How do you feel about Governor Newsom's executive order requiring only electric cars be sold in California by 2035?

That will likely drive (no pun) car dealers out of California and California residents will buy their gas powered cars out of state.

Also cause drivers to hang on to their gas guzzlers longer.

O feel strong measures to address climate change have to be addresses and if the Federal government won’t do it the states have to pioneer.

Californians are already buying a lot of electric cars, While it is still a low percentage, it continues to row. I think it is a good idea. And, if you buy a car out of state, you can just pay a higher licencing fee when you register it in California.

@gondwanalon Well, I hang onto my cars forever. I have two cars that are over 15 years old (one is my daughter’s). My issue is that I go to the snow and mountains a lot (pre covid) to go skiing and backpacking. Of course by 2035 I’ll be 70 so I’m not sure how much of that I’ll really be doing.

My opinion is that it’s fine, but the recharging technology just isn’t quite there yet. If you’re on a long trip you have to stop to recharge for half an hour. My Tesla friends say it’s not a big deal, but with a gas car I can refuel in 5 minutes and be on my way.

Edit: Sorry for the typos. Doing a million things at once.

I’m skeptical about some of the technology relating to electric cars. It seems optimistic based on the technology improving by then so that electric cars can go farther distances without needing to be charged as often. There’s also the environmental concern of battery disposal and extraction of lithium in places like Bolivia. Will there be a new battery technology by then? Again, that seems optimistic. Just because these cars don’t pollute, that doesn’t mean their entire “footprint” is green.

Well, this gives them 15 years to put the infrastructure in place for it. Of course, better public transportation would be a better solution but I think that ship has sailed.

1) good idea

2) he won’t be governor

3) it will be delayed because the industry won’t be ready by then

4) the Luddite party will take this to court and tie it up for decades.

I think it is racist. After all, most of the poor people are people of color and they will not be able to afford to just go out and buy an electric car. It is targeting those folks to make them take public transportation if they want to get around at all. It is an elitist decision fully designed to favor the rich.

I think limiting a household to one gas car is more realistic. Driving long distances is still a problem in my opinion with electric cars. I guess it will push innovation maybe.

Even with one gas car per household you would need exceptions for adult children living with parents, and there are others.

@seawulf575 It’s a valid point. Electric cars will have to come down in price for this to be workable.

A great idea. A valiant effort if it comes to fruition. I’m all for it.
If it doesn’t pan out, well, shit the bed.

@Caravanfan As a Tesla owner who makes frequent trips to the Bay Area from the LA area: Typically, we make one stop in Kettleman City. We have to rush through our lunch so as to not have to pay for idle parking at a busy supercharger.

In fact a gas car would take you longer because you cannot be eating when you are gassing up!

@JLeslie For the last four years, my wife has held that same opinion. So she drove a gas powered Lexus. Until this year. She consented to trading in her Lexus on a brand new Model Y. I think what convinced her was my statement that, if there is an extended power cut, she couldn’t gas up her car because the gas pumps need electricity to operate.

@Demosthenes I agree that electric cars do not directly compete with the Corollas of this world. Yet. However, in 5–10 years…

@seawulf575 I assume your answer about the decision being racist is tongue-in-cheek. There are two reasons I say that:

1. I live in California, and the last label I would apply to Newsom is “racist”.
2. By 2035 there will be plenty of 15–20 year old electric cars available for a song.

@janbb Let me advise you that the infrastructure is already in place for Teslas, and being rapidly fleshed out for the other EVs.

@Demosthenes Your skepticism about electric car technology was probably justified until very recently. However, just this year:

1. Lucid has announced a brand new luxury sedan to compete with the top offerings from the likes of Mercedes and BMW.
2. Tesla had a Battery Day on Sep 22, at which there were stunning revelations about upcoming advancements.
3. Chinese EV companies do not sell in the US (I would never buy a Chinese product, anyway). But they do have some exciting innovations.

@crazyguy “In fact a gas car would take you longer because you cannot be eating when you are gassing up!”

I eat in the car when I make that drive. I don’t want to be FORCED to wait half an hour. If I choose to wait half an hour, fine.

@Caravanfan Yes you do have that option.

Will have to wait and see what the motoring public thinks about the intense electrical fires that will come with the crashes.

@crazyguy I seriously considered buying an electric car a few months ago, but wound up with my first Lexus, because my husband’s job is in TN and I’m in FL and I wanted to be able to use the car for the drive.

