The EVrolution seems to be slipping away from the climate cultists faster than they can sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and, in some cases, what people have paid to be part of it is going to look pretty expensive in the end if it all shakes out the way it’s going right now.
For one thing, while EV sales in the states are crashing – there still is definitely a niche for the vehicles – they are nowhere close to meeting the eagerly set goals that would have a good chunk of the country free of internal combustion engine (ICE) sales by the mid-2030s at the latest.
Those frog-colored fever dreams are ebbing, and some state governors have even experienced enough of a reality check to delay or roll back requirements entirely.
Vermont Governor Phil Scott paused the state’s electric vehicle sales requirements for passenger cars and medium and heavy-duty trucks on Tuesday, amid broader concerns about the feasibility of zero-emission vehicle rules pioneered by California.
Vermont is one of 11 states including New York, Maryland and Massachusetts that have adopted California’s zero-emission vehicle rules, which seek to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035. California’s rules require 35% of light-duty vehicles in the 2026 model year to be zero-emission models.
Scott, a Republican, cited warnings from automakers that they could limit supply of gas-powered vehicles to dealers in the state because of the EV rules.
“It’s clear we don’t have anywhere near enough charging infrastructure and insufficient technological advances in heavy-duty vehicles to meet current goals,” said Scott.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore last month delayed enforcement of the rules until the 2028 model year, citing concerns about tariffs and charging infrastructure funding.
In Washington State, no slouch when it comes to climate-induced lunacy, EV sales are also lagging far behind where they needed to be at this juncture to virtue signal successfully.
Washington state’s EV sales stalled in the first four months of 2025 keeping us far below the 2026 requirement of 35%.
The federal government may eliminate that requirement soon.
That would eliminate the state’s new Tesla tax, costing the state $280 million. #waleg 1/x pic.twitter.com/zoWPbpTfzp
— Todd Myers 🐟🌲🐝 (@WAPolicyGreen) June 5, 2025
And an altogether too clever by far punitive legislative political attack on Tesla for wrongthink backfired horrifically on the woke wonders in the statehouse.
Hypocrisy in action. Ain’t it grand? I guess you could call it CARma.
…Tesla’s leadership in the EV sector creates problems for Washington politicians, many of whom now attack the company because it is led by Elon Musk but also claim to want to increase EV ownership. Attaching a stigma to the top EV brand will make it more difficult to increase ownership when the other comparable options are less attractive or more expensive.
Additionally, the legislature’s attack on Tesla may blow a $280 million hole in the state budget.
In the recent session, the legislature imposed a tax on Tesla’s credits generated as part of the California EV mandate. Under the rules, auto manufacturers generate credits for every EV they sell to comply with the sales requirements. Companies like Tesla generate more credits than they need and can sell them to other companies, like Honda, who are far short. The legislature placed a punitive tax on Tesla’s – and only Tesla’s – credits for the sin of complying too effectively with the requirements.
That tax was projected to generate about $280 million during the next four years. With the underlying requirements going away, so would the tax revenue, eliminating $78 million in tax revenue this biennium and $202 million during the next biennium.
The legislators who proposed that tax are now complaining that rescinding the waiver for California’s EV rules by Congress is political. Of course, the tax on Tesla was obviously political. Legislators in Washington were happy to undermine the EV mandates they claim to support by punishing the company that was most effective at meeting the goals.
Much of the states’ angst is driven by their all having signed onto the California Resources Board’s zero-emission accords and their 2035 plan to ban the sale of ICE vehicles. Many states are waking up to the fact that they have neither the interest of their residents in purchasing an electric vehicle, outright hostility towards being forced to, nor enough infrastructure to support the vehicles they’re forcing their citizens to purchase. It’s a recipe for disaster.
On the other hand, California is vigorously defending itself against all naysayers, including the hostile Trump administration, and has filed yet another lawsuit against it in an attempt to wiggle out from under the ban on their 2035 ICE ban.
YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF US!!
California is taking the Trump administration to court again, this time over the administration’s blocking of the state’s 2035 ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars.
The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, announced his office and 10 other states filed this latest lawsuit minutes after President Donald Trump signed a resolution that blocked the ban. The lawsuit will be considered by the U.S District Court.
State leaders have said the federal government is violating the law, as California has had the authority for decades to set its own clean air rules.
“It’s been a disaster for this country,” Trump said as he signed the resolution. “We officially rescue the U.S. auto industry from destruction by terminating the California electric vehicle mandate once and for all.”
