SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California plans to require all new cars, trucks and SUVs to run on electricity or hydrogen by 2035 under a policy approved Thursday by regulators that seeks a dramatic cut in carbon emissions and an eventual end to gasoline-powered vehicles.
The decision by the California Air Resources Board came two years after Gov. Gavin Newsom first directed regulators to consider such a policy.
If the goal is reached, California would cut emissions from cars in half by 2040.
The move gives the most populous U.S. state the world’s most stringent regulations for transitioning to electric vehicles. It is expected to prompt other states to follow California’s lead and to accelerate the production of zero-emission vehicles by automakers.
Board member Daniel Sperling, founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, called the vote “the most important and transformative action” the air board has ever taken.
The policy still needs federal approval but that’s considered very likely under Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. It allows Californians to keep driving gas-powered vehicles and buying used ones after 2035, but no new models would be sold in the state.
One-fifth of automakers’ sales after 2035 could be plug-in hybrids, which run on batteries and gas, but the rest must be powered solely by electricity or hydrogen.
The European Parliament in June backed a plan to effectively prohibit the sale of gas and diesel cars in the 27-nation European Union by 2035, and Canada has mandated the sale of zero-emission cars by the same year.
California climate officials say the state’s new policy is the world’s most ambitious because it sets benchmarks for ramping up electric vehicle sales over the next 13 years.
The first mandated threshold comes in 2026, when one-third of all vehicles sold in the state must be zero-emission. Automakers could be fined $20,000 per vehicle sold short of that goal.
About 16% of cars sold in California in the first three months of this year were electric. The air board is working on separate emissions rules for motorcycles and diesel trucks.
Washington state and Massachusetts already have said they will follow California’s lead and many more are likely to.