Back in 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the California Air Resources Board phase-out plan that would require “100 percent zero-emissions personal use and drayage vehicles by 2035 and as many medium-duty and heavy-duty vehicle applications deemed feasible by 2045.”
The state began phasing in this insanity in 2022. Currently, 11 other states have essentially adopted California’s ludicrous rules: Oregon, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Vermont, Virginia, Colorado, Maryland, Delaware, New Mexico, and New Jersey.
Earlier this year, Maine was poised to be Lucky 13, but those plans were nixed. Now, Connecticut lawmakers have jettisoned plans to follow California into the energy abyss.
Citing a lack of support for the more aggressive deadline, Connecticut’s Democratic leadership left out California’s mandate to require all new cars to be equipped with electric or plug-in hybrid engine technology by 2035 from the Constitution State’s long-awaited EV bill. This move follows the Biden administration’s decision to defer adoption of the federal EV transition timeline, which is significantly less aggressive than the California plan.“For people that were skeptical that we could meet the harder standard, and then you have the president and the White House saying they cannot meet the lower standard, you can imagine how that caucus would have gone,” Connecticut House speaker Matt Ritter told CT Insider. “It’s like saying, if we can’t hit the 40 mph fastball, how’re we going to hit the 80 mph fastball?”
Furthermore, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently announced that his state will slash the breaks on its EV mandate at the end of the year.
“The idea that government should tell people what kind of car they can or can’t purchase is fundamentally wrong,” Youngkin said in a statement. “Virginians deserve the freedom to choose which vehicles best fit the needs of their families and businesses. The law is clear, and I am proud to announce Virginians will no longer be forced to live under this out-of-touch policy.”…Ultimately, California’s more aggressive rules provided the legal justification for Virginia’s withdrawal. Youngkin’s press release claims that H.B. 1965 merely authorized the state to follow Advanced Clean Cars I, the rules in place at the time that went through 2025. “An opinion from Attorney General Jason Miyares confirms the law, as written, does not require Virginia to follow ACC II [the California-based standard that expanded the requirements],” the press release continues. “Therefore, the Commonwealth will follow federal emissions standards on January 1, 2025.”
The citizens of Connecticut and Virginia should be grateful for these moves. RealClearEnergy contributor Duggan Flanakin recently examined the math behind EV use and demonstrated that it simply doesn’t compute.
Without an EV in the garage, air conditioning uses nearly a fifth of household electricity, followed by space heating and water heating (a combined 25%). But adding just one home-charged EV changes that calculus dramatically. The EV takes up about 30% ot the much higher total electricity use, dropping the share for all other uses significantly.Two home-charged EVs would eat up nearly half the household’s total electricity usage – and require thousands of dollars to upgrade the house’s electric panel. Today’s 50-kva transformers, which cost about $8,000 each, can power about 60 homes; that number drops closer to 40 if each of those homes houses one electric vehicle, closer to 30 with two EVs using home chargers.For a city with 120,000 homes, which today may require about 2,000 transformers, the addition of 120,000 home-charged electric vehicles means adding 1,000 transformers, about $8 million. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because distributing 50 to 100% more household electricity requires generating 50 to 100% more electricity.
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