Joint Legislative Committee on Climate Change Policies

Well, good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us today. It's great to see so many folks here, and of course, we're also being live streamed. So just to remind all the speakers and when we have public comment, to make sure to speak into the microphone. So everybody that's watching from elsewhere will be able to hear you.

Ambitious policies and bold investments have combined to make California a global leader on electric vehicles. Transitioning from conventional combustion vehicles to EVs brings it. Brings an array of benefits. The environment and the environmental and public health benefits of cleaner air and lower greenhouse house gas emissions and the meaningful affordability advantages of lower vehicle maintenance costs and reduced vulnerability to petroleum fuel price shocks as we are currently living through because of the war with Iran.

Despite an unprecedented surge in global EV sales, the Trump administration has repeatedly sought to limit California's progress on EVs. The administration has eliminated the federal EV Tax Credit and unlawfully revoked three of California's waivers to set our own vehicle pollution standards.

With California's long standing authority to regulate vehicle emissions being litigated. Federal actions have added a level of uncertainty to California's EV deployment outlook. This is the context of this discussion, but the focus of the hearing is what has happened since that and what should come next.

What actions has California taken and which actions should be considered going forward to support and accelerate EV deployment. I would like to thank my Senate colleague, Henry Stern, for joining us here today, and we're expecting Pilar Shciavo to show up a little bit later. And, Henry, is it too early to ask you to make some comments?

Yeah. Happy to make a little opening remarks.

Alright. Thank you.

Let me just start by thanking, our Chair, and not just for today's hearing, but for her years of leadership on this committee. I, we're getting to. Everything changes, and it it must unfortunately change here.

But I think your legacy and your staff, especially, I just wanna take a moment to thank you and Sam and Brett and the rest of your team for turning this committee not just into an oversight body, but into a policy generator that has actually changed the state for the better. And it's not just in the high level changes we've made is on climate change, but really in the nuts and bolts of our programs.

And here on mobile sources, I think it's an underappreciated part of legislative leadership and accountability to really to progress with our programs. We need to be tough on our programs. And the scrutiny that you and others, both through legislation and through this committee work, have applied, I think have made our programs more robust and healthier.

And despite all the bumps and bruises that we're gonna take along the way, and the headwinds as you mentioned from the federal front, legal challenges, technology issues that may occur during rollouts, on the whole, the maturity and the growth that we're seeing in this industry despite political headwinds perhaps, and maybe some legal challenge, the market is happening. And there's no stopping it.

It's here. And so, I think that's a testament to your vision, and to the our fellow Chair, which I believe. Are we a joint hearing of your select committee as well, Assemblymember Shciavo?

We are.

Yes. So this is duly chaired, and so my colleague from San Fernando Valley is just joining us here as well. But I would just tell you in the valley where, you know, I got a three year old who has to breathe every day, like most three year olds must. It is, it is brutal being off the 5 and the 405, and eating diesel pollution on a daily basis.

When I pick my daughter up from school, and you have to go through the roundabout, and you just. It's just trucks all day long. And as soon as I start seeing those cleaner ones coming along, and you see those EVs penetrating the market, and it just, it's visceral. I know you both appreciate this as parents and as mothers, but I think the progress you made on clean air here is just a prelude of a much different future where it's just, it's gonna.

We're gonna save a lot of lives and save a lot of money at the same time. So I appreciate your your work here, and hopefully we'll keep it going in your stead, and I'll defer over to my Assembly colleague.

Alright. Assembly member Shciavo. Perfect timing.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Stuck in traffic coming from the valley.

So thank you so much. I wanna thank the Chair for convening this meeting and this important discussion. As the Chair of Electric Vehicles and Infrastructure Select Committee in the Assembly, This is an important issue to my heart, and I'm so grateful for Assembly member Irwin's leadership on this issue.

She has been a strong voice in Sacramento and really pushing us to make sure not only that we're making our goals when it comes to EVs, but also that we're doing it in a way that makes sense and allows for this. The policies that we put forward to be successful.

Because I think the best policy making is policy making where, you know, all of the pieces are there for compliance to happen. And we have shared stories of being early adopters of EVs and the challenges around charging. And that's actually the reason I started the select committee because as a mom, I was driving from LA to Sacramento for Thanksgiving to my brother's house and I have to stop 4 time to charge it took 4 extra hours.

And at the end of the night, my kid was crying in a mall parking lot saying, I told you we should have taken the train. So, we don't want people to be having that experience when they go on a family holiday.

