Washington to ban all new gas car sales in 2030

[walla2]

So Governor Inslee is set to sign a complete new gas car ban in Washington State.

This is probably to generate more revenue given the already horrible EV dissentives in Washington State that charge for weight (higher in an EV), higher taxes at purchase due to higher purchase prices, EV registration fees that exceed the annual gas tax paid, and news plans to have a mileage tax on top of these charges.

Plus 80% of the state lacks the infrastructure to charge at high rates.

While I'm an huge EV advocate, this is premature and just another example of Seattle first politics that usually don't make sense anywhere else in the world or most importantly among about 45% of the states non-governing population that has different needs than the people that live in the largest 3 counties.

This bill will result in mass failure, layoffs of car salesman, shuttering of gas station businesses, and likely out of state business registration in neighboring states to circumvent this overstep.

 

[tharasix]

I'm sure the goal here is to jump start changes to prevent the exact problems you're predicting, especially with a federal administration that has an aggressive goal to build out EV charging stations and massively increase the number of EVs in the federal fleet. I'm also wondering why you're bemoaning layoffs of car salesmen and shuttering of gas stations. Isn't that the change we're looking for?

 

[SteveG]

Also, smart gas station owners will convert at least part of their station to L2 charging. Eventually going to 100% EV charging as the numbers warrant.

 

[PLUS EV]

This bill will result in mass failure, layoffs of car salesman, shuttering of gas station businesses...

You hate to see it.

 

[Long Ranger]

Looks to me like the law applies to “passenger and light duty vehicles of model year 2030 or later”.

January 2033: “Ford announces latest additions to the 2029 model lineup.”

 

[walla2]

I'm sure the goal here is to jump start changes to prevent the exact problems you're predicting, especially with a federal administration that has an aggressive goal to build out EV charging stations and massively increase the number of EVs in the federal fleet. I'm also wondering why you're bemoaning layoffs of car salesmen and shuttering of gas stations. Isn't that the change we're looking for?

I like the future of no gas and more models of EVs, but my point is that it is likely that neither the auto industry or Washington State will be ready in 9 years. The government here often makes laws without thinking and without building out support for the laws. Affordable long range EVs won't be ready in 9 years and not everyone can get around on 100 mile range subcompacts that aren't even sold here. Sales of those cars are unfavorable here due to lack of infrastructure and because the registration and taxes cost way more than gas cars pay. Our grid will not be magically updated to support home charging of this magnatude. There are efforts in place to ban natural gas and propane for all uses meaning the grid will need updates for that too that also won't be done well. There are no solar incentives in the State any longer as the government let all that lapse so that option won't be adopted. Our roads are in poor shape and the EV charging rollout along highways was supposed to be done years ago but hasn't even started. The patchwork of broken chargers we have now can't even accommodate 3% EV ownership at this point. How will it handle 99%?
The government likes headlines, and Inslee will run again for President on a green platform touting his amazing gas car ban as a signature achievement. In reality, Washington State is one of the least favorable and least prepared states for mass EV ownership. They picked 2030 so they can tout superiority in headlines to California and the world but won't follow through on any of the needed support to actually do any of this right.

Again, we do need to make this transition to EVs but setting unrealistic goals and planning not to support them simultaneously is stupid.

 

[angus[Y]oung]

Well there's always the possibility that deadlines could be extended in the future if the timeline is too aggressive. I think it's better to shoot for the stars here, because climate change is real and the longer it takes to dramatically cut CO2 emissions, the worse off we are going to be.

Up here your neighbors to the north have unfortunately gone with 2040 for the total ban, which I don't think is aggressive enough. British Columbia passes emissions law banning sale of gas-powered cars by 2040.

 

[BarryL]

Hey I’m all in for EV’s, although do you really think the State of WA can force auto manufacturers to produce an all-electric line up?

Change is slow, but I don’t see OEMs selling 100% passenger fleet in EV only format in 8.5 years. I think it will take 15+ years to make this shift.

 

[angus[Y]oung]

Hey I’m all in for EV’s, although do you really think the State of WA can force auto manufacturers to produce an all-electric line up?

