By Steve Goreham
“A recent survey by the American Automobile Association (AAA) found that only 16% of potential buyers were either “likely” or “very likely” to buy a fully electric vehicle as their next car, … down from 25% in 2022 and was the lowest level of EV interest recorded by AAA surveys since 2019.”
The road to adoption of Zero Emissions Vehicles (ZEVs) is growing steeper. For over two decades, states used incentives and mandates to try to force a transition from gasoline vehicles to ZEVs. But softening market demand, shifting federal policies, and poor economics threaten to halt the ZEV revolution in the United States.
Zero Emissions Vehicles are cars and trucks that produce no tailpipe emissions. These are either electric vehicles (EVs) or hydrogen vehicles. California is the only state with a significant number of hydrogen cars, but its hydrogen car population is declining, so ZEVs mean EVs in practice.
Air pollution reached hazardous levels in the 1950s. The expanding population and automobile fleet in Los Angeles generated recurring episodes of smog, reducing visibility, causing nausea, and burning eyes. As a child, I recall having our car windows coated by pollutants from the steel mills of Gary, Indiana during a drive-by, forcing us to stop to clean our windshield.
To combat worsening air pollution, all states enacted legislation by 1970. Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1963 and established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the Clean Air Act of 1970.
Early vehicle pollution regulations were enormously successful eliminating harmful vehicle exhaust. Unleaded gasoline, catalytic converters, and particulate filters dropped volatile organic compound emissions per mile by 98 percent from 1970 to 2023. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor remain the only significant gases exhausted from today’s gasoline vehicles.
With hazardous emissions all but eliminated, the primary purpose of ZEV regulations is to force a transition to electric vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, primarily CO2. The first Zero Emissions Vehicle regulation was adopted by California in 1990. Today, 22 states have ZEV regulations, many requiring up to 100 percent of new car sales to be EVs by a future date, such as 2050. But the US ZEV transition has stalled due to three factors—weakening demand, changing federal policies, and poor economics.
The US market share of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) in the second quarter of 2025 was only 7 percent of car sales, down from over 8 percent during last November, December, and January. BEV share in the US has been flat since spring 2023.
A recent survey by the American Automobile Association (AAA) found that only 16% of potential buyers were either “likely” or “very likely” to buy a fully electric vehicle as their next car, while 63% were “unlikely/very unlikely.” The “likely/very likely” category was down from 25% in 2022 and was the lowest level of EV interest recorded by AAA surveys since 2019.
Under President Joe Biden, the federal government provided a wide array of tax credits, subsidies, and loans for EVs. President Donald Trump shifted policy efforts to “eliminate the electric vehicle mandate,” including ending subsidies and mandates and rolling back state ZEV regulations.
Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and President Trump signed it this month. The act eliminates tax credits for purchasing a new EV (up to $7,500) and a used EV (up to $4,000), effective September 30 of this year. Loss of tax credits will increase the cost of EVs, likely forcing US EV market share below 7% by the end of this year.
The 1970 Clean Air Act assigned responsibility for air pollution to the EPA but allowed the EPA to grant waivers to states for regulations that were stricter than federal limits. California has received more than 100 waivers under the Clean Air Act. Other states are allowed to adopt California pollution regulations. State ZEV standards require a waiver from the EPA.
But in June, President Trump signed three resolutions that rescinded California’s ZEV mandates. The principal resolution revoked the Clean Air Act waiver to California that was granted during the Biden administration. The waiver had allowed the state’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulation, which mandated that all light vehicles sold in California by 2035 must be zero emissions. The waiver also allowed Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, and other states to adopt California’s regulations.
Another resolution signed by President Trump rescinded the EPA waiver that authorized California’s Advanced Clean Fleets regulation, which began January 2024. The ACF forced new heavy-duty trucks registered in California to be zero-emissions. Prior to the Trump rollback, trucking companies wrestled with severe cost, weight, and vehicle range issues of electric trucks mandated by the regulation.
California immediately sued the federal government to restore the EPA waivers and revive ZEV mandates. But without a legal victory, state ZEV mandates are dead in the US, at least until a new federal administration is elected.
