There’s one very obvious way to force this transition and that’s to make gas prohibitively expensive.
With the way PG&E keeps raising electricity prices in California, it may be cheaper to go back to gas. Just heard they are pushing yet another huge increase next year. As we approach $1/kWh, charging an EV gets painful.
Let me be specific. They killed 84 people with their negligence in Paradise alone, but they keep raising rates while never seeming to have the money to fix their problems. Did you know that in just 2021 the PG&E CEO Patricia Poppe was paid $51.2 million — the year that fire killed 84 Californians she made 51.2 million bucks for doing such a good job.
They can take their electric future and shove it right where the sun doesn’t shine. They want to make that company the center of California’s future.
And they want to raise rates again this year a huge amount on every single customer. After rolling back solar incentives for rooftop.
I’m sorry, I hate PG&E. Especially when you have models like SMUD and Roseville power just chugging along delivering power inside the same system at less than half the price. There is no excuse left for PG&E to continue as it has. They need to be broken up and someone like SMUD should take over.
They're terrible, so stop being a customer.
I so wish I had enough real estate square footage to put up solar to get rid of PG&E abuse.
Unfortunately the space I have can only fit a few panels which won't make a dent. I still want to do it as a fun project, but it won't help much.
And Palo Alto too. Every time I want to get depressed and cry a little I go look at the Palo Alto electric rates. I don't live that far from PA but being in the PG&E abuse zone, have to pay far more.
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/4/utili...
That's what a public utility can do instead of a for-profit monopoly like PG&E which is just maximizing revenue from a captive audience.
The issue is that the end users are also the electorate. Forcing everyone to EVs is going to cost more money than cars do now (at least for a time), and the same constituents that vote for legislators are going to feel it.
It worked for making dishwashers and washing machines shittier and more power efficient, maybe it will work for cars too. I just don’t think most people in the US are willing to commit to switching, however.
I thought this was a war crime?