Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) has just announced that the state will adopt the clean-car rules that originated in California, phasing out the sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.
The Advanced Clean Cars II rule, first implemented in California in 2022 under a provision of the Clean Air Act, allows states to impose stricter car standards than their federal counterparts. The standards are not retroactive to existing cars or to used car sales.“Today, we’re talking about a major transformation that is going to define this administration—and that’s how we turn Maryland from a state powered by oil and gas to a state powered by clean energy,” Moore said in a statement. “I am confident that the state of Maryland can and will lead the clean energy revolution.”Projections by the state Department of the Environment estimates that under the rule, Maryland will see 383,000 fewer sales of new gas-powered vehicles by the end of the decade. The state could also see lower carbon dioxide emissions from both the vehicles themselves and the power plants used to manufacture them by over 82 million metric tons.
Maryland becomes the 5th state to follow California off the green-energy cliff, and its governor relies on pseudoscience to promote this plan.
Maryland joins California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington in making the move.In a statement, Moore said that, by 2040, the step could “potentially provide net in-state health benefits equal to about $39.9 million per year due to decreases in respiratory and cardiovascular illness and associated lost work days.”The bans prevent automakers from selling new gasoline-powered cars in the seven states. But they don’t require anyone to stop driving their current car or prevent them from selling it used.Maryland residents will still be able to buy and sell used gas-powered cars or buy new gas-powered cars in other states and title them in Maryland.
The state officials are not heeding the warning of a true expert in car technology: Toyota Motor chief Akio Toyoda.
“People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority,” Toyoda said. “That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend so they can’t speak out loudly.”“Because the right answer is still unclear, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to just one option,” he added.The remarks come as supply chain issues that were sparked by the coronavirus pandemic have continued to make it difficult for manufacturers to get the raw materials needed to make new cars, especially electric vehicles.
All the reasons that Toyoda expresses are still valid. Lithium supplies remain a concern, even for proposed “solid state” batteries that may eventually work better than the lithium ion batteries now in use.
Although the internal constituents of batteries vary based on construction, lithium is a key factor in most. Globally, lithium prices have tripled in the past year alone, and that’s despite global lithium production tripling in just the past five years. There is, quite simply, a global shortage of the stuff.The problem is that solid-state batteries could actually use even more lithium than today’s lithium-ion packs. Remember those higher-density anodes mentioned above? They’ll likely be made of pure lithium metal. “Now, lithium metal can increase the specific energy of your battery by up to three times but it comes as pure lithium, which means the lithium intensity is also increased,” [Rory McNulty, co-author of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence’s Solid-State and Lithium Metal Batteries Report] said, noting this will exacerbate the lithium shortage.
Charging time is not a trivial consideration. It takes 15 minutes, tops, to fill up a gas tank. However, EV charging can take considerably longer…especially if fast charging stations are full or unavailable.
Charging an EV can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 24 hours, depending on the type of charger you’re using and how low your battery level is. DC fast chargers will typically get your battery to about 80 percent in 30 to 60 minutes, while a Level 2 charger can take closer to 8 hours.
A friend of mine went to Santa Barbara in an EV recently. The normally 5-hour trip took 2 days: He could not locate a fast charging station and needed to charge his car overnight before getting to his destination.
Eventually, the battery will need to be replaced…at nearly the cost of a new car.
We reached out to five mechanics and technicians from different parts of the U.S. to see how much an EV battery replacement costs for different vehicles, and the average results ranged from $4,489 all the way to a staggering $17,658.Keep reading to find out what an EV battery is, how long it lasts, how to know if yours is going bad, what it might cost you to repair or replace yours and whether a warranty can help.
All of these realities will not disappear because gasoline-powered cars are banned.
We are now experiencing an enhanced awareness of the consequences of blindly following narrative science offered by politically-connected “experts” as the Twitter Files and continuing investigation into the pandemic response show how real science was hidden from public view.
It’s time to investigate if fossil fuels really present significant “climate change” hazards or if carbon dioxide should be really viewed as a trace gas that is essential to plant life. A look at the messaging and the political connections is warranted before other states follow California into green madness.
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