Without federal tax credits and state ZEV mandates, vehicle purchasers face the full brunt of the unfavorable economics of EVs. Advantages of EVs include the ability to charge at home and lower cost of operation for small daily travel distances. But their economic disadvantages include higher purchase prices, heavier vehicle weight, shorter driving range, higher maintenance and repair costs, higher insurance costs, and rising licensing fees.
The average US electric car purchase price in May was $57,734, about 17% higher than the average price for a gasoline car. Cancellation of the EV purchase tax credit will push this difference to over 20%. Electric trucks and buses are two to three times as expensive as diesel alternatives.
Thousand-pound EV car batteries are needed for a driving range approaching that of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. As a result, EVs tend to be about 50% heavier than ICE cars. The 2024 Chevy Silverado EV weighs over 8,000 pounds, a four-ton pickup truck! Greater weight means that tires wear out sooner, raising maintenance costs. States receive no gasoline taxes from EVs, so states are now imposing EV license fees for road maintenance. EV road fees should be higher because of their weight.
Hertz Rental purchased 60,000 EVs, but found that maintenance, repair, and insurance costs were higher than ICE rentals, so they sold much of their EV fleet. An EV battery damaged in a collision must be replaced, a $5,000 to $20,000 charge. US insurance rates for EVs may be 70% higher.
Poor market demand, a halt to federal EV tax credits, the rollback of state ZEV regulations, and higher economic costs threaten to halt the ZEV revolution.
——————
Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and author of the bestselling book Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. His previous posts at MasterResource are here.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
What this slowing interest in EVs really shows is the folly of wise and benevolent politicians pushing ideology before it is ready and before people want it. Markets handle things so much better! Let the manufacturers with skin in the game gamble their own money on innovations; they will dip their toes in and gauge the interest, and only ramp up as interest grows.
But that’s not how politicians work. By definition almost, they think they know better than everybody else what everybody else should want, and they are almost always wrong.
The eco-puritans always seem to have outsized influence on policy and lawmakers. They’ve wrapped policy around a single molecule then think that writing aggressive timelines into law will force the infrastructure to magically change to accommodate their whims. It’s kind of funny that the AI revolution’s near term demand for vast increases in electrical power forced a hard reality check on the electrify everything movement. Suddenly nuclear is a solution. Natural gas is a bridge fuel again. And those old coal plants may need to be maintained for back up power when demand is very high. When there are fortunes to be made, all of the above energy solutions have come back into vogue.
That said, with global demand for energy showing no signs of slowing down, it is imperative the every unit of energy is used wisely and efficiently.
And governments will determine what is ‘wise and efficient?’
No, What this slowing interest in EVs really shows is the folly of idiotic and malevolent politicians pushing ideology and attempting to shove it down everyone’s throats.
Let’s not improperly credit their intelligence or intentions.
Pro tip: “wise and benevolent” is almost always sarcasm, especially when used in relation to politicians and bureaucrats.
There never was any interest, otherwise auto-makers would have switched ages ago.
I don’t think they are pushing EV technology before it is ready and before people want it. Unless someone comes up with a significantly better battery EV technology will never be there and people won’t want it. Small, incremental battery improvements will not surpass ICE improvements.
They are pushing it and it is not ready.
The wording of your post is contradictory when read.
It may not be clear to some but I said that it is not before the technology is ready, but that it will never be ready.
I don’t think they are pushing EV technology before it is ready
The point being they are pushing EV technology, therefore your first sentence leads to a conclusion that it is ready (and people want it). The other way to read it is they are not pushing it, which I believe there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that they are indeed pushing.
The second sentence is counter point.
Unless someone comes up with a significantly better battery EV technology will never be there
An edit to your first sentence asserting you think they are pushing before ready would eliminate the contradiction.
Almost? Scratch the surface, and every politician thinks he/she knows best.
Story Tip
UN says countries can sue for climate change
When can I sue somebody for the Sun coming up and going down? 🙄
The UN can get stuffed. It’s no longer fit for purpose.
It only has wide ranging consequences if the treasonous idiots in charge of Government, like UK, worship “International law” and put it above national sovereignty.
