Eight U.S. States Now Have Plans to Ban Sales of Gas-Powered Cars
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I've heard some people say plugin hybrids are the worst of both worlds ("You need to maintain an electric powertrain and an ICE!") but as a Chevy Volt owner, I think they are the best of both worlds:
1. The vast, vast majority of people drive less than 40-50 miles a day.
2. With a plugin hybrid, there is never range anxiety. If you run out of battery, you just can go on gas for that extra few miles you may need.
3. Going on a road trip currently is generally a PITA with an EV, especially if you don't have access to the Supercharger network. God forbid you plan things out and then pull up to an Electrify America site where none of the chargers work...
4. The batteries in plugin hybrids are much smaller, meaning they're cheaper, weigh less, and require much less mined metals to produce.
5. Since the battery is much smaller, you don't need a big expensive home charger/electrician upgrade. With my Volt, I'd just plug the portable charger into a normal 120V outlet and it would charge overnight.
6. Still has what in my mind are some of the biggest driving benefits of EVs, namely quick acceleration and 1-pedal driving.
This article says some plugin hybrids qualify as 0-emission vehicles, but it's not clear to me if that's in all states. I hope so, as I think a lot more people who would be reticent to get a pure EV would love a plugin hybrid if they tried it.
Its true under the “Advanced Clean Cars II” as adopted in CA, which a number of other states have adopted directly (including some states that have modified it by only adopting the timeline through 2032, stopping just short of a total phase-out of non-ZEVs, probably specifically to avoid the headline of “banning sales of gas-powered cars”.)
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/cars-and-light-tr...
What is a zero-emission vehicle?
Zero-emission vehicles (ZEV), in the context of the Zero-emission Vehicle regulation, include battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles.
Particularly the Chinese have mastered the truly low cost BEV which is being copied all over the globe (yes with North American crash standards). So many interesting things are happening in China in the EV/battery space.
Road tripping an EV in America is actually not that bad in a lot of regions. With NACS rolling out everyone will have access to Superchargers. I’m in the Northeast and fast charging is very dense here.
My last three cars have all been Hybrids and I'm still not comfortable with EV and range anxiety etc. I'd happily swap to a PHEV if I had a decent option (in australia) but the range of options is very few and very pricey and with poor options/capabilities in the ranges.
I’ve been in favour of EVs or plugins with small batteries myself. But in the long term I’m wondering if it’s a bad idea if the battery doesn’t last as long as the car. Replacing them is very expensive.
Maybe with it’s more responsible with modern LFP battery packs. They should handle many charging cycles fairly well
That leaves the fixed cost of labour for the replacement, but if the battery is designed as a planned-replacement item, that can be reduced to a minimum. It's a lot easier to swap out a few cells or battery modules than a full frame-integrated battery. And Tesla demonstrated doing the latter in under 60 seconds.
Again, the upside is not having a huge, and for once a correct usage of the term, massive battery pack you're lugging with you, accelerating, braking, and tire-wearing all the time.
Seems to me you would need more or less the same tooling.
After all, you’re not replacing either by hand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHaYXBFnJo
OTOH, replacing the Rav4 hybrid's battery is apparently much more difficult and I couldn't find anyone doing that DIY.
On hybrid petrol-battery EVs, the cells are included as modules, typically located under the rear seats (where the fuel tank of a conventional petroleum-fueled passenger car would be), which can be slid out in a matter of minutes as a DIY proccedure.
The batteries themselves weigh about 100 kilos and are rated for 100k -- 150k miles, which makes audunw's argument specious.
Toyota hybrid Camry DIY battery replacement: <https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=nlvibjNUAXQ>
Toyota hybrid Prius DIY battery replacement: <https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=FPXY0AqHHzI>
Toyota hybrid Camry battery warranty 10 year/150k miles: <https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota-extends-battery-warranty...>
As I've noted downstream, replacement takes about 15 minutes and is possibly as a DIY: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39921047>
Obviously for some drivers or types of vehicles phev is still be better option.
Battery prices are predicted to drop below $70/kWh this year. Electric drive trains are cheaper to build than ICE, HEV or PHEV equivalents even if you include a massive 60kWh battery.
