To me it looks like "diesel trucks are still legal to sell for (7?) years", plus _relaxed_ emissions standards compared to the state's previous requirements, in exchange for a promise to deliver electric trucks at some point in the future.
Tesla has delivered a few EV trucks to PepsiCo in (iirc) Sacramento but had to build out a few special megawatt chargers for them. Plus I imagine the electric truck R&D investment itself has cooled off so it'll be good to push public expectations out a few years; for example (self-driving truck startup) Embark Trucks is going back private (acquihire?).
I think EV cars are the future. I own an EV. But California needs to be doing some _extremely_ major investments in their electricity infrastructure if they want any of these EV goals to be even remotely possible. It's currently in the bottom half of of grid reliability in the country, and massive numbers of electric cars won't make that better without big investments in infrastructure. Right now they seem to be wanting to mandate EVs without doing the work to make that possible.
Unfortunately California does not currently know how to invest in its grid without raising rates. This is essentially inevitable, as the private utilities are allowed to capture profit in direct proportion to their costs — the more they spend, the more profit they take home.
In an ordinary market, when a buyer shows up and wants to buy a lot of product (say 1GW of power for EV charging), sellers would compete to provide it. In a publicly operated scenario, a public utility would attempt to provide the power at zero profit. In CA, neither of these happens in general.
(There are some actual public electric utilities around. Their customers are lucky. If you live in Santa Clara, you pay reasonable rates.)
It's funny how the wholesale electric cost is really no different than the rest of the nation (2-4c / kwh) but silicon valley power sells it to you for a small markup while PG&E has inflated it 10-20x
EVs are better than ICE cars, but they're still a bandaid. Low occupancy vehicles aren't sustainable, and that doesn't change with a minor increase in efficiency and decarbonization.
They still take up too much space, both on the road and when parked.
They are still a menace to public health, especially anyone not in a car. Hell, they're a menace to people in shops and sitting in their living rooms.
They are still noisy (in fact, artificially so.)
They don't address transportation inequality; in fact, spending on things like public chargers are just further subsidization while cities boo-hoo about how there's no money to build a cycletrack or put down some paint.
To me it looks like "diesel trucks are still legal to sell for (7?) years", plus _relaxed_ emissions standards compared to the state's previous requirements, in exchange for a promise to deliver electric trucks at some point in the future.
Tesla has delivered a few EV trucks to PepsiCo in (iirc) Sacramento but had to build out a few special megawatt chargers for them. Plus I imagine the electric truck R&D investment itself has cooled off so it'll be good to push public expectations out a few years; for example (self-driving truck startup) Embark Trucks is going back private (acquihire?).