As long as there is no enforcement mechanism, there are no consequences.
Well, the costs and legal delays that will be prompted by this “august body”‘s ruling, are a signifigant ‘consequence’.
Well, the costs and legal delays that will be prompted by this “august body”‘s ruling, are a signifigant ‘consequence’.
The World Weather Attribution (WWA) computer scam was, by their own admission, a ‘hide-the-pea’ scheme to support climate lawsuits. The 2021 UN IPCC AR6 finding that there has been no increase in adverse weather events, nor any expected in the near future globally should have put this WWA travesty of science in its grave.
The of the best growth is accomplished with manure as feedstock.
No tailpipe emissions. But plenty of emissions where they’re built, and plenty of emissions from the electricity (possibly at subsidised rates, as usual subsidising rich people at the expense of poor people.) or hydrogen they consume.
So no immediately visible emissions. Still plenty of actual emissions.
other visible emissions – brake dust and tyre debris.
Finely divided particles of course but not invisible.
Over here in this part of Europe most of these cars are nuclear powered.
Much more visible – the eco disaster being caused worldwide by mining for Lithium salts, copper for cables + cobalt and RE metals for high power magnets.
Yes and all of those emissions conveniently remote from the “gated communities” where likely self-important EV buyers live.
“Emissions” are for the little people.
Of course, today’s “tailpipe emissions” are so clean that they are a complete non-issue anyway.
In some of our larger cities, the air coming out the tailpipe is actually cleaner than the air that was sucked in
True, until the linear no threshold (BS) criteria are applied.
I’ve always called them Zero Emissions Here, vehicles.
And that’s good enough for your average socialist.
From someone on WUWT: ZEVs are more appropriately called
“Displaced emission vehicles” [ DEV ] since it’s from where you get your
electricity is key.
The main problem of an EV is its battery, it has been unresolved for the past 100 years and it won’t be resolved in the next 100 years.
That’s why leftleaning ecotards use foul play to force this crap on us: government regulation.
Markets solve problems in general way better, faster and cheaper than any burocrat with his “smart” pencil…it’s just that people are stupid enough to believe the contrary.
“The main problem of an EV is its battery, it has been unresolved for the past 100 years and it won’t be resolved in the next 100 years.”
We’ll see about that. I’m waiting to see some actual, reliable info on the AL-ion battery, not just Tesla’s PR puff-pieces. Maybe the “battery-problem” solution is closer than the “fusion-energy” solution??
It is not merely the electrochemical composition. It is also charging.
I would not want to be within 10 blocks of a 5 minute charger unless, of course, the copper thieves got there ahead of me.
🤣🤣 truly a good one your last line and as accurate as the first.
“the ability to charge at home“
What percentage of possible buyers have this ability?
If the person/family has a home, what percent will want a charging EV in the garage or next to the house? Are more or fewer folks buying homes or renting apartments?
How many EVs can go 400+ miles without refueling? Can any get up to their maximum range in under 10 minutes. Do EVs pay a fair-share of road enhancement fees (taxes)? Do EVs depreciate faster than gasoline vehicles? Are they more costly to repair?
The author wrote: “… recurring episodes of smog, reducing visibility, causing nausea, and burning eyes.” I remember days like that. Anyone under age 40 likely never experienced such things. A brown haze dome in the distance meant you were approaching a city.
Yes and that “ability to charge from home” is touted as an “advantage.”
LMAO – Outweighed x100 by the MASSIVE DISADVANTAGE of having to sit at charging stations ( if you can find one, if it’s working) for close to an hour (if you’re first in line) to use your stupid EV for anything further than the extremely limited radius equal to half the too short and generally overstated “range” from your “home charging.”
I wonder how the occupant of the third floor apartment charge from home?
/sarc
Good question. I tried to research this several years ago and came up with a very rough estimate of 50%, but it varies greatly by location and age of housing.
Technically, anyone who can run an extension cord to their car can charge at home, but at a very low rate. This would be a “level 1” charger: 120VAC and 12-16 amps (1-1.4KW). This level of charge yields between 3 and 5 miles of range per hour of charge. So if you get home at 6PM and charge the car until 8 AM the next morning (14 hours), that would be good for between 42 and 70 miles of range, depending on gobs of factors.