BYD and Tesla both just released horrible Q1 numbers. Both companies have shown they'd rather lower prices than cut production. EV prices are going to drop significantly over the next few months.
non-plugin HEV's make sense. If you can't plug in at home, electric cars are inconvenient and you'd probably run a PHEV on mostly gas anyways, so you might as well save the PHEV premium and just get a standard HEV.
Niche PHEV's make sense. The Ramcharger makes a lot of sense for rural use.
To address your points:
2. An electric car is very good at knowing at knowing what level your battery will be at when you reach your destination. Range anxiety is not a lack of knowledge.
3. Superchargers are now available to Ford & Rivian owners, and will be available to everybody else within the next few months. I've done tens of thousands of kilometers of road trips in an EV, and our EV is a far better road trip vehicle than our gasoline car.
4. The engines and complexity of PHEV's make them cost more then BEV's in 2024.
5. If you don't need >120V to run almost fully electric on a PHEV, you don't need >120V for a BEV either. With 120V you can add 5 miles of range per hour of charging, so can easily cover daily driving with a night of charging. Sure, you can't charge from 0-100 overnight, but how often do you do 300 mile road trips on subsequent days? 120V will let you do 40 miles/day every weekday and 300 miles every weekend with overnight charging. If you every need more than that you can use a supercharger.
The EV cannot predict the future like unexpected detours, sudden change of plans, traffic jams on a hot/cold day where you need to keep the AC/heater running for long periods, and so on. A whole state is a big place and many areas have very sparse charger coverage - it took a hundred years to build up all the gas stations we have now. And its not enough to just build charging stations because the electric generation capacity in many area will also eventually need to be increased (not cheap or easy) as thousands and then millions more EV tap into them for power. This is a very big infrastructure issue and it is a bad idea to increase the EV population faster than the its supporting infrastructure can handle.
120V plugs are everywhere and far more common than gas stations and work great for those once in a decade type experiences. The infrastructure already exists.
Applies to ICE cars too
> traffic jams That actually reduces battery use
> on a hot/cold day
That indeed is predicted already
Not that I have any particular affinity or love for gas powered cars in particular. It's weird to imagine that some day we might end up in a world where gas stations aren't common anymore and you need to go to the Hardware Store or some specialty shop to buy gas.
My other immediate question is: what stops people from buying a car in the next state over and driving it in? At which point this ban might be meant as more of an increased barrier rather than a full ban.
It's great if you're an EV manufacturer though because you can rack up your price and customers won't have much of an alternative. Bonus points if the government also bans imports of EVs from certain other countries.
Even if this isn't the objective, it nevertheless is a way people will see the whole situation as.
That could be true but we can't say for certain because the market is already so incredibly distorted by oil and gas subsidies.
Automobiles in general are insanely subsidized in the form of state funded road infrastructure.
There's nothing free market about transportation, especially in North America.
Most countries in the world also implement significant excise taxes on petroleum fuels. The American one is about 5%, while in Europe they can go to 40% excluding VAT.
[1] <https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/15/climate/tax-breaks-oil-ga...>
[2] a few examples under <https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/subtitle-A/chapte...>
You're just regurgitating some O&G spin talking point that was put out to counter a recent report that may or may not have over estimated the amount of subsidies to O&G depending on your interpretation of the statistics.
But that doesn't mean that O&G subsidies don't exist.
How do I know? My salary comes from those subsidies.
EVs are automobiles too, using the same roads.
Even if you're suggesting everyone should move to something non-automobile (bikes?) you still need the roads because society needs things like ambulances, fire trucks, garbage trucks, etc. You can't have a society without roads, they have existed for millenia before cars.
That's only true in the absence of any market failure, but in this case we have mispriced negative externalities.
EDIT: Changed "unpriced" to "mispriced", since gas taxes exist as pointed out below.
This doesn't mean the gas taxes are big enough to correct the market failure. Your comment would be true even if we multiply gas taxes by 0.01, 0.1 or 10.0.
I would prefer it if we just used properly calibrated (larger) gas taxes as the single mechanism. But voters hate that, so we're left with second best solutions.
The bans are in great part likely due to politicians trying to score points.
Also we literally ban all sorts of technologies whenever they have negative consequences. For DDT to asbestos, to chemical-dumping in rivers, to low quality fuels, etc. This is nothing new.
