California Sales Ban of New Gasoline & Diesel Vehicles Jolts Half-Dead Business Model of Electric Utilities & Power Producers, Including in Other States

by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street

A light goes on after more than a decade of falling electricity demand. No business wants to operate in a declining industry.

You could practically hear the Champaign bottles pop during electric-utility industry Zoom meetings when California Governor Gavin Newsom issued the executive order to phase out the sale of new cars and light trucks with internal combustion engines by 2035 in the state – though sales of used ICE vehicles would continue beyond that date.

While the announcement was technology-neutral – “all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035,” it said – the top contenders are battery-electric vehicles (EVs), with hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles running in distant second place. EVs would create demand for electricity.

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