Washington State Passes ICE Ban

Quick disclaimer before we begin: At Transport Evolved we know that some of our audience are here for cars, and don’t want to hear about politics. So if that’s not your thing, be it today, or ever, you can go ahead and skip this one, we won’t mind. But because this one is about policies that are good for electric vehicles - you might want to stick around. 

Update: When this article was originally published it was widely assumed that this bill would be signed into law by Washington’s Democratic Governor, Jay Inslee. However, he vetoed the bill citing the requirement for a shift in taxation required for the ban to come into force as too-higher bar for implementation. As we said in the office, sometimes perfect is the enemy of good.

As more electric vehicles are being introduced into the global market, bans on the sale of new, internal combustion cars and trucks are becoming more common around the world. Laws and regulations are, for some people, a controversial way to move the adoption of zero emission transportation forward. However, some argue that very little of the progress that has been achieved in creating ‘greener’ transportation wouldn’t have happened without governmental action. 

This is isn’t to say that governments always act in the best interest of everyone involved, but without a push for government mandated emissions and energy regulations, who knows where the slow adoption of zero emission transportation would be in this moment. If we take Norway, and its Pro-EV stance as a small example, they wouldn’t have gotten to where they are today without the buy-in tactic of its political ‘carrots and sticks’ incentives approach to EV adoption.

Which brings us to the U.S. state of Washington, whose legislature has just passed a bill that would ban the sale of internal combustion cars and light trucks from model year 2030, onward. In doing so, Washington joins fellow state California, as well as a number of countries, including France, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, in setting a target date by which it wants to ban internal combustion vehicles, the U.S. states of Massachusetts and New Jersey have also announced intentions to implement a similar ban, but at this time, haven’t formalized it. 

While California may have been first to announce a future ban on ICE sales, Washington State’s plan is more ambitious in several ways. They also differ in that Washington’s ban was passed through the legislature by elected officials, rather than coming about by order of the governor. And that’s a  big deal in its own right. At the same time, there are some definite caveats worth knowing about. 

Note for overseas readers: the U.S.A has two very different “Washingtons.” The nation’s capital city, Washington D.C. is located on the east coast, and is not the subject of this story. Today we’re talking about Washington State, which is the northernmost state on the west coast. 

The ban, which is actually part of a larger bill pertaining to electric vehicle charging infrastructure, would prevent the sale or registration of any vehicles from model-year 2030 onward that are 3 or more wheels, not powered by electricity, and weighing under ten thousand pounds (4.5 thousand kilograms).

The “powered by electricity” part is significant by the way. What matters in this bill is how the wheels are turned, not how the energy is stored. So battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are fine, while vehicles running on synthetic, or so-called electric-fuel, are not. Hydrogen internal combustion and natural gas vehicles under the weight cap, would similarly be banned. 

If certain provisions are met, touched on further down, the ban will go into effect five years sooner than a  similar ban in process in the state of California. But that isn’t the only difference between the two. Washington’s bill is, in fact, significantly stricter than California’s, because it goes beyond simply banning the sale of new internal combustion cars. Instead, Washington state will not permit model year twenty-thirty and beyond internal combustion cars to even be registered in the state. 

In the U S, buying a car in a state you don’t live in is usually pretty easy, a fact which makes laws like California’s quite feasible to circumvent. But if you can’t register the car in your home state, buying it elsewhere is about as useful as lighting a stack of cash on fire to keep warm. 

As for the provisions; at the moment a huge percentage of a given state’s infrastructure budget comes from a tax on petrol, paid by the consumer at the pump. This poses a problem for state budgets as more and more people are going electric. Some states have addressed this by adding an additional tax or fee for registering an electric car or plug-in hybrid, something that Washington state implemented with a 75 dollars car-tab fee back in 2019. 

The problem with that of course, is that it disincentives the purchase of an EV, something at odds with Washington State’s goal of reducing, and eventually eliminating, internal combustion vehicles from its  roads. One solution floating around is to instead tax vehicles based on miles traveled, something which is already tracked yearly during the registration process in most states. This solution however, is also something that touches on privacy issues and thus criticized by some.