So if the ban comes into effect in 2030, it will be impossible to register a gas/diesel vehicle that is a 2030 or newer in said state.
Sure, you could register a vehicle in a state or country you don't live in, but that's already illegal.
It's a lot harder to argue against something like NOx emission limits than ICE bans.
I live in a city, small by global standards, and I am certain all these vehicles charging over night will create heavy tolls on the grid, not even to mention the last mile delivery, where apartment blocks will have to upgrade cabling as well as local transformer stations. And this will have to be done within the entire country, which already imports 40% of its electricity needs.
So, does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
this is like "let them eat cake"
It sucks, but we don’t have a choice to not act against climate change. Some people are going to get fucked in some ways, but those same people will be fucked in different ways if we don’t do anything or move too slowly.
If fucking up people starts with those at the top I am all for it. Otherwise GFY
More electrical demands will further cause building new power plants, but none of them come without another, different impact. Sacrificing fields for solar power, flooding valleys for hydro, cutting trees for better wind, etc. I have seen it done and it makes little sense. Maybe these "local" changes will have other impacts we do not know about.
On the other hand, decreasing meat consumption might also help significantly but there have only been half-hearted attempts at it. Farmers and people will hear none of it.
So it doesn’t sound like it’s a quality issue, sounds like that’s just your outdated opinion of Chinese manufacturing. If the western world wants to make the argument that they can do it better, then they need to do it better.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-18/chinese-e...
[2] https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/one-in-four-ev...
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilwinton/2024/03/08/if-europe...
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/evs-wi...
Can you please post a list of these many EVs that are cheaper than ICE cars?
According to this article the cheapest EV is the Chevy Bolt at 26.5K. So if that is true, the list of EVs cheaper than ICE is null.
https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car/articles/cheapest-elect...
Many EVs are cheaper than many ICE cars means there is already a fair amount of overlap in price points, and more expensive ICE cars are already more expensive than base EVs.
And then I posted a source indicating that the rapidly dropping prices of EVs means they will cost less to produce than ICE cars in a couple years, meaning that it is reasonable to think they will push out ever more of the lower end of the ICE market.
Ok, but then that's not a very useful comparison since there are ICE cars that cost multiple millions of dollars. So sure, every EV is cheaper than some ICE car.
Battery costs are continuing to decrease even today. And the deadline isn't for another 11 years.
like the lack of awareness of your own citizens in the comments is appalling. its no wonder trump is so popular with this crowd as much as I despise him.
How soon will it need a $7000 battery replacement? It's a non-thermal managed battery, over here (mild climate with winters usually around 0C and summers around 20-25C) they're failing left and right after 5-7 years of active usage.
That said challenges with any such regime: - it's probably easier to tax the gas directly than the released emissions - it's definitely a problem to be raising the cost of living for lower-income Americans, who already don't have wiggle room in their budgets
It's pretty likely that EVs will get cheaper over time, as production of them reaches better economies of scale which get optimized more with each new generation. How much cheaper of course is the big open question that remains to be seen, but some European countries have already seen mass adoption as the EVs get cheaper than ICE vehicles (Norway in particular, via a subsidy: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23939076/norway-electric-...). That said it's not yet the case that EVs can be made cheaper without policies shifting some of the cost.
One partial answer may be extending cheap credit for buying EVs, as EVs should have cheaper maintenance in the long run and can have cheaper operating costs (though... that depends on the local price of energy, which we don't seem to be great about keeping under control) so it appears the bigger problem with EVs is upfront cost rather than total cost of ownership - a problem better credit could smooth over. Of course this then gets tied up with the problems of interest rates. <nervously glances at the Fed>
Many larger municipalities are incentivizing more solar installs with battery capacity. Having solar generation and battery storage distributed throughout the city will reduce the need to have the grid import all of the energy demand from far away sources.
Modern solar, battery, and charger combos can easily be configured to store energy produced by solar panels on the house and operate the charger in a way that primarily pulls from the solar generation and the house's battery capacity (by telling the battery to discharge while the car is charging, essentially).
Power companies are also moving heavily toward "virtual power plants", which would be a good search term if you want to learn more.