I really wanted an electric car so I would not have to touch a covid gas pump. Where I live I easily could use an electric car for almost everything, I don’t drive far. I’d love to have a solar powered house to charge it, although if you are charging overnight you need batteries or to be connected to the grid still obviously.

Eliminating gas cars doesn’t mean everyone will be in an electric car. There is still the possibility of other types of energy. There are hydrogen cars, but I think they produce carbon dioxide? Or, some sort of chemical we are concerned about. I’m not sure if that goes into the air, or if it’s a closed feedback loop? I should read up on that.

@crazyguy But the poor still may not be able to afford to buy a used electric car. It is making a lot of assumptions and in the end, you are putting an undo expense on the poor. Here’s another thought for you…it is nothing but an effort to exclude California from the rest of the country. Now I will grant you that the ban is selling new fossil fueled vehicles, but let’s consider that for a moment. Gas stations will be phased out entirely. People that have gasoline powered or diesel powered cars will not be able to refuel in California. So where does that leave us? First off, all diesel trucks will be banned. So anyone trying to ship goods to California will just not do it. Any trains that currently run to that state will not be running since they, too, will not be able to ensure they have enough fuel. Yes, they could have a depot set up, but how to keep it filled? Tell them to bring their own? Why would they go to that extra expense to supply CA with goods? And if they did, that extra cost would be passed on to consumers so the cost of living in CA would go even higher than it is now. Tourism would come to a screeching halt. The airlines would have to stop running since they wouldn’t be able to refuel there either. No one would drive there when they couldn’t refuel. And what about Hollywood? Think they will get a pass? All of their movies will have to use electric vehicles. But then, how would they get all the pieces parts that are shipped in to make a movie? And for that matter, how would you make electric vehicles or ship them in? All the parts either need to be made strictly in CA or you run into the same logistic issues for having them shipped in. Ships might be the ONLY thing able to operate since they could have a tanker come in to refuel a depot to keep shipping alive. But then, when the parts arrive, how do you ship them around the state?

One thing about the poor, I don’t think they are typically buying new cars. Are they? Plus, maybe electric cars will be less expensive by then.

I’m not on board with driving all new car sales to be electric, but just being devils advocate.

@JLeslie No, the poor are not buying new cars. But the whole point of the EO is to phase out gasoline powered cars. As more and more electric cars are being sold, gasoline powered cars will go away, along with all the stuff required to make them work…like gasoline. You will eventually force only electric on everyone…including the poor. So while Joe Fabeets might be able to keep an old car running by doing maintenance himself, he might still be forced into getting rid of a car that runs perfectly well because he won’t be able to fuel it up. Think about it. As more and more electric cars hit the road, gas stations will go away. Why keep operating when your product is becoming less and less in demand?

@seawulf575 All good points to think about. I don’t know much about electric cars. My husband and I owned a golf cart repair business and gas golf carts only recently are getting more technologically advanced like cars.

Basically, most gas golf carts out there running around were like old cars. Like you said, anyone who was mechanical could keep it running. Part of the reason we sold (small part of why) the business was the technology was just starting to change and we would have had to start buying new equipment and have new knowledge to fix them. This is true with gas cars too, it is getting harder for the average guy to tinker with his car and keep it going with the newer cars.

The electric golf carts the yearly maintenance was much less work than gas. Check connections, clean things up, no oil change to mess with. We charged less for it, and companies that charge the same or more are making a killing, because it takes less time and less materials than a yearly maintenance on gas. The mechanical guy can still do a lot of his own work.

Replacing batteries is very expensive, so that’s a factor, but charging the batteries is less expensive than gas.

I’ve wondered for years if electric cars really need to be so expensive for a profit, or if they were expensive because there were tax credits and manufactures just thought they could charge a lot or should charge a lot. Lowering prices might give them more profit from volume. I don’t know the numbers, I’ve never looked at a balance sheet or profit and loss, but since Musk is so rich I figure the profit must be pretty good at this point and there is room to lower the prices.

@kritiper Do you know how many gasoline cars burn up each year?

@JLeslie I am not sure what the length of your drive would be to your husband, but keep in mind that Tesla has a car (Long Range Model S) with a range of 400 miles. And Lucid recently announced an ultra-luxury sedan with a range of over 500 miles.

Of course, no matter what the range is you do need to “fuel up” on the way or at your destination for the trip back. That is where I think, Tesla has a huge advantage.

