Gas-powered vehicle phaseout begins as several states look to join California in adopting Biden’s EV mandate – Washington Examiner

President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle mandate has raised skepticism and backlash from the automotive industry and consumers; still, a handful of states are looking to join California in banning gas-powered vehicles.

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that by 2032, 70% of new cars and trucks sold cannot have tailpipe emissions. California was the first to adopt the new initiative, and now other states are deciding if they want to follow the Golden State’s lead.

So far, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, and Rhode Island are among the states that plan to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035, according to Money, a personal finance website. The District of Columbia has also made the commitment to adopt the ban.

States like Delaware and Colorado are also taking steps to follow California’s standard. While the two states passed the EV mandate last year, which proposed that by 2032 EVs must make up 82% of car sales, they have not fully adopted the goal of banning 100% of gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

In California, EVs accounted for 21.3% of cars being sold within the first nine months of 2023 which was twice as much from the year prior, data produced at the end of last year showed. In San Jose, 40% of car registrations are for EVs — that’s more than any other city in the country, according to S&P Global Mobility data shared with the New York Times

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Following backlash from the automotive industry over the new rule, Biden eased up on the mandate, and is now allowing the industry to have a more gradual transition, giving manufacturers until after 2030 to increase EV sales. Meanwhile, some consumers remain hesitant to embrace Biden’s greener alternative to gas-powered vehicles, saying reliability, cost, and a lack of charging stations are major concerns.

While some states are taking up the ambitious new rule, not everyone is sold on Biden’s EV standards. Republican lawmakers in Louisiana proposed legislation earlier this month to block the ban of gas-powered vehicles in the state. Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA), along with 15 Republican lawmakers, wrote a letter to Biden in January blasting him for the mandate. 

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