Tux Turkel: Maine’s electric vehicle goals won’t take us where we want to go (The Maine Monitor)

Stepping back, while this article is about how many electric vehicles government can force upon Mainers, there are countervailing forces that would challenge the fact that Maine even has a climate action plan and a Maine climate council in the first place. Clearly a "climate industrial complex" has long had a tailwind. But that may be changing as many of the underlying assumptions are being challenged. Whether the new administration will change the tailwind to a headwind is to be seen.

Maine’s electric vehicle goals won’t take us where we want to go

By Tux Turkel
November 15, 2024

The Maine Climate Council has just finished updating the state’s climate action plan, as required by law, and a key strategy in the draft plan is to put 150,000 electric vehicles on Maine roads by 2030. Despite good intentions, this seems doomed to fail. 

I’m making that assessment as a journalist who has covered Maine energy issues for many years, and as someone whose extended family has three hybrid vehicles, one plug-in hybrid and one all-electric SUV.

My dive into the latest statistics and the shifting electric vehicle markets suggests to me that state climate planners once again put aspirations ahead of reality. 

The plan was drafted just before the election, which means it also failed to account for a looming political reality: The incoming Trump administration will embrace energy policies that favor fossil fuels. That portends an uncertain future for the federal rebates that have lowered purchase prices up to $7,500 for many electric vehicle buyers.

Having said that, new battery and electric vehicle factories are popping up in red states, and Tesla founder Elon Musk is bound to get something for his $100 million-plus donation to Trump’s reelection.  

Maine’s climate law mandates a 45% reduction in 1990-level greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Because transportation accounts for nearly half of Maine’s total carbon emissions, targeting cars and trucks makes sense.

But a closer look at how the market has reacted since 2020, when Maine first issued its climate action plan, indicates that the latest targets are not only unrealistic, but might not have their intended climate impact.

First, let’s look at where we are.

The latest data shows Maine has more than 17,500 registered electric vehicles, more than double what the state had four years ago. Early this month, Efficiency Maine reported it was suspending its state rebate program because a jump in qualified purchases — 190 in October — had exhausted the $3.5 million allocated by the Legislature in 2022, according to Maine Public.

Taken together, this seems like progress. But it only looks impressive because we started from next to nothing. Meanwhile, there are still more than 1 million gasoline-only vehicles registered in Maine. 

Keep in mind, Maine’s 2020 plan set a goal of 219,000 electric vehicles by 2030. This fall, in a belated acknowledgment that this was impossible, a consultant scaled back the target to 150,000 “light duty battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.”

Please continue reading at https://themainemonitor.org/maine-ev-goals/

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