Utility and Transportation Contractors Association (UTCA) Executive Director David Rible issued the following statement today regarding a push in New Jersey to follow California’s lead and ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars:
“This is well-meaning policy but we are already seeing the pitfalls of transitioning to electric vehicles without addressing the impact on the power grid. California had to ask residents not to charge their electric vehicles because their grid simply cannot handle the demand, yet they just voted to ban gas powered vehicles. We do not want this scenario coming to New Jersey.
“Taking proactive steps on climate change is important but we cannot just enact laws because they sound good. We are particularly concerned about our members being forced to use electric vehicles when the infrastructure to power them – much less hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles for the entire state – simply does not exist in our state. Not only that but how exactly we pay to create that infrastructure, whether it’s publicly available charging stations, people charging at their homes or our members having to charge at their places of business, has not been figured out.
“Much more thought needs to go into this idea, clearly more than California put into it. Let’s not rush into something that will create even more and bigger problems.”