Problem is, there are plenty of days where my system only generates 10-20 kWh of energy. Which is not even enough to run my house, much less my cars. And this is sunny California.
Obviously I like the tech which is why I invested but I'm not sure it is going to help alleviate this issue completely (enough generation that's centralized).
Wrt. solar, that is why I specifically mentioned appartment blocks. We have many such blocks, which usually have one to two levels of garages underneath. I do not think solar power can provide enough power to charge the same area of cars (in cases of one level underground garage), much less twice such area.
Furthermore, solar power is fickle: it relies heavily on nice weather and we have plenty of cloudy or rainy days.
Was not pretty and drove people to do all sorts of workarounds.
Then the country fell apart.
There’s plenty of spare capacity on the grid if EVs just use the capacity when it’s available, and avoids the peaks. Since EVs are batteries on wheels thats nearly trivial to achieve with the right incentives.
Norway has a pretty strong grid to start with since electricity has been used for heating in winter for a long time. And it had already rolled out smart meters for everyone years ago. Other countries/states may need some upgrades. But it’s not as much as you’d think and with modern technology it can be done at a reasonable price. You can often push more electricity over the same pylons with newer wires.
Does your country produce its own oil? If not EVs is a path to higher energy independence since EVs are more flexible with their energy demand and easier to pair with new renewables. With the right policies you might not need to import any more electricity, while getting to import less oil or fuels.
I also understand that it is possible to do in Norway. I commend the Norwegian leaders who invested the income from selling oil into a robust and extensive infrastructure. Most of the other countries, however, do not have that luxury, foresight, or funds. Most of the other countries are also more densely populated and without the ability to deploy wind or water power plants.
So, while I am happy for Norway and how it's working out for them, the reality in other countries is a bit different. Would be happy to be proven wrong :)
I think this question is easily explained away by politicians that this new demand would reinvigoriate innovation and the Western economies.
So, what I am missing from these laws are explanations how they intend to tackle it.
Electric car charging uses less power than air conditioning, and happens overnight when air conditioning generally doesn't run. Your grid is fine.
The governor's budget also proposes eliminating the state's sales tax exemption for EVs (one of the few reliable EV incentives in NJ), which will effectively increase their upfront cost by another several thousand dollars.
I should mention the state does have a $5000 tax credit for new EVs. But it goes in and out of effect completely unpredictably, as funding runs out each year and then is reinstated arbitrarily some time the next year.
And this is all happening while EV sales are not doing well to begin with. There's basically no chance the ICE ban will happen as planned there.
And this is a blue state, with (iirc) ~40% nuclear and 10% renewable energy.
Also, this is more than "removing incentives" -- it's an outright EV penalty. The increase in registration fee for EVs is roughly double what the most popular ICE car (Honda CRV) pays in annual gas taxes in the state, according to Gothamist/NPR https://gothamist.com/news/what-drivers-need-to-know-as-nj-m...
One of the sponsors of the bill (that increased the EV registration fee in order to fund roads) is a state senator who is also the COO of a major roadwork construction company.
He's also simultaneously the mayor of a 10,000 population town with only a couple public chargers. Way more trucks than EVs in his town btw.
Which are all fine. I don't know enough to question their beliefs.
But I do know enough about math and engineering to know that the only realistic way to deal with the disaster they are predicting is an immediate and massive expansion of nuclear power. But instead of arguing in favor of this immediate and massive expansion of nuclear power, which Republicans would likely support, they push stuff like this.
Building more nuclear power is good, but it can’t be the only solution because it’s very expensive and takes so long to ramp up. Projects in the West have been decades behind schedule. And it’s far from given Republicans would support it.
Why don’t Republicans take the initiative and get Democrats behind a national plan for more nuclear? Because their voters don’t care. So why would they support such a Democratic initiative?
It’s a weird assumption that Republicans are somehow just waiting to do the right thing, if only Democrats would come to them with a plan. It’s never worked like that.
In the USA in April 2023 a Gallup poll had nuclear support at 54%, the highest level since 2012.[54] In August 2023 Pew Research Center conducted a survey which found that 57% of Americans favor more nuclear power plants. This is up from 43% in 2020. Support for nuclear power has increased among both Democrats and Republicans. However, Americans are still more likely to favor solar and wind power than nuclear power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_on_nuclear_issu...
