California leadership

California is out front again.

Zero-emission vehicle policy is ahead of support technology.

Moore

Electric and fuel cell cars and light trucks are on the horizon, but there will be some bumps in the road after California's August 25 vote adopting regulations phasing in over the next decade. Its decades-old anti-smog rules unleashed technology which changed the automobile industry. Cars are far cleaner now. Now California is moving to zero emissions. By one estimate the next generation of rules will trigger sales of 17 million zero-emission vehicles within California by 2040. If Gov. Gavin Newsom is correct, more than a dozen other states will follow the Golden State’s lead mandating ZEVs, as the zero emission vehicles are called by regulators. 

The big question is: Can they get the supporting infrastructure in place? After all, Toyota offers its Mira hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in 2022. But you’ll have to be in the San Francisco Bay area, greater Los Angeles, San Diego, Truckee or at one of three fuel cell stations in Sacramento to make your Mira go. Its range is said to be 402 miles. Electric vehicle charging stations are still scarce in parts of California, and without what’s known as a J1772 Adaptor, other EVs can’t charge at any of the many Tesla stations.

Hints of the problems California faces came in testimony at the public hearing when the rules were unanimously adopted. Tam Moore has been a journalist for over 55 years. He calls himself retired but he still occasionally plies his trade, so he listened in to that testimony. He’s been a hybrid vehicle driver since 2005, roaming the rural areas of Northern California and Southern Oregon where he says finding a plug-in is "downright difficult."

J1772 Adaptor.  $159.99 at Amazon

Guest Post by Tam Moore

I used to attend and report on lots of government regulation, so Thursday morning I joined the Internet to see what California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) did with a staff proposal which by 2036 mandates almost every new automobile and light-duty truck sold in the state be powered by electricity. 

This is a precedent-setting action with ripple effects across West Coast and Mountain States. Oregon and Washington often use California anti-pollution rules as a foundation for their states. 

More importantly, we share a regional electric power grid.

California doesn’t generate enough electricity to take care of its own needs. Electric power is wheeled in and out of the California grid big time. Juicing up future California electric cars will be a lot more than beefing up in-state local distribution systems. 

Future plans for California’s increased electricity demand, at least in a January 2022 paper posted on the Internet, call for much of the new power to be from sources such as solar and wind, buffered by massive collections of batteries storing juice for use when those intermittent generating sources are down.

Trouble is those big batteries exist only on paper. Technology hasn’t caught up.

Marcus Gomez, representing the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and his own business, which includes a fleet of medium-duty trucks, declared the new rule ”Is just another expense to my business.”

“We need to diversify (vehicle energy sources),” he said. “If we go all-electric that means California is vulnerable to cyber-attack.” 

The final public hearing and pre-vote comment by CARB members began at 9 a.m. and didn’t end until 1:45 p.m. Board members unanimously adopted the complex regulation, despite plenty of advice to slow down the process.  It’s effective January 1, 2023 and sets vehicle standards through 2040. 

It takes approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before the state can start enforcing the standards, which apply to domestically-produced and imported autos and light-duty vehicles. Another set of rules, which don’t mandate all-electric fleets, apply to heavier vehicles. 

“I expect tomorrow to see this action labeled extreme (by the news media),” said board member Dean Florez. He’s a former state legislator and he told the board that experience included the lesson “Don’t mess with people’s cars.”

That said, Florez went to the basic arguments California government has used since CARB began regulating automobile emissions back in 1990: Clean air, better health for the state’s 39,185,605 residents and uncounted future residents.

Michael Saragosa, vice-mayor of Placerville in the Sierra Foothills, sent in a written statement on vulnerability of the local electrical grid. 

“The State’s energy agencies just issued a warning our electrical grid lacks sufficient capacity to keep the light on this summer. El Dorado County already is victim to capricious “PSPS” events, and this Plan will only exacerbate our region’s blackouts and bring more suffering to residents. Also, we are not close to having the infrastructure necessary to support an all-electric future…” he wrote. 

Staff estimates show implementation will cost car-makers an average of $2 billion a year more between 2026 and 2040 while in the same period reduced consumer  costs for gasoline and related items will average $6.2 billion a year. There’s another structural change coming to California –a loss of about 65,810 jobs at gas stations and other retail outlets. 

A witness noted that the path to all-electric began as a footnote to CARB’s first auto emission rules. The process resulting in the massive rules called Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II in bureaucratic jargon) began in 2017. 

“What if the build-out of charging infrastructure cannot keep up with the ACC II mandates, and Californians cannot charge their EVs?  What if the grid cannot reliably keep up with the ACC II mandates, and Californians find themselves routinely stranded, unable to get to and from work/ school, unable to obtain food or medical assistance,” asked Elizabeth Bourbon, a Valero oil company lobbyist. 

That’s a question for the future. CARB didn’t provide an answer.