Washington state’s ban on internal combustion vehicles as of 2030, will not be considered in effect, even though it has passed the legislature, and is likely be signed by the governor, until a minimum of 75 percent of cars on the road in Washington are assigned a tax or fee based on the mileage that they travel.

It’s an understandable way to try and ensure the state’s infrastructure budget isn’t shattered, but there are also serious questions about the milage tax system. At the moment, while such a system has been discussed in the state, there aren’t any pending bills or proposals to implement one. 

If a mileage tax doesn’t get proposed, debated, made law, and widely implemented, the Washington ban on internal combustion engined vehicles never happens. 

This brings us to the question, should it happen?

Here at Transport Evolved, our answer to that question is not quite as straightforward as you might think. 

Climate change is happening, and it’s undeniably an emergent, existential threat to the future of our species on this planet. And we humans are squarely at the center, both as the reason for making it worse, and one of the largest victims of it. 

Tailpipe emissions remain a major driver of atmospheric CO2, not to mention a host of other nasty pollutants that shouldn’t be inhaled. Getting internal combustion vehicles off the road in favor of zero emission ones would be an enormous public good, not only in terms of the climate benefits, but also for public health. 

However, as with other regulations, if things aren’t done with extraordinary care, Washington state’s ban on internal combustion vehicles will come with some unintended consequences, and many of those consequences will hurt the most vulnerable and marginalized people in society. 

An example of this is mileage taxes or fees that come with the ban. They make sense in many ways, but they also impose a heavier burden on people who don’t have the money to live in expensive cities, but still have to commute into those cities for their work.

Seattle, in Washington state, is a notoriously expensive city to live in, and many people commute considerable distances there. A mileage tax is a financial penalty for not having enough money to live closer to work, something that makes about as much sense charging you money for having too low a balance in your bank account. 

A similar proposed alternative tax that has been floated elsewhere, a tax on tires rather than petrol, has the same problem, with the added issue of incentivizing people to drive on unsafe rubber. 

Then there’s the ban itself, which among other things could easily end up being a barrier to movement for people in the years after it passes, such as when folk with cheap ICE cars bought elsewhere after the ban, find themselves unable to relocate to Washington state. 

Without huge investments in a just and equitable process, the transition away from internal combustion cars is inevitably going to harm vulnerable people, especially in the United States. Right now the cost of petrol is hugely subsidized by the federal government here, and fuel stations seem as plentiful as stars in the sky. That isn’t going to be the case as the percentage of vehicles on the road shifts in favor of those that don’t have petrol tanks. 

EVs, and fuel cell vehicles if they catch on, are likely to be more expensive than the cheapest old ICE cars for a very long time, which means petrol-powered cars will remain the only viable option for lower-income people and people living in poverty for decades to come. 

Needing their fossil fuel-driven cars, those people will easily become trapped into paying more and more money to get around, including getting to work, as petrol subsidies dry up and fossil-fueling stations become rarer, and thus able to charge more per gallon. That reality may be on its way regardless, but bans like Washington and California’s will exacerbate the problem. 

Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. Continuing as we are, burning fossil fuels and pouring carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere with little restraint is simply not an option. But, transitioning to a greener future doesn’t have to devastate the lives of vulnerable people. 

There is a great deal that can be done to cushion the transition to zero emission transportation, from expanding green mass transit, to providing significant financial assistance to help people get out of their old internal combustion cars and into good, low-cost BEVs or FCVs, and subsidizing the expansion of public charging infrastructure in lower income neighborhoods, just to name a few items off a much bigger list.

But right now the Washington bill doesn’t go nearly that far. There are provisions in it that seek to identify disadvantaged populations most in need of expanded access to charging infrastructure, in a way that clearly shows the legislature is aware of the inequities found in the transition away from fossil fuel vehicles. That’s a big deal, but while “knowing is half the battle” the other half is getting something concrete done about the situation. And as I’ve already laid out, charging infrastructure is only one piece of a bigger picture. 

The twenty-thirty ban on internal combustion vehicles in Washington state is a huge and exciting step, one which we hope, and expect, to see taken by many more states and nations. But it also highlights a troubling deepening of inequity that the transition away from fossil fuels is going to bring with it if we don’t take decisive action soon. 

Original article found in video format here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pysxw8RmVU