Change is slow, but I don’t see OEMs selling 100% passenger fleet in EV only format in 8.5 years. I think it will take 15+ years to make this shift.

@BarryL they can't force the manufacturers to do anything, but if they want sales in the state, it will be in their best interest to offer some EV options! It may not be that their entire lineups are updated but hopefully by 2030 there will be enough choices for most. This is already in play. Here's a non-comprehensive list of some of the EVs available now and coming over the next few years, all off the top of my head:
- Tesla: S,3,X,Y, Cybertruck; maybe Model 2?
- Ford: Mustang Mach-E, F150, an upcoming Transit cargo van, and more coming I'm sure
- GM family: Bolt EV and Volt EUV, Hummer EV truck & SUVs, Caddy what's that SUV called again? I forget now. And I'm sure countless more.
- Not sure at all about the Dodge/Chrysler line up, haven't heard much
- Honda: very slow but have some concepts out now; I'm sure within 9 years they'll have something
- Toyota: Prius Prime, Rav4 Prime, and more in the pipe
- Hyundai: lineup of several "Ionic" vehicles coming over next few years, starting with Ionic 5 and expanding; Kona EV
- Kia: Same with "EV" lineup, starting with EV6
- VW: "ID" family, starting with ID4, and tons coming including a van
- Audi: E-Tron, E-Tron Sportback, E-Tron GT, Q4 E-Tron (2022?), A4 Etron (2026?)
- Mercedes: "EQ" family of products
- BMW: i4 and I think they have an SUV/CUV as well coming soon
- Rivian: Truck and SUV
- Lordstown: truck? I think?
- Lucid: starting with the Air I think this year or next
- Mazda: MX-30 EV (admittedly a fairly weak options)

I'm sure I've missed a ton, but already I can see a fairly good selection of vehicles that should be out there by 2030.

 

[acarney]

I have really mixed feelings over this. It needs to happen and honestly I don't think that timeline is wrong... however, I don't like HOW it's happening.

I don't want to see just the headline "Gas car sales to be banned in 2030"

I want to see 'WA plans 150 new public high speed chargers every year between now and 2030 to support banning gas cars by 2030"

I want to see "WA mandates all new construction must have NEMA 14-50's prewired in garages and has created a fund to help offset costs and keep builders from passing on extra costs."

I want to see "All new hotels required to have 10% of parking spaces EV Level 2 stations and 25% of spaces EV Level 2 stations 2025 onward"

I want "All WA state parks and recreation areas to be electrified with 48 amp level 2 stations to facilitate visitation by EVs and electric towing"

Sure, maybe the market will slowly adapt to this, but it's not going to be a smooth transition and it's not going to be fast. There will be an inflection point where EV sales are starting to hit what gas car sales are, and maybe then we'll see mad investment in chargers but until then it's going to be slow. Mainly EA and Tesla deploying high powered stations and others sticking with much slower stations (I think we've had some new stations on the east side of the state come online in the last year or two that are only 50 (!) kW. That's just insane at this point in the game).

It's cheap and easy (because it's free) to announce a ban. It's hard an expensive to actually show you're marching towards the end where the ban won't even really be felt.

Sure EV's will be better in 9 years. Maybe Tesla will routinely be 500 mile range, but what about the $25k car from Ford or Chevy or someone. Is that going to be a big 200kWh battery and 500 miles (which lets face it, is like 300 in the winter) or will they still be like a 100kWh pack that might be like 175 miles in the winter at highway speeds.

We need charging on rural roads out to small towns of just a few thousand people. We need charging up to the mountains in state parks. We need charging all over cities for the masses that live in apartments or 50+ year old homes that require panel upgrades and costly wire runs for EV charging at home. Tesla owners and Porsche owners and stuff can afford to drop $4,500 or something on upgrading their panel and running 75+ feet of wire to add a NEMA 14-50 to the garage, but plenty of people won't be able to afford buying a new $25k EV and making those upgrades which is going to keep people from buying EVs until they're forced to.