Nuclear is extremely expensive so if you poll on the cost of energy you will also have a different outcome.
I guess I’m skeptical of the hypothetical support people claim when they have no skin in the game (I.e. no local construction plans and it’s currently obvious that no plans are possible anytime soon)
On a personal level I’ve felt pro-nuclear most of my life, it’s just in the last few years I’ve become, not anti nuclear but skeptical I suppose. I just can’t see a cost benefit in today’s world given the other options available.
It's pretty easy to figure out whether or not Republicans might support an immediate and massive expansion of nuclear power. Since you don't sound like you tolerate Republicans, let alone like you are on speaking terms with enough of them that you could ask, I'd recommend you consult some polls of Republicans on the question. According to one study by Pew, 2/3rds of them support the construction of new nuclear plants. Which is to say, Republicans are more likely to support what you call the right thing than Democrats.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/18/growing-s...
Would it not be cheaper, whilst also being realistic, to pursue renewables + natural gas?
AIUI renewables LCOE is around 5x cheaper than nuclear and natural gas is often (including right now) sold at negative prices in the US because it is almost a waste product from far more lucrative shale oil operations (accounts for around 80% of gas production). Add to this gas is a near perfect complement to renewables given its fast response times to demand changes unlike nuclear. Natural Gas is also the cleanest of the fossil fuels, modern generation facilities are far more efficient than e.g. petrol or diesel engines.
I’m failing to understand why nuclear would be the only game in town? Those construction costs make it look unviable. Not to mention the NIMBY aspect which means nuclear is simply off the table in terms of options thanks to citizen desires.
If they do not argue for an immediate and massive expansion, I'm forced to conclude they either a) are lying about what they call the science, b) are lying about their belief in apocalyptic scenarios, c) don't understand math, or d) some combination of a, b, and c.
There are some next generation reactor designs that are worth investment but for immediate generation capacity wind and solar is much better.
The state can absolutely reduce costs and speed up plant construction in a way that is safe, and which is less vulnerable to bad weather, and which does not create as many energy storage problems.
Pursue wind and solar at the same time if you like, but the math climate scientists claim to understand requires them to also push for an immediate and massive expansion of nuclear.
I find it suspicious that they do not, and that they never have.
https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/100-percent-clean-electricity-...
It’s an example of some strange outdated internet meme that someone posts on any energy thread - to come in and say “actually guys nuclear is great you are all just not smart enough to know”. Despite the totally insurmountable arguments of time and cost - if we started today it would take 15+ years for one plant, and it being the most expensive major form of new power we know of.
I wish the meme would either die, or folk would brush up on their arguments.
That’s why it’s suggested for 2035…politicians get to look noble and visionary while bearing none of the actual consequences of the policy actually doing anything.
I would love to hear about a serious government proposal to reduce fuel emissions which starts working before my children graduate from college.
You are right to point out the innovation coming out of China in the EV space. Every automaker is currently in a cycle of copying what they are doing for their next wave of products. To the extent that there is an EV “slowdown” right now is basically intentional until the next wave of BEVs starts coming out which are way more cost competitive.
As I pointed out in another comment the main driver is large format LFP prismatic cells in a cell-to-pack configuration. BYD blade and CATL qilin are examples to study.
Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia
The timeline is by 2035
It does though bring up an interesting question: In the event of natural catastrophe and loss of critical infrastructure due to natural disaster (or brain eating contagions), how does one keep the literal wheels of industry and commerce moving?
Will preppers of the future focus on having gas cars, or having radically self-sufficient sources of electricity for their cars?
Preppers will just use their generators and PV system to charge their cars.
They last around 12 months (way less for gas with added ethanol) if stored properly meaning not too cold or hot and no big temperature changes.
This can be extended with preservatives/stabilizers to a few years but after that you are fucked if you don’t run a refinery.
So yeah preppers should go with electric. Batteries also have a limited lifespan but it should be longer if managed properly.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/2829/game-car-wars
EVs can be paired with solar panels to be completely independent of the grid for many years.