A level 2 charger (240 VAC; 32-48 amps) provides between 20 and 40 miles of range per hour, which makes daily commuting in an EV reasonably practical. A level 2 charger requires a dedicated 50-amp circuit, which means you need a spare 240V slot in your breaker panel and 200-amp service. Most US homes built since 1980 have 200 amp service; most US homes built before 1950 have 60-amp service (unless upgraded in the meantime). Between 1950 and 1980 there would be a mixture of 50, 100, and 200 amp service in new construction. Any house built with or upgraded to central AC would have 200 amp service.
Approximately 37-40% of the age 18 and older US population lives in multifamily housing (apartments, condos), where they have little or no ability to install a level 2 charger. Additionally many older neighborhoods of single-family detached homes have only on-street parking. So it’s reasonably safe to say that 40% or more of the car-driving US population either (a) don’t have the incoming electrical service to install a level 2 charger or (b) don’t have the legal ability to install one where they currently live, or (c) don’t have off-street parking close enough to their house to access a level 2 charger.
The real mystery is why people ever thought (if they ever really did) that moving the world to EVs was going to have some effect on the global climate. Even more mysterious, why some people seem to have thought, or at least implied, that moving the UK to EVs was going to have some effect on UK weather.
Another real mystery: Why people ever thought that all the additional mining and smelting and energy expenditure required to build worse-than-useless wind farms, solar farms, EVs and battery storage was going to have any positive effect on the “environment” or the “planet.”
Just take a gander at the SV farms and the WTG farms and the offshore WTG flotillas and tell me how that improves the environment.
Well the UK’s National Energy System Operator (NESO) has just published its ‘Future Energy Scenarios:Pathways to Net Zero’
They are putting a lot of faith in EVs and hydrogen and Carbon Capture and Storage
“Rapid roll out of smart energy solutions such as using EVs to support the grid”
“EV sales assumed to reach 100% of new car sales in 2030”
“Annual electricity demand to grow from 28.7TWh today to 335-346TWh by 2030, 564-617TWh by 2040 and 705-797TTWh by 2050”
They assume a widespread access to a national hydrogen network with “hydrogen production to rise from zero today to 98-325TWh by 2050”
but also admit that “the number of registered hydrogen buses and coaches on the road is declining as access and cost of hydrogen remains a challenge for transport”
“Industrial emissions to decline rapidly in 2030s by the switch to low carbon fuels and Carbon Capture and Storage”
It is full of lots of other wishful thinking in which reality gets left far behind.
The answer is simple; let BYD build factory in the US.
They can build a factory in the US any time they want. Their vehicles still won’t meet US safety standards so they will all have to be exported. A good win for Trump.
. . . sure, and cheap BYD EVs will still predominately use grid-supplied electricity for recharging, the major percentage of which comes from burning fossil fuels.
“Answers” are simple only if one doesn’t care to examine things below their surface appearance.
Answer to what?! How to mass produce shit nobody wants?!
+10
Revolution?!
I saw that used twice in this article.
Let’s get this straight – there was never any EV “revolution.” Just some self-aggrandizing virtue signaling at taxpayer expense.
And exchanging ‘tailpipe emissions” for power plant, chemical plant and factory emissions is a losing game anyway. Especially for the people not rich enough to live far from where power plants, chemical plants, and factories are or will be.
Batteries, hydrogen, and electricity are not “zero emissions” and never will be.
If they come to a fork in the road, they should take it.
You mean they should fork themselves, Bruce?
Seems to me the EPA solved the problems it was created to fix years ago. Dismantle it.
Decades ago. Dismantle it. Blow up anything remaining and salt the ground so it can’t return.
After much head-scratching as to why their new dog-food failed to sell despite it “ticking all the boxes” and agressive promotion and free samples, a market research company was commissioned to find out why.
The answer: the dogs don’t like it.
Simple, but then the KISS method of thinking/acting, has been abandoned in many Countries.