However, if they see every mall, grocery store, movie theater, gym, public park, etc with level 2 stations in the next four or five years then they might start to think it's possible without home charging, or with slow level 1 charging. (Though I worry 50 year old wiring might not be up to the demands of 8+ hours at 80% of rated load...)

WA could have a chance to show the steps they're taking to help people excited about the ban and largely unaffected by it... but I haven't seen that at all.

There are 67,885 EV's and plug in hybrids that have been having to pay the new $75 registration fee since 2019. This isn't even counting all the normal (non-plugin) hybrids that were slapped with that fee. Even just assuming every vehicle has only paid it once so far and hasn't hit the second cycle that is $5.1 million bucks the state has collected.... has anyone seen it publicized where this money has been spent so far?

Skimming over some white papers it seems incredibly hard to nail down what the average cost is for DCFC... there are a million parts that go into the equation, probably why it seems so dang hard and slow for new stations to be built. Lets say the average cost is about $87,000 for a 150kW unit (data from Rocky Mountain Institute as of 2019). Lets say each site being built right now should have four plugs (and probably increased fairly dramatically soon). Maybe the average cost then for each site is about $350k. WA would have collected enough funds just from EVs and PHEV to deploy 14 sites around the state (56 plugs). That's almost twice as many sites as EA has (outside of the Seattle area). They could have deployed along highway 12 which currently has zero 50kW or faster DCFC. They could deploy along the 101 from the OR boarder up the coast, currently has zero DCFC. Could deploy between Leavenworth and Spokane along highway 2 which currently has zero... North to Canada along highway 97 or 395 (North of Spokane) which both currently have zero.... maybe up near the North Cascades Nation Park, which has zero...

Three along the coast would be roughly every 60 miles and open up that whole area.

Three along highway 12 between Chehalis to Yakima would be roughly every 50 miles and open that up

Three along highway 2 between Leavenworth and Spokane would be roughly every 60 miles and open that up

Three along highway 97 between Wenatchee and Oroville would be roughly every 70 miles and open that route up into Canada

Two along highway 395 North of Spokane (Spokane area already has some) would open that route up into Canada and be one every ~50 miles.

Those 14 stations $5 million could buy you would open up five highway routes that right now would be hard to do in a non-Tesla, especially in winter months or with a loaded car (roof container or something) or towing anything. The spacing would give peace of mind with redundancy in case one station went down you would only have about 100 to 140 miles max you would have to make it and each station would have four plugs.

I'm sure they electrified a couple buses or something with this money... but man, you want people to stop buying gas cars, build out this stuff and do it now, make waves.

 

[acarney]

@BarryL they can't force the manufacturers to do anything, but if they want sales in the state, it will be in their best interest to offer some EV options! It may not be that their entire lineups are updated but hopefully by 2030 there will be enough choices for most. This is already in play. Here's a non-comprehensive list of some of the EVs available now and coming over the next few years, all off the top of my head:
- Tesla: S,3,X,Y, Cybertruck; maybe Model 2?
- Ford: Mustang Mach-E, F150, an upcoming Transit cargo van, and more coming I'm sure
- GM family: Bolt EV and Volt EUV, Hummer EV truck & SUVs, Caddy what's that SUV called again? I forget now. And I'm sure countless more.
- Not sure at all about the Dodge/Chrysler line up, haven't heard much
- Honda: very slow but have some concepts out now; I'm sure within 9 years they'll have something
- Toyota: Prius Prime, Rav4 Prime, and more in the pipe
- Hyundai: lineup of several "Ionic" vehicles coming over next few years, starting with Ionic 5 and expanding; Kona EV
- Kia: Same with "EV" lineup, starting with EV6
- VW: "ID" family, starting with ID4, and tons coming including a van
- Audi: E-Tron, E-Tron Sportback, E-Tron GT, Q4 E-Tron (2022?), A4 Etron (2026?)
- Mercedes: "EQ" family of products
- BMW: i4 and I think they have an SUV/CUV as well coming soon
- Rivian: Truck and SUV
- Lordstown: truck? I think?
- Lucid: starting with the Air I think this year or next
- Mazda: MX-30 EV (admittedly a fairly weak options)

I'm sure I've missed a ton, but already I can see a fairly good selection of vehicles that should be out there by 2030.

