Hey, Check This Out! - Sarah Seeliger

Electric Cars & California


The article I read was about the new mandate made by California to sell only electric cars by 2035. The article talked about the feasibility of this mandate. For example, the article had a section about whether or not California could do this legally. This section of the article talked about how California has been regulating their emissions since before the EPA existed, and because of this, California has been granted waivers from the federal government to pass their own air quality and emissions rules, which are often stricter than the federal government rules.  The Trump administration has been challenging California's waivers in court because they claim that only the EPA should be regulating auto emissions. The article said that lawsuits over the authority of the EPA are still under review, and that if either the EPA prevails in the lawsuits or the Trump administration has a second term, this mandate for electric cars could be nearly impossible to be carried out. 

Another interesting thing the article talked about was the affordability of electric cars. Electric cars as of now are assumed to be very expensive, but according to the article, electric cars could be "competitive in purchase price" with gas - fueled cars in the next few years. The article also mentions concerns about charging stations for electric cars. 

I think that this mandate is a good idea because exhaust from cars is a massive contributor to global warming, and by California has massive smog and air quality issues, so selling only electric cars an encouraging people to buy them would definitely be beneficial. I do think that the people behind this mandate need to make sure that electric cars are accessible to everyone though. For example, there are a lot of people who can't afford electric cars, sop there needs to be an option for those people. Also, like the article mentioned, there needs to be a sufficient amount of public charging stations so that people don't have to worry about running out of charge on the road. 


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