California Will Phase Out Gasoline-Powered Cars | Hacker News Reader

California Will Phase Out Gasoline-Powered Cars

gov.ca.gov

86 pointschanfest2222 comments

A non-press release summary:

https://www.thedrive.com/news/36687/california-bans-the-sale...

“Newsom's measure specifically targets the sale of new vehicles and is believed not to forbid the transfer of existing fossil-fueled cars or trucks. More lenience will reportedly be granted to commercial vehicles, which the state will allow another decade (until 2045) to switch to zero-emissions power.”

So the goal is to ban the sales of new gas-powered passenger cars by 2035, with an extra decade for commercial vehicles.

Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24570690

This one is a better source, IMO

It's true that the HN guidelines call for original sources, but we tend to prefer the best third-party article to press releases, corporate or otherwise.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Comments merged thither.

I wonder if this is more or less effective a path to reducing emissions from cars than attaching a gas tax to fund equivalent carbon capture and storage. My understanding is roughly 100 gallons of gas -> 1 ton of CO2, and I see forward-looking estimates of costs for capture and storage in the $60 - $120 per ton range. So ... maybe this would increase fuel costs by up to 40%?

Would phasing in such taxes to strongly push people to buy zero emission cars be more or less accepted than a ban on sales of gas-burning cars?

Taxes are known to be quite effective at moderating people's behavior: cigarette taxes reduce smoking; alcohol taxes reduce consumption, etc.

The gotcha with gasoline is that we are far more addicted to it as a society than we ever were to cigarettes, and increases in fuel prices reduce GDP (in the short term, at least). Which means this tactic is politically difficult, and unlikely to survive an economic downturn.

FWIW, I think that the ban is a pipe dream. Come 2030, they will push it back to 2045. I honestly think the best approach is to limit the number of roads that are built. No more adding lanes to 12-16 lane highways that seem to be gridlocked from 6am until midnight anyway. Instead, force people to seek out alternatives to driving because more cars literally can't fit on the road.

> FWIW, I think that the ban is a pipe dream. Come 2030, they will push it back to 2045. I honestly think the best approach is to limit the number of roads that are built. No more adding lanes to 12-16 lane highways that seem to be gridlocked from 6am until midnight anyway. Instead, force people to seek out alternatives to driving because more cars literally can't fit on the road.

If the current impacts of climate change on California continue for the next 5 years, I expect the ban will be moved forward not delayed. Having to spend weeks at a time indoors looking out at a muted orange sky with no sun has had a sobering effect on most vocal climate change deniers. Considering this issue has been getting increasingly worse over the past 10 years, I suspect voter support for climate action will increase.

I do agree about limiting the size of roads though.

I sincerely hope you are right.

First you need actual working carbon capture technology. Then you can estimate how much it costs.

How does this affect people who don’t live in large urban areas? Farmers and ranchers drive, too, and I just don’t see electric vehicles being cost-efficient for people who already deal in tight margins. The large concerns will probably survive just fine, but it sounds like the small grower is just screwed.

Is there language about an incremental phase out, or just a cliff in the year 2035? Because if it's just a cliff then this executive order is worth... not much.

This is interesting timing. I wonder if this is because Tesla's battery day was yesterday and also the Volkswagen ID4 was announced today?

How do we know that a feasible solution is replacing the cars instead of keeping the forests and plants alive and growing?

Your comment doesn't make sense - please explain.

Having electric cars is just moving the pollution to another place, were the power is generated. Forests and trees are the filter of the planet, if you don't have enough the pollution stays no matter what.

Having electric vehicles moves power production and emissions as a result elsewhere. That said it decreases the amount of emissions elsewhere since it uses cleaner energy. You still keep creating more parks and building forests/sustaining them. This is all part of a multi-pronged assault on climate change. You are creating a false option - such that it is only this or that.

> You are creating a false option - such that it is only this or that.

Exactly what I wonder, the pollution problem should not be turned into an electric car sales booster, it is a wider problem that needs to be tackled from different directions and I don't hear anybody making a wider analysis or plan.

Go to CARB and CEC they have the roadmaps for CA.

this will kill BEV then. there are large swathes of california where BEV will be an absolute nightmare. and i don't just mean rural places. in dense urban areas, garages are the exception not the rule. i find it hard to imagine every parking meter and every alleyway becoming a charging station. even in suburbia, garage space is rarely used for car parking. is everyone going to snake ugly cables out to their 2nd or 3rd car parked at the curb?

H2 fuel cell will take over.

San Francisco can easily dig a few holes to put in power posts. It's not that hard.

I’d much rather snake a cable than need to go to a filling station for H2 every week.

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