Electric Vehicles on Collision Course with Reality
23rd June 2021
California’s energy policies are a mess. Ostensibly committed to cutting CO2 emissions, the state shuttered its main nuclear power plant. California has invested massively in wind and solar energy, but since these technologies produce electricity only a minority of the time, California keeps the lights on by importing electricity from other states–electricity that was generated using the reliable sources that California ostensibly eschews.
Then we have electric vehicles. Currently, fewer than two percent of the vehicles on the road in the U.S. are electric. That percentage may be a little higher in California, but it is still miniscule. Nevertheless, California has enacted legislation that seeks to ban gasoline-powered vehicles beginning in 2035. Where the infrastructure will come from to support such a transition in the automobile fleet in the next 14 years is anyone’s guess.