“Trump’s all-out assault on California continues – and this time he’s destroying our clean air and America’s global competitiveness in the process. We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a President who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters,” Newsom said in a written statement.
It’s the 26th lawsuit California has filed against the Trump administration. Bonta told reporters the state so far has spent $5 million on the lawsuits filed since Trump took office in January. The state Legislature and governor earlier this year provided Bonta’s office with $25 million for court challenges against the administration.
But while oleaginous Governor Gavin ‘Randall Flagg Lite’ Newsom postures for cameras, the fact is that EV sales in a state where they are determined to give residents zero choice of what to drive – even going so far as to drive oil producers out of an oil-rich state – are ‘sputtering.’
Wait a minute. Don’t these people know they’re TOOLS OF TRUMP?!
Sales of new electric vehicles in California remained sluggish in the second quarter of this year and the road ahead appears bumpy, as federal tax credits will expire at the end of next month.
The number of EVs registered between April and June in the Golden State came to 100,671, according to figures released by the California Energy Commission. That’s ever so slightly higher than the first-quarter figure of 100,326 but noticeably lower than the 116,813 registrations seen in the second quarter of 2024.
What’s more, the market share for sales of zero-emission vehicles dropped to 21.6% from April through June, down from 23% in the first quarter and 25.1% in the fourth quarter of 2024.
The ‘experts’ are blaming anxiety over tariffs and a slump in Tesla registrations.
And then, well, there’s that whole ‘EV’ thing that some knuckle draggers just can’t get over.
…“It’s clear many consumers still face barriers to going fully electric,” said Robb Hernandez, chairman of the new car dealers association, “whether that’s due to affordability, lack of infrastructure (public charging stations), or range anxiety” — the fear of an EV conking out before a driver gets to a charging station.
Another wrinkle thrown in the ‘affordability’ barrier to EV is that with the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, the $7500 subsidy goes away September 30.
EVs are going to have to sell on their own four wheels. As the reporter from WA state notes, they’ve had every possible advantage and inducement under the sun underpinning their sales, and they are still, essentially, a limited market luxury vehicle.
…Politics, not reality, is driving Washington’s policies regarding EVs. Even with the massive spending on EV charging stations, the big increase in the price of gas due to the CO2 tax, literal payments to help people purchase EVs and numerous other inducements, electric vehicles are still an expensive way to reduce CO2 emissions of limited appeal. They are getting better (I anticipate buying one for my next car) but they are still essentially luxury cars.
But in California and the co-conspiratorial states, one ‘extra,’ one little piece of lagniappe, one morsel of special flowerness for owning an EV that the states awarded those who bought one – on top of all the other discounts, subsidies, hook-ups, tax breaks, whatever – is going the way of the dodo as well on 30 September. The state is in a panic to get Congress to pass the ‘special program’ before it expires.
And I could not believe it when I read it, but here we are.
EV owners are now going to have to sit in traffic with the rest of us schmucks.
Driving alone in an EV in the carpool lane? Your sticker is about to expire — maybe for good
The coveted decal program is slated to end in a matter of weeks if lawmakers in Washington don’t act soon
Unless lawmakers on Capitol Hill move quickly, one of the most desired perks of driving a zero-emissions vehicle in California will be put on the shelf by the end of next month.
For years, motorists with stickers on their cars through the state’s Clean Air Vehicle Decal program have been allowed to drive in the carpool, or High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV), lane when traveling alone.
Given the frustrating amount of traffic that often clogs California freeways, the program has been used as an incentive for people to buy electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell cars. It’s estimated that 465,000 vehicles across the state have active decals attached to them.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 13 other states have similar incentives in place.
States need authorization from the U.S. government to establish those programs and keep them in place because federal dollars flow into the highway system.
Here’s the problem: The authorization is set to expire at midnight on Sept. 30.
Man, I can just imagine watching that battery drain on a hot summer’s day on the 405 in Orange County. Or the Beltway around D.C..
From personal experience, I can say many a time it’s taken me 45 minutes to creep only as far as past the end of John Wayne’s runway – maybe a half a mile or so distance-wise – if I missed my little window getting off base at El Toro. And that was in the 90s.
Once again with this Green grifting crap, it’s another ‘incentive’ that rewards the mostly well-to-do special #flowerz, keeping them free of the annoying stop-and-go as masses of unwashed peasants slog their way to the salt mines.
Yeah.
I was over it the second I read it.
It’s about time for some serious reality rubber reconnecting with the retail market rules road.
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