Maryland Delays Implementing Senseless, California-Style EV Mandate
Governor Wes Moore blames President Trump; however, American interest in EVs is running out of gas.
In the summer of 2024, I reported that the state of Connecticut opted to forgo adopting California-style electric vehicle (EV) mandates. Additionally, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin put the brakes on his state’s EV mandate at the end of the year.
Another state is now reconsidering its EV mandate. Maryland’s governor has delayed its attempt to be East Coast California.
The Maryland Freedom Caucus is claiming victory after Governor Wes Moore issued an executive order last week delaying implementation of California’s Advanced Clean Cars (CACC) 11 mandate by two years. The order comes in direct response to the Freedom Caucus’s January 16, 2025 letter calling for Maryland to fully withdraw from the program.
“This is a major win for the people of Maryland,” said Delegate Matt Morgan, Chair of the Maryland Freedom Caucus. “We sounded the alarm early, and now Governor Moore is backing down. This delay is proof that the Freedom Caucus is delivering real results for working families and small businesses.”
The CACC 11 mandate, modeled after California’s extreme environmental regulations, would have forced 43% of all new cars sold in Maryland by model year 2027 to be electric—despite EVs making up less than 10% of vehicles on Maryland roads and consumer demand continuing to drop. The Freedom Caucus’s letter warned that the mandate would cripple local auto dealerships, burden consumers with unaffordable vehicle choices, and force residents to rely on a charging infrastructure that does not yet exist.
Moore, a Democrat, blamed President Donald Trump, citing the current administration’s withholding of federal funds and concerns from automakers.
“There are indications that the policies of the current federal administration will greatly impact … compliance,” he said. The order noted that the Department of Transportation has held back funding under former president Joe Biden’s $7.5 billion program to build a network of EV chargers across the country.
That program, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, was designed to push billions of dollars in federal taxpayer funds to state governments for the purpose of constructing EV charging stations. But the program has faced widespread criticism for producing just a handful of stations over the course of three years and, in one of his first actions, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy froze funding for the program and vowed to “recalibrate” implementation.
However, we may have reached peak-EV-mania in this nation, which may also play a part in the state’s calculation.
EVs sales.
Still not hitting Government targets.
Despite the coercion and mandates.
Because they are expensive and unfit for purpose.#CostOfNetZero #ElectricVehicles https://t.co/PJZkFrh6uK pic.twitter.com/nocCv6g1ir— DonKeiller (@KeillerDon) April 6, 2025
American interest in owning EVs is running out of gas.
Americans are less interested in buying and owning electric vehicles than they were two years ago, according to polling Gallup released Tuesday.
The poll shows that the number of Americans who are open to buying an EV has dropped to 51 percent in early 2025, down from 59 percent in 2023.
EV makers face increasing pressures from sweeping Trump administration tariffs, the threat of repeal of consumer tax credits and a halt to a national build-out of EV chargers.
While EV sales are still on the rise from year to year, the increase has slowed in recent months. Tesla sales in particular have plummeted as Elon Musk’s push to cut the federal workforce as head of the U.S. DOGE Service has polarized the country.
What's melting: Consumer interest in EVs. https://t.co/r5bcsRl1ci pic.twitter.com/oQN6wUGlJY
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) April 8, 2025
Hot Air’s Beege Welborne explains the market realities that California opted to ignore when it created its mandate.
EV sales reached their zenith a couple of years ago, and while still selling, it’s nowhere near the pace that eager-beaver cultists and authoritarian governments had projected and based their decrees on.
European car makers have been scrambling to drop or downsize planned new EV model rollouts, burnish what they do have, and focus on their ICE and hybrid money-makers.
Here in the States, thanks to the November 5th election, we’ve managed to stop some of the bleeding.
There won’t be any EV mandate coming out of an administration that is actively working to undo the harm of the previous one’s climate-driven insanity.
Yeah, I voted for this.
I voted for this, too….and it’s even better than I expected.
I voted for this, too.
Whiff of InEVitability: Looks Like We're Over EVs https://t.co/UQUWzEOiXQ pic.twitter.com/PmZ69UDjn3
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) April 9, 2025
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Comments
“Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin put the breaks on”
If we can’t get the reporters to learn how to put brakes on, how will we get the commenters to learn how to rein stuff in?
Brakes, Too, Two, To. Our Journolists are subgenius
Fixed. Thank you for the catch.
give her a brake Henry.
Not until they stop trying to diffuse tricky situations.
Even WITH Tesla, it was impossible to meet these insane milestones, because there are not enough vehicles and batteries being manufactured. Everybody knew they were just BS virtue signaling.
With them screaming Tesla is run by Not-Sees and destroying every Tesla in sight, they can’t even PRETEND that its possible.
Given their behavior, they can no longer even pretend that Climate Change is an existential threat.
TBH I’m not so sure the politicians and zealots actually do understand just how far their mandatory EV and mandatory electric appliances/heat are from any realistic implementation. They very much remind me of the commie bureaucracy in ‘Atlas.Shrugged’ who responded to any questions about their Cray Cray dictates that the ‘Capitalists’ would find a way to make it work. NY State has some absolutely unachievable Net Zero mandates coming very soon and they aren’t the only one. Meanwhile many of these same States are shutting down reliable sources of electricity generation, doubling down on Net Zero mandates even as wind power and commercial solar are proving unable to meet demand.
“American interest in owning EVs is running out of gas.”
ISWYDT
I always wondered how these mandates were going to work. Were dealers going to say “sorry, we’ve hit our quota of non-EV sales, you’re going to have to take an EV or nothing.” If customers don’t want to buy EVs, dealers can’t very well force them to.
Not and stay in business they can’t.
.
Yeah, I always wondered the same thing. Who gets to tell him that they got to be a schmuck and buy that crappy car?
Probably banking on people needing to travel to work, vacation etc and having no choice but to buy an EV when the IC vehicle supply dries up. You can’t buy what’s not being made.
Well thanks for demonstrating once again that you’re a fascist Moore..
No, no, no. Don’t let president Trump talk you out of an EV mandate if you’re really that stupid.
As an aside, EV’s can work in certain situations. Ive got a Chinese made MG5 and it works for me. I do a lot of local running about and have access to a good night rate to recharge the car. Its also ok for the long distances that I do (to certain place Id love to retire to on the coast) and easily gets me there and back and around and about (generally 160-200 miles at the most).
They are also getting cheaper and going further and as technology marches on they will get better.
However what doesnt work is forcing people in to them. When humanity changed over from horses to cars it wasn’t because “The Man” went around and shot all the horses forcing humanity in to petrol vehicles. No, the reason humanity changed was that something better came along.
And that is the situation we are in today. Governments are literally going about and metaphorically killing horses to force people in to vehicles BEFORE they are actually fit for purpose.
Governments are deliberately making fossil fuels more expensive while hiding the true cost of generating energy from ground unicorn horn, windmills and mirrors.
Even worse, Governments are making themselves reliant on our political enemies by having to buy rare earth minerals from China and gas and oil from Russia while making it impossible to mine for those minerals and oil and gas!
I’ve talked to people that love their EV’s. That’s all well and good but people should not be forced into buying one if they don’t want one. If you want one, buy it just don’t tell me I have to.
Worlds to live by. It’s a shame that the statists in government and most democrats don’t seem to understand it. Well it’s actually beyond a shame. It is actually criminal that they involve themselves in matters that only vaguely affect them if at all.
If Ford made an F250 hybrid with 1000 ft lbs of torque, I’d buy the shit out of it. Hybrids are the way.