And I'm incredibly grateful for, con. Oh, my goodness. What did I just say? Assembly member Irwin's, Assembly member Irwin's leadership to help us get to the place where we need to be, so that adoption can happen more broadly and more affordably. Here in LA I heard from so many people who have talked about the stories of when you couldn't see the mountains, from you know, the valley, or the LA Basin, or downtown.

And, you know, I've experienced that myself one of my early internships back in 1999, I think, was here in LA and I was stuck in stop and go traffic and the exhaust from the traffic made me sick. I had to pull over and I actually got sick. That's how bad it was.

And so when we're talking about this, it's not just kind of, to make us feel good about going electric, but it is truly about people's health and safety and protecting the health and safety of our communities. So you know, this work is critical. It's critical that we make our goals. And I think, you know, today we'll also have some important conversations about, is the market there yet, you know? And the federal pullback is really making that difficult.

Not only is it difficult on just encouraging adoption, but it's also an indicator to the market that you don't need to step up and create what's needed in this space. And that's incredibly problematic for us to be able to make our goals. And so, I know we have some real challenges ahead of us, and California wants to continue to lead.

And we have to be able to figure out how to do that, realistically and affordably, and, you know, and make sure that we are able to get to those goals and and keep our air clean and community safe while we're doing it. So thank you so much again for convening us today.

Well again, thank you, Senator Stern and Assembly member Shciavo. You have done excellent work in this area, and I know it will continue into the future and appreciate you joining us here today. So I would like to welcome our first panel, which includes representatives from two state agencies, California Air Resources Board known as CARB and the California Energy Commission or the CEC.

Christopher Grundler is the Deputy Executive Officer of Mobile Sources and Incentives at CARB, and Nancy Skinner, who is joining remotely, is the Lead Commissioner for Clean Transportation at the CEC.

Spencer Reeder, who is here in person, is CEC's Division Director for Fuels and Transportation. So we are starting with. Okay. And we will starting, be starting with Mister Grundler.

Good morning. Thank you, Chairman, and Assembly members, and Senators. Very happy to be here. I'm responsible for directing all the mobile source regulations and incentive program spending and investments at the agency, and I'm here to emphatically reaffirm the agency's commitment to continue to lead as a state in these areas and to protect the public health of breathers in our state. I'm relatively new to the agency.

I left retirement to do this job. I moved to this state from a nice retirement. And I can promise you I did not disrupt my life to lead a strategic retreat. We are not backing down. We are driving forward.

I don't like to use the word federal headwinds. What I tell my team every day, we're in the tailwinds making business. And so we have a big job, but a very important job and a righteous job to complete. Before I make my formal presentation, I do want to spend just a few minutes commenting on reporting in the Los Angeles Times recently. That was incredibly disappointing to me and my team and our leadership.

Particularly because we spent many hours and meetings with the reporters over eight months to properly inform, to share the information, the evolution of our Heavy Duty Truck Incentive Programs with the reporter. Did our best to share as much as information as we could, and how the program has evolved and adapted over the years. And the reporter chose to ignore all that, very small subset of firms and vehicles where there was alleged wrongdoing and fraud.

But remarkably failed to disclose to their readers that it was the CARB team that uncovered the alleged wrongdoing through our very multi layered redundant guardrail and checks and balances that that we have in place. And ignored the fact that that this program, with the generosity of the legislature, has put over 16,000 clean trucks on the roads in California, most of them electric vehicles and they've driven over 340,000,000 miles, particularly in priority communities, develop developing the, delivering those clean air benefits.

So I think the story did a incredible disservice to the Times readers. It also focused on the few companies that have gone bankrupt through this process and criticize CARB for supporting those firms. But the whole program initially was designed to be a market transformation program to support the innovation economy, to support those firms trying to navigate the proverbial valley of death. And sadly, some of those firms didn't make it.

That happens in our market economy. But again, the 93%, and the reporter knew this, 93% of the vehicles that the legislature and their generosity has funded to support are being produced by firms that are healthy businesses today and are driving those miles. You know, I'm new to the state. I expected better from the LA Times with their rich history of recording. So it's very disappointing.

So we took the time to post a detailed response on our website. Would commend you to, to look at that. And we also plan to engage with other members of the legislature to make sure that, that you have the facts. So, that off my chest, ready to go to the presentation. And I think it's important Am I in charge of the slides?

There. I think it's important as a public official to always begin with the progress, just as the three of you have done. And it is remarkable progress that the state has has made over the over the years. And it's not by accident. First of all, it was back in 1990 where my predecessors had the vision to start introducing regulatory policies to require electric vehicles for sale in the State of California.

