This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
By Simon Mui
Gov. Brown released an Executive Order Friday providing the details of an initiative to put 5 million electric-drive vehicles (EVs) on the road by 2030, part of a new goal announced last week in his State of the State address.
The ambitious and achievable goal would increase the current number of EVs on the road in California by nearly 14-fold by 2030. The EV initiative would:
- Provide the state's clean vehicle rebate and charging infrastructure programs with sustained investments for the next 8 years, likely relying on proceeds generated from the state's Cap and Trade program.
- Increasing charging infrastructure by nearly 20-fold to reach 250,000 vehicle chargers by 2025, including 10,000 new public fast chargers. California currently has about 14,000 charging stations in total.
The initiative would target $200 million annually on increasing access to EVs and $112.5 million annually on increasing access to charging stations throughout the state. The latter investments in chargers would be complemented by the new infrastructure investments by investor-owned and municipally-owned utilities, as my colleague Max Baumhefner has blogged on here.
Increased EV Availability for Californians
The Governor's plan follows numerous announcements by major automakers to increase the number of EV model offerings by 2025 and 2030. Currently, automakers have about 40 electric-drive models available in California, with at least another 36 models planned to be introduced between 2018 to 2021, according to Baum & Associates. Nineteen of these new models will likely be plug-in SUVs or cross-over utility vehicles (CUVs), meaning increased choice for new and used car buyers.
Tea-leaves Pointing to An Electrified Future
California's announcement comes after a long string of announcements and news pointing to an electrified and shared mobility future. As I have blogged on earlier, the world's largest vehicle markets including in China, the European Union and India have declared bans on polluting, internal combustion engine vehicles within the next 12 to 22 years, while also adopting aggressive policies to shift to zero emission vehicles. Automakers are reading the tea-leaves, and increasingly shifting their product portfolios toward electric-drive solutions with the latest announcement from Toyota to launch 10 new electrified models by 2021, with fears of being left behind.
Gov. Brown, in his final year of office, seems to be also reading those same tea-leaves. Friday's initiative points to his desire for the state to remain at the forefront globally on clean transportation and have a long-term plan to achieve its ambitious 2030 clean energy goals.
- 'World's First Solar Highway' Opens in China for Testing ›
- Earth to Ford: Get Back on Track With Clean Cars ›
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Adam Vaughan
Two-thirds of people in the UK think the amount people fly should be reined in to tackle climate change, polling has found.
On Monday, Sept. 23, the Climate Group will kick off its 11th annual Climate Week NYC, a chance for governments, non-profits, businesses, communities and individuals to share possible solutions to the climate crisis while world leaders gather in the city for the UN Climate Action Summit.
By Pam Radtke Russell in New Orleans
Local TV weather forecasters have become foot soldiers in the war against climate misinformation. Over the past decade, a growing number of meteorologists and weathercasters have begun addressing the climate crisis either as part of their weather forecasts, or in separate, independent news reports to help their viewers understand what is happening and why it is important.
While airlines only serve bottled drinking water directly to customers, they use the plane's water for coffee and tea, and passengers can drink the tap water. Aitor Diago / Getty Images
You might want to think twice before washing your hands in an airplane bathroom.
Trending
By Allegra Kirkland, Jeremy Deaton, Molly Taft, Mina Lee and Josh Landis
Climate change is already here. It's not something that can simply be ignored by cable news or dismissed by sitting U.S. senators in a Twitter joke. Nor is it a fantastical scenario like The Day After Tomorrow or 2012 that starts with a single crack in the Arctic ice shelf or earthquake tearing through Los Angeles, and results, a few weeks or years later, in the end of life on Earth as we know it.
Air pollution particles that a pregnant woman inhales have the potential to travel through the lungs and breach the fetal side of the placenta, indicating that unborn babies are exposed to black carbon from motor vehicles and fuel burning, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications.
Trending
Teen activist Greta Thunberg delivered a talking-to to members of Congress Tuesday during a meeting of the Senate Climate Change Task Force after politicians praised her and other youth activists for their efforts and asked their advice on how to fight climate change.
By Jared Brey
When Hurricane Michael tore through the Florida panhandle last October, it killed at least 43 people, caused an estimated $25 billion in damage and destroyed thousands of homes.