Say Goodbye to Gas-Powered Cars in New York

We all have our vision of New York, mostly stemming from New York City. The Big Apple, the mecca of basketball, the statue of liberty, or the Empire State Building. Take your pick. For us, it’s best known for its bright yellow taxis and traffic. Well, it’ll now be known as a state hostile against internal combustion engines. New York’s Senate and Assembly passed a bill that bans the sale of gas-powered vehicles statewide starting in 2035. Governor Kathy Hochul signed it into law last week. All new cars must be zero-emission.

The intention is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by the state by 35 percent, helping achieve climate targets. This includes an 85 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As you can imagine, people aren’t happy with this. New York has a lot of work ahead to achieve this goal. Auto manufacturers also need to find ways to rapidly charge their vehicles. It’ll be challenging to force a replacement without viable options. General Motors already announced they’ll stop producing gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

According to Ars Technica, only one percent of new vehicles sold in New York are fully electric. For this reason, under the new law, various state agencies must work together to develop a zero-emissions vehicle market development strategy next year. They must produce a way to ensure off-road vehicles and equipment sold in the state meet these strict zero-emission goals by 2035.

Even more, the law states that all medium and heavy-duty vehicles sold in New York must produce zero emissions by 2045. That’ll be another incredibly challenging expectation for their size. Testing conducted by Inside Ev’s found that a Tesla Model 3 towing a 750-pound trailer caused a 40 percent range loss. While technology should improve by then, heavy-duty trucks weigh anywhere from 26,000 to 33,000 pounds – significantly more than a Tesla and 750-pound trailer.

The state has their work cut out for them because, in addition to trying to convince people to buy electric in the next several years, they’ll have to develop an extensive charging network statewide. This includes installing charging stations at malls, parking lots, apartments, and grocery stores.

New York isn’t the first state to implement this – California announced the ban on gas-powered cars last year, with Massachusetts following suit. However, Canada took it a step further by banning them in the entire country by 2035. We’re interested to see how this unfolds.