Connecticut changes electric vehicle rules

The reason is a lack of support for the deadline, especially since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also recently released relaxed emissions targets for new cars from the 2027 to 2032 model years. “For people who were skeptical that we would be able to meet the tougher standard, and then the president and the White House say they can’t meet the lower standard, you can imagine how that meeting would go,” said House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford. CTinsider. “It’s like saying, ‘If we can’t hit a 40-mph fastball, how are we going to hit an 80-mph fastball?’”

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed California’s Advanced Clean Cars I regulation in 2021, which was also adopted by other U.S. states such as Virginia and Washington. In 2022, CARB passed the Advanced Clean Cars II Act, which imposes much more stringent regulations and goes into effect in January 2025. It essentially banned the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines starting in 2035.

In March, the EPA released federal emissions target requirements for fleets. And while they were never intended to be as stringent as those approved by CARB, they were watered down compared to earlier plans. Specifically, a draft released by the EPA in April 2023 stated that automakers’ emissions from new cars would have to fall by 56 percent overall by 2032 (compared to 2026) – the final version said it had to be 49 percent.

The decision to withdraw from California’s EV mandate, approved by Connecticut authorities, comes just weeks after Virginia also decided to no longer comply with California’s EV mandate. However, the arguments at the time sounded slightly different. “No one should dictate what cars Virginians can drive, especially ‘unelected’ leaders living nearly 3,000 miles from the Commonwealth,” Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin explained. The “unelected” leaders the Republican politician mentioned are CARB members.

carscoops.com, ctinsider.com