2035

California is likely to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035:

And this week, another profound development: California, which already leads the nation with 18 percent of new cars sold electric, is expected to approve a regulation to ban the sales of new gas-only powered vehicles by 2035. In addition to EVs, only a limited number of plug-in hybrids will be allowed to be sold. This is a big deal: California’s car market is only slightly smaller than those of France, Italy and the United Kingdom — and while many countries have promised to phase out gas car sales by such-and-such date, few have concrete regulations like California. Sixteen states have traditionally followed California’s lead in setting its own independent fuel standards — they could soon follow.

Going from 18 percent to nearly 100 percent EV sales in just 13 years may seem almost impossible. But Corey Cantor, an electric vehicles associate at the research firm BloombergNEF, points out that in 2019 only 7 percent of new cars sold in California were EVs. In a few short years, that number has more than doubled.

The path to making electric vehicles the dominant model won’t be easy — needless to say, low-efficiency gas vehicles are going to intensify as an identity politics signifier in red states — but the choice available to consumers is about to get a lot more extensive.