revenues fall by 30 % ? Even if it warms up by a degree no one is going to care . Stock up on ammo kids .
So just like with DDT their going to ban something becuase of Junk Science and faked data and the Dumb-O-Crats are leading the rest of the way well lets watch as the Dumb-O-Crat lemmings walk right off a cliff which is what their doing with California and trying to do with the rest of the country
California has two of the stupidists collage mascots ever Stanford has this idiotic tree which looks more like what you would see on Earthday and U.C. Santa Cruz has a stupid yellow slug