“Radical” self sufficiency for EV cars isn’t exactly radical. Many have already achieved full energy self-sufficiency for their homes with solar panels and battery packs. And this is true long term self sufficiency, which is much harder to achieve if you rely on gasoline for cars and generators
EU law will require all new cars sold to have zero CO2 emissions from 2035, and 55% lower CO2 emissions from 2030, versus 2021 levels.. The European Commission has pledged, however, to create a legal route for sales of new cars that only run on e-fuels to continue after 2035, after Germany demanded this exemption..
The EU policy had been expected to make it impossible to sell combustion engine cars in the EU from 2035. But the exemption won by Germany offers a potential lifeline to traditional vehicles - although e-fuels are not yet produced at scale.. E-fuels are considered carbon neutral because they are made using captured CO2 emissions - which proponents say balances out the CO2 released when the fuel is combusted in an engine.Personally, I'm looking to buy exclusively hybrids in the near future. But I'm a weird case because I keep vehicles for decades. I have a lot of bad feelings about this legislation.
But if you are only asking if it's possible, sure. Look at the phenomenon of 'snowbirds' registering Florida plates on cars mostly driven in the NYC metro. Used to be much cheaper insurance premiums a decade or two ago, now not so much. (Just to be clear, this is insurance fraud and highly discouraged)
I have my doubts that we’ll have the range and capability by then, perhaps if automakers are smart we’ll see more series hybrids and range extender models.
The next generations of BEVs are getting faster and faster charging with longer ranges such that I don’t think this will be an issue.
I don't know if the infrastructure for home charging will be ready by 2035... but as charging times decrease, replacing gas stations with charging stations becomes more viable.
https://insideevs.com/news/710508/li-auto-mega-fast-charging...
Most automakers are currently redesigning and retooling for the new reality of very cheap BEVs with lots of range and very fast charging. The largest shift currently underway is a major change over to LFP packs with cell-to-pack technology and large format prismatic cells like the BYD blade and CATL qilin. We also inch closer to solid state and sodium batteries which is likely the enablers for the next wave of innovative products at all price points in 5 years.
I don’t think 500-600 mile range BEVs with 500kW+ charging will be that rare in 11 years. We already have some current examples like the 2024 Zeeker 001. Based on those figures recharging is on par with refueling an ICE car.
Run the same experiment in 2035. Are EVs still significantly more expensive and lack utility / range? If so, it is some approximation of the 1995 experiment. If EVs are cheap and awesome (which will probably be the case), then no ban is necessary as no one would bother to buy an ICE car anyway.
In short, at best a ban makes no difference and at worst makes everyone's lives suck while having no impact toward the stated goal.
Are we sure of this? Are biofuels not an option here? If you lived in California, you'd know that our pathetic grid can barely handle the load now. When everyone plugs in their Tesla at 6pm it's going to be pandemonium. Of course, Gavin is happy handing the extra business to his buds at PG&E.
https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/economics-biofue...
Realise that we shifted from biofuels to fossil fuels in the 19th and early 20th centuries because the energy-fueled technologically-driven economic growth people wanted simply wasn't possible with agriculturally-based energy systems. In 1900, the US devoted a fifth of its grain supply to transportation, in the form of horse feed. Henry Ford experimented with alcohol-based automobiles. Ultimately large petroleum finds (Spindletop, the East Texas Oil Field, and Ghawar in Saudi Arabia) demonstrated that petroleum would be a reliable fuel source for the foreseeable future.
Biofuel yields vary, and some of the higher claims remain largely theoretical (grasses, pickleweed, and algae particularly). Demonstrated biofuel productivity from crops such as soybean, sunflower, and sugarcane range around 48--63, 63--90, and 700 gallons/acre (about 450--590, 590--840, and 6,550 litre/hectare).
The US consumes about 7.3 billion barrels of petroleum annually, the world about 37 billion.
Given the highest yield above, sugarcane (which has a limited growing zone), substituting for all petroleum use would require somewhat over 2 billion acres. That's ... somewhat ... less than the total present arable land on Earth, but keep in mind that fuel crops would displace food crops, that we're working from the best option (soybean or sunflower would require better than 10x as much land), and that agriculture itself is quite energy intensive, with most present crops requiring more energy input than is delivered.
And then you can recycle them. There’s almost no capacity yet because there’s also no demand, but it seems like it will be a no-brainer financially to recycle them.