Green Family Car looks at what's new, for you

New EV reviews from our family to yours

13 Years and 300 Miles

by Dean Adams Curtis

A baker’s dozen is a term used when a customer buys a dozen items from the baker, say donuts, and gets an extra one, a bonus donut, to walk happily from the bakery with thirteen.

Baked now into the future, in a baker’s dozen years, 2035, the only new cars sold in California will be electric vehicles. As the Golden State is the largest auto market in the nation, and as seventeen other states typically follow California auto maker mandates, collectively a third of the U.S. states, far less greenhouse gas emission from America’s automotive sector will then be baking Earth’s atmosphere.

Auto makers who sell in California will be required to assure 35% hybrid or EV sales in four years. That percentage doubles to 68% of all vehicles sold in CA by 2030. Thus, even by this decade’s demise, many states in the United States will be two-thirds of the way to achieving the all-electric vehicle sales of 2035.

Add to this, Ford’s announcement that, by 2030, it will phase out internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle manufacturing, as well as General Motors’ stated plan it will phase out ICE cars by 2035, and the framework of the zero-emission vehicle future transformation becomes apparent. Along the way auto makers will be incentivized to create more EVs due to what folks in business call the economies of scale, spreading fixed costs over more units sold. Makers will be able to buy credits from other makers who may have exceeded their required percentages. And consumers will be incentivized to buy electric vehicles by up to $10,000 off the price tags of EVs from federal and state rebates or tax write offs.

What’s your range?

Like a breakfast short order chef of yesteryear (mashed-up with an auto salesman) might ask, “How do you like your range?” Your answer, based on your pondering of your actual commuting, errands, appointments, and visitations, will largely determine whether the cost of your EV is higher or lower. So, rolling along, perhaps the most important question for you to consider is how much range you need. Do you need an EV with a 300-mile range, when many today are happily driving plug-in hybrids which go 35 miles in electric only mode. And while EVs offering 300 miles between charges are already here, and luxury EVs with extensive batteries can travel 500 between plugging in, a lesser range EV is and will be available to you at less cost. Since the average American drives 40 miles a day, and since only five percent of the average vehicle trips in the U.S. are over 30 miles, canoodling your range requirement is a priority.

Federal credits for buying a new or used EV will be available from the Inflation Reduction Act. And many states will offer additional rebates. As used EVs are included for credits in the IRA, the used car marketplace, that accounts for three-quarters of all vehicles purchased today, will continue to be strong.

Can the U.S. electrical grid handle the charging load. In short, yes. The grid will grow over time to allow more electrons from sustainable sources to flow. Our current grid, with current anticipated enhancements, will serve us fine for the next decade of charging. For the 2035 horizon new transmission lines and storage technologies will need to be online. Happily, with dramatically more EVs being sold, battery technology will continually improve, with newer and better electron storage media and methods regularly coming online. And end-of-useful-life battery recycling is also rapidly advancing.

As we have been covering vehicles for a quarter century, we would like to continue to be a source you turn to. Consider stopping back to review our twenty-five years of vehicle reviews when in the market for used EV, as well as for news and reviews of the newest EVs and what’s coming next.

BTW, pictures accompanying this article are from our recent video, 2022 EVs from A to V. Why not to Z you may ask? Because the V in the title stands for a new entrant into the global EV marketplace, Vinfast, an EV maker with a mega-factory in Vietnam.

Vinfast, a new EV maker with a mega-factory in Vietnam, revealed EVs at last LA auto show.

Green Family Car Classics
The animated Rubberneck family of our sister site, The Family Car, opens this 2017 video report from Detroit's auto show, where Ford executives presented a vision of autonomous driving tech decreasing vehicle injuries and fatalities.



We attended the 2017 LA auto show in the plug-in version of the 2016 Chrysler Pacifica that was packed with family- and eco-friendly features, a three-piece panoramic sunroof, powerful vacuum to keep cookie crumbs at bay, and able to run on electric-only power for up to 33 miles per charge.



Discussions and displays at the 2016 LA auto show, revealed to TheFamilyCar and GreenFamilyCar correspondents that the autonomous vehicle age has already dawned, raising questions about whether we are ready for to embrace it.



The founder of the Advanced Sustainability Institute, Michael Boehm, test drives BMW’s electric i3 around downtown Los Angeles during the 2013 LA auto show. The i3 EV has been designed from scratch for maximim sustainability.



H stands for hydrogen, the chemical element that drives the car, the Audi exec explains. His A7 h-tron hydrogen vehicle fulfills the promise offered by hydrogen and raises the question, from what source? Maybe at-home electrolysis?



Reporters from The Family Car and Green Family Car attended both the LA and Detroit auto shows of late 2011 and early 2012. Click above for a quick look to help you gauge industry progress now, a decade later.