How many of those do you think will have sub $30k EVs with good range 250+ miles (winter in this state means about 150 miles highway range)

I'm thinking the ones I bolded...

That's seven companies... and who knows with Tesla, they might be like a BMW or Merc and always try to keep the price like mid to high $30k range and just add features. (Cheaper vehicle might be for overseas markets, China, India, etc). I figure Kia and Hyundai are very safe bets for low priced cars and GM probably will be able to bring good range down into that price range. I assume Ford will as well, but right now the MachE is pretty pricy and I'm sure the F150 won't have any cheap versions for a number of years. Toyota should target that range, and they have some affordable hybrids, but they don't have a lot of experience on pure EVs right now, getting plants setup and cost reductions might take them a few more years. I'm honestly not too sure about VW, they've actually always been a slightly more expensive option compared to the other mainstream cars... I have no comment on Honda right now; they absolutely target that market now, but man they might have blown a bunch of R&D costs over the years chasing a technology that won't get adopted mainstream and they may be way behind on EVs and battery productions and such...

We'll need trucks with like 150kWh and larger packs just to keep the range up in the winter and smaller cars will need to have a number of cheap options that are like $28k to $34k; a lot of buyers are down in that range even if the averages are higher than that. You don't want to essentially cut off a large chunk of income class that might have previously been able to afford a new car in the high 20s to just into the 30s and instead force them to buy used with higher upkeep costs. This also isn't even addressing the number of people who buy cars in the low 20s or just below that. Do any search for cheapest cars and there are top 10 lists for brand new cars that are $20k or just below. Again, someone looking for a car with a payment around $300 a month on a 60 month loan at 4.5% if they had a couple thousand trade equity isn't going to do well if they now have to buy used and run into $1,500 worth of repairs in the first two years or something.

We need to create a strong demand right now so companies are ready before the deadlines, not near them. We want EV sales approaching equal to gas sales probably three years or something before the cut off so the hard edge cases (sports cars, large SUVs and trucks) are still gas but first cars, commuter cars, and mid income family cars all went EV first. That helps for a smooth transition instead of an abrupt wall in the market where the average price has jumped $10k in one or two years.

Again, this is all possibly only if charging is wide spread and in the less frequent traveled areas. Roads that are only open seasonally (would EA build a $300k charger on a road that only is used 7 months out of the year?). Ski areas that might only see frequent travel four months out of the year. The coast that might only see heavy travel five or six months out of the year. Can't have people like EA spread 7 or 8 locations out across the state and then 20 in Seattle/Olympia area. That won't work....

 

[acarney]

I like the future of no gas and more models of EVs, but my point is that it is likely that neither the auto industry or Washington State will be ready in 9 years. The government here often makes laws without thinking and without building out support for the laws. Affordable long range EVs won't be ready in 9 years and not everyone can get around on 100 mile range subcompacts that aren't even sold here. Sales of those cars are unfavorable here due to lack of infrastructure and because the registration and taxes cost way more than gas cars pay. Our grid will not be magically updated to support home charging of this magnatude. There are efforts in place to ban natural gas and propane for all uses meaning the grid will need updates for that too that also won't be done well. There are no solar incentives in the State any longer as the government let all that lapse so that option won't be adopted. Our roads are in poor shape and the EV charging rollout along highways was supposed to be done years ago but hasn't even started. The patchwork of broken chargers we have now can't even accommodate 3% EV ownership at this point. How will it handle 99%?
The government likes headlines, and Inslee will run again for President on a green platform touting his amazing gas car ban as a signature achievement. In reality, Washington State is one of the least favorable and least prepared states for mass EV ownership. They picked 2030 so they can tout superiority in headlines to California and the world but won't follow through on any of the needed support to actually do any of this right.

Again, we do need to make this transition to EVs but setting unrealistic goals and planning not to support them simultaneously is stupid.

