California plans to institute a ban on sales of internal combustion engine vehicles from 2035, following the example of the European Union, which approved such a ban earlier this year.
"It's ambitious, it's pioneering, it's what we must do if we're going to leave this planet better for future generations," Lauren Sanchez, Governor Newsom's senior climate adviser, said in comments on the news, as quoted by Axios.
"California is once-again leading the way by establishing commonsense standards that will transition to sales of all zero-polluting cars and light-duty trucks in the state. Given its unique air pollution woes and the risks to residents from climate-fueled wildfires, California desperately needs these rules to slash tailpipe pollution," said Natural Defense Council clean vehicles advocate Kathy Harris in emailed comments.
The California Air Resources Board will vote on the ban later today, although a report by The Verge treated the issue as settled, saying the Board will "issue the new rules" on Thursday.
While climate activists have welcomed the news, there are some issues, such as the fact that EVs in California, which is the biggest EV market in the States, only make up 15 percent of new car sales, per figures from the California New Car Dealers' Association cited by Axios.
Going from 15 percent to 100 percent in 11 years would be challenging for a car industry that is already struggling to find enough raw materials for the millions of EVs companies have committed to manufacture.
There are already waiting times for EVs because of raw material shortages, and these are only going to get longer in the coming years as new mines take a long time to put into operation, and existing mines are insufficient to meet the new metals and minerals demand created by the EV push.
Prices for EVs are also climbing higher, turning into another obstacle to wider voluntary adoption.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More
Comments
On the bright side, LA can now turn all those superhighways into solar parks, or even 'recycle' all that concrete to turn those miles and (100s of square) miles of highways into community vegetable gardens (buy local) - though the problems with that is where will the water come from? But then the best, most potent, 'herbs', are those that are water stressed.
They certainly won't be needing those roads for cars.