California officials announced Thursday that sales of new internal combustion engine vehicles will be forbidden beginning in 2035. Stricter emission standards will take effect even sooner, mandating 35% of new passenger vehicles sold by 2026 produce zero emissions.
The measure follows announcements by major auto manufacturers, such as Ford and General Motors, that they are shifting their production to electric vehicles.
It is important because, as the largest auto market in the U.S., California policies tend to get adopted by other states so it may portend a future where ICE cars are not available for purchase.
The new policy follows on the heels of the recently signed Inflation Reduction Act that provides billions in incentives to migrate energy products to electric.
The New York Times further reported:
The new policy, detailed Wednesday morning in a news conference, is widely expected to accelerate the global transition toward electric vehicles. Not only is California the largest auto market in the United States, but more than a dozen other states typically follow California’s lead when setting their own auto emissions standards.
If those states follow through, and most are expected to adopt similar rules, the restrictions would apply to about a third of the United States auto market.
“This is huge,” said Margo Oge, an electric vehicles expert who headed the Environmental Protection Agency’s transportation emissions program under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. As additional states put in place their own versions of these policies, “they will drive the market, and drive innovation,” she said.
The rule, issued by the California Air Resources Board, will require that all new cars sold in the state by 2035 be free of greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide. The rule also sets interim targets, requiring that 35 percent of new passenger vehicles sold by 2026 produce zero emissions. That requirement climbs to 68 percent by 2030.
Transportation is the nation’s top source of planet-warming greenhouse-gas emissions.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, called the new rule “one of the most significant steps to the elimination of the tailpipe as we know it.”
“Our kids are going to act like it’s a rotary phone, or changing the channel on a television,” Governor Newsom said in an interview.
Then again, a Calif. law requiring pork producers provide more human housing for pigs prompted the country’s largest pork packer to pack its bags and leave the state.
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