You're absolutely right. There's a reason why out of ~67,885 vehicles (which also includes plug in hybrids) Tesla makes up 41% of all owned! They have invested in charging... and even still there are some routes that would be tight in a Model Y or Model 3, especially in winter. If someone bought a MachE as their only vehicle in this state they would be stuck on a lot of 50kW chargers if they ventured off the two major interstates. In the winter and with mountains you might be down at like 2.5 miles/kWh and at 50kW that would be just about 2 miles a minute... 45 minutes would only get you about 90 miles recharged. Midway through 2021 and that's what you get....

 

[CyberGus]

In 2030, the Big Three will just start selling cars mail-order as an "out-of-state" transaction, with the excuse "well, Tesla does it!"

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I hate this fractured approach.

We need a federal level fast/super charging standard so charging is simplified.

We need an electrical grid that can handle that many EV's.

We need EV's that can push electricity back to the grid to have a more robust grid.

I don't think this ban will actually mean much. They should have aligned with the other west coast states on a date. Ultimately it will likely get delayed to match other states.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

All existing gas cars are grandfathered in. This is political grandstanding and nothing more. Of course it's Jay Inslee we're talking about, grandstanding is all he's good for. Meanwhile they just keep trying to impose new fees on EV's in this state, which shows you how they really feel.

 

[TunaBug]

All existing gas cars are grandfathered in. This is political grandstanding and nothing more. Of course it's Jay Inslee we're talking about, grandstanding is all he's good for. Meanwhile they just keep trying to impose new fees on EV's in this state, which shows you how they really feel.

Seems obvious that existing cars will be grandfathered. I agree this is grandstanding, the Seattle/Inslee crowd trying to be more woke than California. I think it's amazingly stupid and arrogant of them to think that Washington has enough pull to make this happen.

However, I'm not opposed to this. I like that they've put a stake in the ground and more progress will happen because of it. Will the goal be met? No I don't think so. But this will cause us to be much closer in 2029 than we would have been without it. And then in 2029 the folks in Olympia can just waive their wand and extend it to 2035.

Or to put that another way: I think we're more likely to get there in 2035 by doing it this way.

 

[acarney]

Seems obvious that existing cars will be grandfathered. I agree this is grandstanding, the Seattle/Inslee crowd trying to be more woke than California. I think it's amazingly stupid and arrogant of them to think that Washington has enough pull to make this happen.

However, I'm not opposed to this. I like that they've put a stake in the ground and more progress will happen because of it. Will the goal be met? No I don't think so. But this will cause us to be much closer in 2029 than we would have been without it. And then in 2029 the folks in Olympia can just waive their wand and extend it to 2035.

Or to put that another way: I think we're more likely to get there in 2035 by doing it this way.

What progress will happen?

 

[ijoe13]

Some good conversation on this topic. Seems to be a chicken vs egg scenario in terms of do we wait for the market (ICE automakers) to pivot to EVs, thus creating an increase in charging infrastructure buildout? Or do we have Olympia or DC force their hand?

There may be another factor, among many others not discussed yet: Robotaxis. I know this is a hypothetical factor, but autonomous vehicles may absorb some of the pressure from low income folks in terms of car ownership. If someone can take an autonomous taxi, even in a smaller city or town, they may elect that option vs owning an EV and having to install EV charging (ex: 14-50 outlet) at home. Or won’t ha e to think about it if they live in a multi unit building. Something to keep an eye on over the next decade.

 

[TunaBug]

Some good conversation on this topic. Seems to be a chicken vs egg scenario in terms of do we wait for the market (ICE automakers) to pivot to EVs, thus creating an increase in charging infrastructure buildout? Or do we have Olympia or DC force their hand?

I wouldn't call it forcing. More like "strongly encouraging". But I don't see that there is an option. At some point people will resist change in order to defend their own entrenched ways. I remember being a kid when laws were passed that required seatbelts--they used to be optional. My guess is that back in the day brakes and headlights used to be optional, too.

 

[N8DGR8]

If this really happens, and you have a grandfathered ICE vehicle... I wonder how long until the gas infrastructure collapses??? Where do you buy gas in 2035?