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Colorado has become the 11th state to adopt California’s zero-emission-vehicle mandate forcing automakers to sell more electric cars in the state. (emphasis added)
The new rule was passed by Colorado’s air-quality commission by a vote of 8 to 1 on Aug. 23. It requires at least 5% of an automaker’s new car lineup to be electric vehicles, or EVs, by 2023 and more than 6% by 2025.
The Colorado agreement, which echoes the one announced by California regulators, is tougher than the planned rollback of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards the White House previously outlined.
Similar to California’s zero-emission vehicle rules, automakers are granted some flexibility by receiving credits for the electric cars they sell before the new mandate is put into place. Companies can also buy credits from other […]
I think electric cars and bikes are great, especially in congested urban areas where air quality is terrible. And they continue to improve in range and performance. I just worry as to how we are going to supply the electricity to recharge them, especially when I read thing like what follows …
“How many coal-fired power plants are there in the world?
The EU has 468 – building 27 more… Total 495
Turkey has 56 – building 93 more… Total 149
South Africa has 79 building 24 more total 103
India has 589 – building 446 more…Total 1036
Philippines has 19 – building 60 more..Total79
South Korea has 58 building 26 more Total 84
Japan has 90 – building 45 more… Total 135
China has 2363 – building 1171 more… Total 3534
That’s 5,615 projected coal powered plants in just 8 countries.
USA has 15 – building 0 more.”
I agree that we need infrastructure to support the rise of electric vehicles. I live in Southern California, and our electric utility has been heavily campaigning for folks to stop using electricity between 4pm and 9pm, to reduce the drain on our overburdened system. The utility has raised prices for power use during those hours to encourage folks to lower usage. It seems that if we are already having issues with our grid, then adding electric cars to the mix will certainly cause a snowball effect. Another issue would be that the energy used to charge vehicles doesn’t necessarily come from clean sources. In fact, California is getting rid of subsidies that were meant to encourage the use of solar, so the idea of having every house charging their vehicle with solar is seeming less likely as well.
What we should do is build more solar/battery generators to charge these new cars. They should go with the sale of the car and included in the price. Of course we should also build more solar and wind power plants to power our homes so we can eliminate the use of coal-fired power plants. The Native Americans out west have already begun building solar power plants for their own use and to sell to the public. The Natives always had better respect for the land.
Technology seems to always be self-generating with one thing creating the need for more tech to support or compensate for newly created problems.
Without question electric will compensate for the harm caused by hydrocarbons except where to get the electricity. Coal is off the table, natural gas better but still a polluter, not enough wind and solar, nuclear power is low carbon except if it breaks and then that 25k year half-life waste thing. Consideration ,should be given as well to problems regarding the manufacture and disposal/recycling of huge numbers of batteries.
No doubt there are many other compensations that will need to be made. I am just trying to point out that the latest greatest solution always leads to new tech to solve the old tech. As I have gotten older I am much less impressed by our high tech wonder world and morn the lose of the natural world that high tech has no solution for.