The Biden administration is expected in the coming days to grant California and 11 other states permission to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars after 2035, one of the most ambitious climate policies in the United States and beyond, according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to revoke permission within days of his inauguration, part of his pledge to scrap Biden-era policies designed to fight climate change by accelerating the transition to electric vehicles.
And since the 2035 policy will only be in effect for five or six weeks it is just grandstanding. Certainly nothing that a state could build a policy around.
The average lifespan of a motor vehicle in the US is 17 years. Which means that even if 100% of new car sales were BEV by 2027, you would still have more than 40% of the fleet be ICE by 2035.
In 2024, approximately 9% of new car sales will be BEV in the U.S. It’s not going to be 100% by 2027. Which means well more than half of the cars in the fleet be ICE in 2035.
The issue is the 5 years after 2035. That will be over 100% EV sales. That will be 30% of the fleet. Making 70% roughly of the fleet being EV.
Possibly more than 70% by 2040. The number of people in the US will be growing. Depending on how we deal with Alpha gen and immigration. We have proven to do 180s.
A growing fleet for Zs and Millennials will mean new EV sales rise. You need to weight your claim over time.
At 70% EV how do you sell gasoline for only 30% of the fleet? That math sucks. Which is my underly point. Subsidies for EV may rise to get rid of gasoline ICE altogether.
They are modestly popular. Popular enough to have grown to 9% of the market in the last quarter. Modest enough that’s still just 9%, and the 9% share represents an increase of exactly one percentage point from last year’s 8% share in the same quarter.
There’s no real reason to believe that 100% (much less “over 100%”) of sales in 2035 will be BEV’s. Heck, even in China - perhaps the most aggressively moving country on electrification - BEV’s are still less than a third of new vehicle sales and about a third of EV sales are PHEV’s, which still have an ICE and need gas.
We are at a (near-)tipping point for EVs. The new battery technologies being introduced in 2025-2027 could radically change the market. Right now, range and reliability are factors that do impact what to buy. The new technologies supposedly make those factors minor issues–if they exist at all. The most important factor is only ONE: What does it cost to run the vehicle as I choose? EVs are, by far, much less expensive to operate and maintain than an ICE. The substantial majority of car buyers will buy an EV because the cash savings vs ICE are too big to pass up. Personal economics vs wants.
Some people will always need an ICE vehicle. Mostly rural people such as farmers, etc–who have specific needs operating their businesses that cannot–at this time–be met by an EV. But they have always had multiple vehicles for that reason. At least one of the vehicles they will own will be an EV, likely more than one.
What does that have to do with anything? Some technologies get adopted quickly. Some more slowly.
If we date the modern electric car era from the Roadster, we’re about 17 years later and it’s still a niche segment of the U.S. auto market.
Meanwhile, it took less than 17 years from introduction for the audio cassette tape to completely destroy the predecessor technology (8-track tapes). It took less than 17 years for the CD to completely destroy cassettes. It took less than 17 years for streaming to obliterate CD’s.
Given that cars are vastly more expensive, and last a very long time, and require bespoke manufacturing facilities that are difficult and expensive to scale up, it’s not surprising that the adoption path for a new car technology will be much slower than for consumer electronics. And since BEV’s don’t offer a revolutionary shift in the what the product actually does (unlike cassette to CD to streaming, a BEV has nearly identical functionality to an ICE).
Not at all. Some things change quickly, and some things change slowly. The market penetration for EV’s is likely to be slower than market penetration for CD’s due to the very different nature of the products and their production methods. That does not mean that people never move on.
People are already shifting much more slowly to EV’s than the penetration rates of CD’s vs. cassettes. The CD launched in the U.S. in 1983 - by 1991, it had a majority of the market, and by 1999 it had nearly all of it. That simply hasn’t happened with EV’s. They are being adopted more slowly, and that’s likely to continue.
So while it’s plausible that at some point EV’s will make up 60% of the fleet, it is utterly implausible that it will happen within a decade. And since PHEV’s comprise a non-trivial, durable, and growing proportion of EV’s relative to BEV’s, it’s also plausible that there will still be lots of cars that need some gas even after that.
I mean…thanks? I’m not personally betting on anything.
Plus, it’s already come true. The shift is already firmly in the “slowly” category.
It’s been 14-16 years (depending on whether you want to date from the introduction of the 2008 Roadster or the 2010 Leaf and Volt) since U.S. consumers could buy BEV’s. Yet we’re not even at 10% adoption for BEV’s. That puts it well slower than any of the examples you’ve been referring to, and others besides.