The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing most of the nation’s leading automakers, has questioned whether looming state bans on gas-fueled vehicles will be workable and suggested that insufficient consumer demand could hinder efforts to end the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles in 11 states by 2035.
States Seek to Curb Gas-Powered Cars
The group, which represents the nation’s largest car companies — with the exception of electric vehicle maker Tesla — raised the concerns in comments filed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is considering a request from California for a waiver under federal air quality laws to implement its gas vehicle phase-out.
California’s air quality regulatory agency in 2022 implemented a rule that made it the first state to effectively ban new gasoline vehicles by 2035. Ten states subsequently imposed the same deadline.
EV Sales Need to Catch Up
The AAI, according to Reuters, wrote that the plan could work in California — in “the early years” of the mandate, at least — but that in other states, where electric vehicle sales are comparatively lower, the outcome is “less certain.”
In all but one of those states, the group said, sales of EVs, plug-in hybrid, or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would need to double in order to make up for a lack of gas-powered cars.
EPA Weighs California Waiver
The California Air Resources Board reportedly responded that its policy is important to both improving public health and combating the climate crisis and that other states have shown that they agree. The EPA did not comment on the AAI filing.
A leading group representing oil and gas producers, meanwhile, filed comments urging the EPA to reject the waiver request.
White House Policy
The Biden administration has avoided setting deadlines to phase out gas cars entirely, instead opting for rules that would slash vehicle emission requirements — and promote sales of zero-emission cars — although those could be relaxed in the near future.
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