I recently purchased a 2004 F250 4×4 king cab pickup. With only 200,000 miles on it, I figure that it should be good for another 100,000-300,000 miles; depending on how well I maintain it. Even if I get unlucky and have to install a new turbo diesel motor, the total cost should be less than $10,000; far less than battery replacement on many EVs. It has the towing capacity and rugged terrain capabilities that no EV in the near future is likely to possess, so I can continue to help folks living off the grid with various projects; including PV systems installs, the only ones that make sense!
I’ll eventually buy a medium sized travel trailer so I can travel around the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain states; hopefully witnessing the demolition of the giant bird choppers that the fanatical zealots of the Climate Cult have foisted on a largely unsuspecting public! I have a dream!!
Who are the people both able to use a $7500 tax credit and vain enough to virtue signal? Eliminating tax credits for the wealthy should please the progressives. (/s)
The problem with limiting volatile organic emissions was that cars were never a major source of those.
By far the largest emitters was trees and shrubs.
The next largest was industrial processes. Everything from painting to baking.
Cars came next, just ahead of household activities such as cooking and cleaning.
Dropping of subsidies doesn’t qualify as “forcing”, rather I would call it allowing, as in it allowing the sales rates to return to something closer to its natural level
As for “zero emissions vehicles” (ZEVs), please get back to me when there is technology that allows all those electrons coming off the grid and used to recharge EV batteries to be separated into those created by fossil fuels and those created solely by “zero emission” sources, such as nuclear fission, hydropower, wind and solar.
ROTFL!
Horse and buggy would be ZEV if they could breed a horse that doesn’t breath.
. . . or emit methane out the other end.
Or maybe one of these?
Or drop tail apples.
2H2 + O2 = 2 H2O
No “greenhouse gasses.” Got it. I also made this point many years ago wrt hydrogen fuel cells.
Uhhh . . . not sure if your comment was meant to be sarcastic or not, but water vapor is the STRONGEST, MOST PREDOMINATE greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere.
However, Earth’s present hydrological cycle pretty firmly establishes an upper limit for water vapor (TPW) in the atmosphere, so mankind can effectively do nothing to increase a long-term concentration above this maximum.
The “greenhouse gasses” in quotation marks was the clue.
While I disagree with the term greenhouse gas, it is vitally true that H20 is the dominant molecule by a long shot for a variety of reasons.
I think it is a case of the Green Blob being technological illiterates. Zero emissions are more of Zero Sin than Zero Harm, as they have an animist view of Nature.
But has the Administration rescinded the Model-Year-2026 CAFE standards as well?
On July 14 Matson announced they would no longer accept battery EVs and plug-in hybrids for transport on any of their ships, citing safety concerns:
Matson accounts for the majority of mainland/Hawaii and inter-island commercial shipping. At least one other company (Pasha) continues to accept electric vehicles at this time.
When I first looked into this issue several years ago, the Matson guide to preparing vehicles for shipment required gasoline/diesel vehicles to have the fuel tank between 1/8 and 1/4 full and EVs to be fully charged. When news of the Morning Midas fire broke I checked again and the requirement for EVs had changed to 40% charged. In the slightly more than one month since, this has become a total ban.
This will not stop delivery of new EVs direct from foreign manufacturers aboard dedicated car carriers, but a lot of used vehicles are shipped between Hawaii and the mainland by private parties and due to restrictions of the Jones Act, this trade is controlled by a very few carriers. If the others follow Matson’s lead all current EVs in Hawaii will be stranded wherever they currently are, and any new imports will be stranded on the island where they land.
Matson’s announcement does imply this restriction is temporary:
but how long it will take for “appropriate safety solutions that meet our requirements” to be available is anyone’s guess.
Transport the cars without batteries on one ship.
Figure out how to get Greta to transport the batteries on her “zero-emissions” yacht.
Get rid of all wind, solar and EV mandates, subsidies and tax preferences and all of these problems disappear. Wind, solar and EVs can not compete with fossil fuel and nuclear. It is that simple.
Agreed, but we need to stop using “fossil” when talking about hydrocarbons and coal, which are not fossils.
The term came a long time ago when Rockefeller (if I am remembering correctly) used it to make it seem oil was rare so as to jack up the price in international markets.