California to boost zero-emission economy
California’s Governor Newsom has proposed a 4.5-billion-dollar budget for economic stimulus in 2021. This includes $1.5Bn earmarked to help people and businesses purchase electric or hydrogen vehicles and equipment as well as funds for relevant charging and refilling infrastructure.
Governor Newsom has just presented his Equitable Recovery for California’s Businesses and Jobs plan. The economic plan involves support for existing zero-emission vehicle programs, such as phasing out the sale of fossil-fuelled cars by 2035 and the Advanced Clean Trucks scheme, requiring every new commercial utility vehicle in California to be emission-free by 2045. This latest budget proposes an additional $1.5 billion investment to accelerate these goals and create jobs.
Among other efforts to mitigate the pandemic’s economic effects, the goal of the proposal is to create jobs and economic benefits by providing air quality benefits and support for low-income Californians to purchase cleaner vehicles. The proposal will release funds to support the purchase of clean trucks, buses and off-road freight equipment and ‘Clean Cars 4 All’ programs.
Infrastructure has also been targeted with the “greening of state infrastructure” in “recognition of the job-creating potential of infrastructure projects on state-owned properties.” This amounts to a $300 million one-time ‘General Fund’, including projects to install electric vehicle charging stations at state-owned facilities.
The proposal also aims to support job-creating construction of electric charging and hydrogen fueling stations to accelerate the uptake of zero-emission vehicles.
Most recently in California, to increase the uptake of zero- and low-emission vehicles on Californian roads, California electric utilities teamed up with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to offer up to $1,500 for purchase or lease of electric vehicles. The offer began on the 17 November 2020. Then a month later in December 2020, the California Energy Commission approved a plan to invest up to $115 million to significantly increase the number of hydrogen fueling stations in the state. Up to 111 new hydrogen filling stations will be built in California by 2027, including use by cars, trucks and buses.
With this latest budget, California should see a significant uptake in zero-emission vehicles and an expansion of relevant infrastructure. Since California is a hot-spot of zero-emission vehicle manufacture and infrastructure organisations, this is likely to be a significant boost to companies like Tesla as well as Canoo, Faraday Future, Zero Motorcycles and many more based in California.
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