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“It’s become much more political than it should be, but that’s part of the story,” said Dr. Gil Tal, director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at UC Davis.” Read more...

The global shift to electric vehicles is in high gear, but it remains uncertain whether the US will reap the benefits of being a global leader in this transition. Putting the brakes on progress now would put hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs across the US at risk, and it would allow foreign manufacturers to gain a competitive edge over the US auto industry. Scaling back deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) would also undermine efforts to limit climate change.

Note: this article was updated on Oct 1 after the Governor signed/vetoed all bills.

Widespread adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) is a key strategy to help reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses and pollutants. To help implement this strategy, US federal and state agencies, utilities, and private companies are investing billions of dollars in public PEV charging infrastructure.

DRIVERS answered a recent survey asking if they'd transition from a gas-powered car to an EV - only a third responded positively.

Additionally, men answered they're more likely to buy an EV over women drivers.

The U.S. Sun acquired a survey asking drivers if they'd consider an EV as their next vehicle Read more here...

For more than fifty years, U.S. transportation planners and engineers have focused their energies and our investments on building a transportation system that moves private cars as quickly and efficiently as possible. This worked to make it easy for many people to get around - up to a point. Increasingly, however, a pileup of factors is making it harder and harder to rationalize the practices, funding mechanisms, and even philosophies that made the 20th century the embodiment of personal freedom via driving a car.

Some envision flying cars, but for Dan Sperling, the future is electric.

“I think there's a global acceptance that electric vehicles are the future,” Sperling said. “It's really just a question of exactly how and how fast.”

For the United States, the conversion is growing, but mainly in California, where the state is an outlier.

“In China now, over a third of new car sales are electric vehicles. In Europe, it's about a quarter,” Sperling said. “In the United States, it's less than 10%.”

The pressure is on for California to meet its clean-vehicle goals. In less than two years, 35% of vehicles sold must have zero tailpipe emissions. And by 2035, all light-duty vehicles sold must be zero emissions. 

For many carmakers, their huge investments in battery plants and new supply chains, so far, are not paying off, says Gil Tal, director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at UC Davis. Read more...

The new center, which will be led by Kari Watkins, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and faculty affiliate at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, will advance research and technologies to support the nation’s clean energy goals, accelerate decarbonization of the transportation sector, strengthen the resilience of the nation’s transportation infrastructure and address environmental inequities created by the transportation system.