New York has a 10-year plan to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles and require automakers to sell only electric vehicles by 2035.
(It’s not even really a New York plan, but a program originally hatched in California.)
The gas vehicle ban has been on the books since 2022 and begins in earnest this year.
Starting in model year 2026 – right now for automakers – New York, California, Oregon, Washington State, Massachusetts and Vermont require 35 percent of new vehicles sold in the state to be electric.
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Colorado, New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Mexico and Maryland join the program in model year 2027.
The EV sales requirements get much tougher in the coming years.
In model year 2027: 43 percent of new vehicles sold must be electric; 59 percent in 2029; 82 percent in 2032 – all the way until 2035 when the sale of new gas vehicles will be prohibited (yes, prohibited) in New York and 100 percent of new vehicles must be electric.
Most of these states aren’t ready for those EV sales requirements. Especially New York.
About 10 percent of new vehicles sold in New York today are electric. That means the law requires a 3.5-fold increase in EV sales. Next year.
News flash: there aren’t enough customers or EV charging stations to get there.
How did we get here?
A quirk in the federal Clean Air Act gives states two ways to regulate vehicle emissions.
They can follow emissions rules set by the Environmental Protection Agency or sign up for the California plan called Advanced Clean Cars II. New York and 30 percent of the country chose to follow California.
But first California needed special permission from Washington which it got from the Biden EPA in January.
What are automakers operating in New York supposed to do now?
First option: sell more EVs, but like I said – there aren’t enough customers (let alone charging) for that.
Second option: automakers can restrict the number of gas vehicles it sends to New York’s car dealers.
That would shrink the overall number of vehicles for sale and artificially inflate the percentage of EVs sold in New York.
That’s a terrible solution – if you call selling fewer vehicles in New York a solution. Restricting the supply of vehicles for sale will increase the cost of a new vehicle. Remember vehicle inventory during the pandemic?
It will also kill economic activity (and tax revenue) by sending New Yorkers to neighboring states like Pennsylvania and Connecticut that didn’t sign up for the California gas vehicle ban.
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Say you’re not ready to make the switch to an EV. You go to your local car dealer – only to learn that certain vehicles are either no longer available for sale or in short supply.
How’s that going to sit with New York drivers?
The Department of Environmental Conservation says there’s plenty of “flexibilities” to help automakers. They mean buying expensive compliance credits from EV only companies like Tesla. There’s also a fine (up to $18,000 per vehicle) if automakers miss the sales requirements.
More terrible solutions.
Albany also says the Trump administration has created “uncertainties” and “burdens” that make meeting New York’s EV sales requirements harder. That’s not true. New York signed on to the California program in 2022 and the national slowdown in EV sales started well before President Trump’s election.
The good news: President Trump, EPA administrator Zeldin and Congress have signaled they’re prepared to cancel the permission slip that lets New York follow California’s lead.
They know it would take a miracle to achieve and that no matter how you slice it, a gas vehicle ban will depress economic activity, increase vehicle prices and decimate customer choice.
New York doesn’t have to wait for Washington though. Governor Hochul can (and should) immediately pull New York from California’s EV sales requirement.