As far as charging at home is concerned:

1. You need a 240V charger installed. Yes, the car will charge at the standard 110V, but the charge rate is about 5 miles per hour of charging. With the 240V charger, you will gain about 25 miles per hour, which means you can charge overnight and wake up to almost a fully-charged battery every morning.

2. If you have solar panels installed, you get credit for excess power produced during the day that offsets some of the cost of charging at night.

Almost any time the government gets involved in a decision, they screw it up! An example is California’s famous “Bullet Train”. This technological wizardry was supposed to whisk us between Los Angeles and San Francisco in a couple of hours. After $70 billion+, the project has finally been shelved. Musk’ idea of a hyper loop makes much more sense, but the government is too dumb to see that.

@seawulf575 As usual, you have hit the nail on the head! California graduated from Governor Moonbeam (Jerry Brown) to an even crazier Newsom!

@JLeslie you said “since Musk is so rich I figure the profit must be pretty good”. All I can say is: do some digging and you will realize that Musk is making his money off the appreciation in Tesla’s stock price, which is going up not because the business is insanely profitable, but because it is growing rapidly,

@crazyguy Not as many, by a vast amount, as will electric cars. If you think so many gasoline powered cars catch fire, you watch too much television!!

Right now, by what I’ve heard, new batteries for used electric cars will cost around $15,000. So if you think used electric cars will be cheap, guess again!

Seems like a great idea for the planet. We have quite a few electric cars here in the middle and convenient charging stations.
Plus you can keep a gas powered generator in your trunk for emergencies or long trips @Caravanfan.

There’s not many drawbacks except making them affordable with tax breaks. I almost got one in 01 but too many kinks and too expensive, chose a new Corolla haha.

@KNOWITALL Hold on there—for some reason I never thought about having a gas generator along for long trips. Clever.

@kritiper Unlike you, I check my information before I post. So your post which seemed counter-intuitive to me caused me to do some quick research. I found one article: https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/companies/electric-car-fire-risk/index.html

According to this article (hopefully you can find some that support your point of view) gasoline cars are much likelier to combust than electric cars!

@kritiper Used electric cars with say 60,000 miles on the odometer are nowhere near the end -of-life of the car battery. For most Teslas, there is a battery warranty that states: the warranty is for 8 years or at least 100,000 miles (longer for Model S and X); if the battery cannot hold at least 70% of its charge the warranty pays off.

So a used car will have less range, and the market will set the price accordingly.

@KNOWITALL and @JLeslie I have been a Tesla owner for over four years now and have never been stranded without juice. I am not sure that a gas-fired generator can be used directly to charge a Tesla’s battery. Have never thought of the possibility.

@crazyguy Used cars with less range will have NO market value. Most people will have the cars for 10 years and 100,000 miles.

@kritiper New technology does not take ob=ver the market in a flash. It develops gradually. EVs will take over the auto market, but ir may take 20–30 years.

@crazyguy I knew that. Hence, my POV on the subject. Let’s discuss this again in 15 years.

Another problem with Gov Newsom’s EO…the power problems in CA already. He (or the state government) got rid of many forms of electricity generation in an effort to be “green”. As a result, the renewables are not enough to provide for all the power demands currently being seen in that state. I give you the recent rolling blackouts as a perfect example. Now…add even more load by having everyone charge their cars. Think things are going to get better or worse?

@seawulf575 Good point. I think sunny states should be mandating developers and builders of large residential subdivision automatically put solar panels on houses when being constructed. The hardest part of the equation is lower income housing obviously. Adding $15k to a $150k house is a lot more than $20k to a $500k house. The $500k also has room not to upgrade other things to bring down the price. My question is, how much do those panels really need to cost to still make a profit? Can the price come down?

Tesla now is selling solar roofs, but they are very expensive. Why? Their excuse is it’s cheaper than a new roof plus solar panels. That sounds like Gilead saying their Hep C drug is cheaper than the previous treatments so the $84,000 price tag is a bargain, even if it makes them billions in profit. But, I don’t know the profit Tesla is making, so I might be speaking out of turn.

A salesperson of a builder I dealt with at one time had solar water heaters in his house. He said they worked great. Just that one thing, not the entire house was solar. Every bit helps though.

Where I live people put in solar tubes for light, they work great during the day and don’t heat the house like a sky light.

Other parts of the world don’t have two refrigerators in a house, and I’m sure there are other things that can be done to conserve.

I don’t want to get off topic too much, but I think a lot of things have to happen at once to come into the new age successfully. If we go electric vehicle, we have to have the infrastructure for it.

@JLeslie Mandating any action is counter-productive. Let people make their own choices with their own hard-earned dollars.

My state, California, believes in just the opposite – people are too stupid to realize what’s good for them.

If there are huge profits in solar panels, the price will come down because of new entrants in the field. Government’s role should be limited to barring anti-competitive practices. The same thing for solar roofs and EVs.

Your last sentence says: “If we go electric vehicle, we have to have the infrastructure for it.”

I got news for you. We already have the infrastructure for it. More will develop based on need and relative economics, but Tesla cannot sell EVs without well-placed superchargers. Elon realized this basic fact over 10 years ago.

@seawulf575 Newsom’s basic problem is he believes in BIG government. He thinks Californians are too stupid to make rational choices based on their own pocketbooks.

@JLeslie There are a couple problems with solar and wind energies. Mainly, it is the efficiency. Not only do they suffer from natural issues (clouds, calm days, etc) their conversion of energy generated to used is not great. That being said, it is always worth while to research ways to improve that efficiency. The solar roofs are a version of this. They make roof shingles that are small PV panels and are used in place of big individual panels. They are better in many ways because they increase the usable surface area of the roof for solar energy conversion. However they still suffer from the same problem: angle. The sun doesn’t spend all day directly overhead, nor does it rotate at the same angle all the time. The do make stands for PV panels that will change the angle of the panel to increase the efficiency of the angle so it produces more power all the time.
I understand the idea behind wanting to limit profit of things. But it generally doesn’t work out well. You and I look at the profits of a company and think it is too high. But the owners, the board of directors, and the stock holders may disagree. If you suddenly tell a company they can’t charge so much for a product, they have the option always of not making the product. Why pay people and take risk to make a product that isn’t going to make you much profit? Just playing devil’s advocate here.

@crazyguy It isn’t just Newsom and California that believe those things. And they never want to take the challenge of showing where they have EVER done anything to earn the trust and respect of the people they govern? When has government ever done things smart and efficiently?

@seawulf575 I wasn’t thinking of limiting profit on solar, I was thinking with mass demand the price would come down IF there is room for it to still be profitable if the price is lower. Maybe my idea is idealistic. Volume should bring more businesses into the marketplace and drive costs down.

I agree government interference sometimes backfires, but sometimes it doesn’t. People need to be willing to adjust a policy if it has negative results. It might need just a tweak, but politics today is an all or none game.

@crazyguy I meant the infrastructure of the electricity needed to power the cars. One of our jellies in California just went through 2.5 days of a power outage, the city gave him warning that they had to cut the power.

@crazyguy: And that same Jelly is going to have another power outage this week for the same reason.

I think electric cars will become more popular when there are as many charging stations (or half as many, even) as gas stations. Right now, unless you’re someplace very rural like the plains of Montana, you can drive a few miles and find a gas station.

@JLeslie and @crazyguy Yeah they make them. It was on a recent documentary. One guy was on the side of the hwy in an new electric which is why they stopped. He asked for gas and it confused them until he popped the trunk to show the generator. They were flabbergasted.

Funny. Using gas to charge an electric car.

@seawulf575 I didn’t take you as an anarchist.

@Caravanfan I’m not an anarchist…I’m a pragmatist and a realist.

@JLeslie Power outages, whether intentional (usually to avoid a greater calamity) or unintentional will happen from time to time. That does not mean our electricity infrastructure is deficient. If an EV owner cannot charge his/her EV at home, hopefully there is a supercharger not too far away that can still charge the EV,

Also, your response to @seawulf575 misses the point. You seem to correlate pricing with profit. The fact is they are independent. Pricing is set by market forces, profit is a product of pricing.

@JLeslie I missed one additional point in your response to @seawulf575. Government interference almost always backfires. The reason is obvious. The department and employees working on a project NEVER want to concede it is flawed. The same thing happens in private industry; but it is rarely allowed to continue for long.

@KNOWITALL Well, that is amazing. I’ll definitely look it up and provide feedback.

@crazyguy Market forces, competition, can push a price down, but not to the point that the seller is no longer making a profit.

If selling widget A at less than $2 means a loss for the seller and the market will only pay $1.50, the seller goes out of business.

Sam Walton made his billions on volume. He moved away from trying to get high margins and focused on low margins and volume, but if an item is losing money then Walmart is going to discontinue it, unless it’s a purposeful loss leader, but we aren’t talking about loss leaders on this Q.

@seawulf575 I was just kidding.

Per typical, me being a left-leaning libertarian centrist, I have a more grey view on this whole thing. I think that overall it’s actually a good goal to have an electric fleet of cars, and California has long led the way in auto emission standardization. I would love to have just electric cars on the road by 2035 (and yes, I realize that’s not what he said). My issue is that ultimately consumers have to purchase the vehicles, and as of right now electric cars are mostly luxury cars at a premium. Those of us who have some money can afford it, but those of us without, really can not.

And despite @crazyguy‘s arguments above, as of right now it’s no big deal for him to grab a bite to eat in Kettleman City while his car is being charged, but that’s because >99% of the cars on the road are whizzing past him in their gas powered cars. What if EVERYBODY has to stop for 30 minutes at Kettleman City? What if you have to wait 2 hours to get a spot for a half an hour charging station?

So philosophically I’m for it, but at this moment it’s putting the cart before the horse, and it has the same flavor to me as the high speed rail project. A good idea in theory but in practice an insanely expensive impractical bust.

I think a much better way to handle this would have been to extend the tax credits for solar power, and increase the tax incentive for electric car purchases. That way people have choice and a financial incentive to drive the market.

Electric cars make sense in an urban environment. Given proper pricing and solar power incentives, I can foresee a time where the vast majority of homes and businesses have solar and can partially charge an electric car fleet. I say “partly’ because solar only works when it’s sunny. The rest of it would have to be charged by non-solar zero carbon sources which would be a combination of wind, water, tides and nuclear. But you have to build the power infrastructure first.

There already is straining on electrical grids in the summertime, and rolling blackouts during fire season are a regular thing. How are people supposed to charge their car if there is a blackout at their house for 2 days?

@Caravanfan I agree with most of your points.

1. Sometimes, I have to wait for a charging stall. So, on top of my charging time, there may be an extra half-hour or so.

2. The waiting may get worse if charging infrastructure does not keep up with the number of EVs on the road. However, so far at least, the number of chargers is keeping up with increasing numbers of EVs – see https://evadoption.com/ev-charging-stations-statistics/. The number of EVs per charging stall has been increasing steadily for the last 8 years. Currently there are about 24 EVs per charging stall. That number was just 17 2 years ago.

3. The high speed railroad project was a government boondoggle, so I am surprised to see you comparing EVs to it.

4. I do not know the economics of charging stations; but, I think, most EV owners would gladly pay a bit more per kWH in order to avoid waiting for a stall.

5. Most of the time, in my case, all except about two weeks per year, a charging slot is not even required. Charging overnight at home provides enough juice for daily driving. Charging stations along major highways are only for long out-of-town trips.

6. The amazing thing to me is that with tax subsidies for the first 250,000 cars, Tesla is now profitable without any subsidies. The smartest use of Government funds I have ever seen!

7. My prognosis for the future is that we’ll have additional electric power generation from renewable sources, primarily solar and wind. In addition, battery technology will improve to the point that there is zero need for peaking plants.

@JLeslie If the playing field were absolutely level, I would agree with your point. But, we know that products manufactured overseas are priced low enough to drive local producers out of business. We do not have enough trans[parency to know if the prices can be sustained by the foreign manufacturers, or if they are just making a play for market share with government help.

@crazyguy My comparison with the HSR was shaky, I admit. My point being that without the infrastructure this will fail, just like the HSR.

@Caravanfan My respect for you just went up a thousand-fold, because:

1. You took the time to understand my objection.
2. You had the guts to admit that perhaps my objection has merit.

By the way, I think the infrastructure for EVs is keeping up with the explosion in the number of EVs, as pointed out above.

@crazyguy Of course your objection had merit; it was a good point. I may be snarky and borderline rude sometimes, but I’m not stupid and I respond to good arguments. I don’t argue for the sake of arguing, unless someone is being a dick. (Which I grant can sometimes be me)

In terms of electric cars, I’m currently getting solar put on my house and I have planned for a future electric car. But I’m a doctor with a modicum of income, and not all have my means.

@Caravanfan I respect your intellect. It does take money to be at the forefront of a revolution. I think EVs are just the front end of a revolution that will lead to sustainable, pollution-free energy.

Well, I say at work all the time “Hope is not a strategy” but I hope you are right.

@Caravanfan I have enjoyed our chat here. Whenever an entrepreneur launches disruptive technology, s/he has to hope for mass adoption.