This was before AB 32. This was before the UN's International Panel on Climate Change, put out their seminal reports. And it's because they understood the math and the math is hard. And and the math is that we cannot achieve our public health goals, our clean air goals, our ambient air quality standards, federally enforceable without significant numbers of zero emission vehicles on California roads both passenger vehicles and light duty vehicles and you can see that decades of leadership in California has produced remarkable results.

And the passengers duty side, if California were a nation, we would be the 6th largest ZEV market in the world.

You see the number of zero emission trucks and buses on the road already exceeding the states clean truck goals. We are the number 1 ZEV market in the country, by far. And again, this ecosystem of policies that have been produced over the decades between the legislature and and successive administrations has produced these results. It's no accident. You have to have it.

Our lesson here is you have to have this ecosystem of complementary and coordinated policies across the state from the Energy Commission to ARB to others. This is produced this remarkable result. And so what I want to leave you here with today is that that ecosystem of complementary policies both current and future needs to continue. You can't do simply regulations alone. You can't do spending alone.

You can't have these other complementary infrastructure policies alone. They have to work together and we can. And it shows what can be done. And we showed the world that this is how, appropriate governance works. So, we're very proud of of this, this policy.

And as the Assemblywoman pointed out, you can see the mountains now in California. I've worked with a lot of colleagues who tell me growing up that was not the case. So three things for progress, political will, continuous and consistent funding and the policy. That's what needs to happen to maintain the kind of progress for clean air, for breathers and to develop this market, which also incidentally has produced significant economic benefits for the state. 52 ZEV manufacturers located here.

Sadly, this progress is being threatened right now by the federal assault on our right to protect California breathers. And I don't want to dwell on all these numbers, but as you can see, the consequences of the three illegal actions by the Congress, is. Has the potential to reduce real harm, economic harm, and health harm in our state. This is just from the three actions that the Congress has taken. And I can tell you I expect it to get worse.

Congress is now considering other resolutions as we speak to eliminate other rules that California has adopted. The federal EPA is working very hard to roll back other federal protections, which will increase emissions in California and across the country. And I want you to appreciate the irony here. We are obligated as a state to meet federal enforceable ambient air quality standards. We have some of the worst remaining air pollution in the country.

At the very same time, the Federal Government is attempting to take away our most effective tools to achieve those clean air. And the consequences for failure are significant up to and including withholding of federal transportation dollars, which are, you know, the tens of billions of dollars that the state counts on. So these are real world impacts. If we cannot. If we do not prevail in our in our litigation against The United States, this is what people will be experiencing. This is what what breeders will be experiencing.

So this depicts the current landscape that we're facing here and it's creating a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace. Is California going to continue to be committed to be a leader to create these markets to continue progress in clean air. We're seeing original equipment manufacturers shifting their capital allocation away from production. So we don't think we have a demand problem in the State of California.

We think we have a supply problem because these firms no longer will be required to produce clean and efficient vehicles as they had expected and has. And they've been planning to do. These vehicles exist. This technology exists. But because of this uncertainty now, because of this this landscape, we're quite concerned that the supply is not going to be there.

So continued progress in clean air and building these markets, as I mentioned, will require consistent and predictable funding. Our experience has shown that if firms can count on the incentives, they will continue to produce. We need to have forward looking regulations that will inspire early actions to comply with those regulations and take advantage of the incentives.

But make no mistake, this is part of thing that's been a bit frustrating both with the reporting. California still retains our authority. Our unique authority under federal law to set emission standards to protect California breathers. Congress has illegally, in our opinion, objected to how we applied that authority in three specific instances. But we still have the ability to establish these standards and request a waiver from EPA.

And we've gotten them for the last 50 years. To paraphrase Mark Twain, you know, the news of our death has been greatly exaggerated. We're still in it.

So, briefly, I want to give my colleagues time to present. Forgive me for indulging my brief rant in the beginning. We're not sitting still. Last fall, we launched an initiative that we call Drive Forward to continue to make progress for Californians and for breathers.

And it's a multi-path effort which encompasses both new regulations for passenger vehicles, for heavy trucks, for off-road diesel machines, as well as a concepts addressing fleet emissions in what we call in-use emissions. We are very grateful for the legislature, the state legislature, for meeting the moment this year and providing $271,000,000 to... In supporting both current incentives and a new incentive that we call My First EV that, that launched, in September.

And actually, some firms launched it, launched their own versions in, in, in August. And that has been a, enormous success in demonstrating that Californians still wanna have access to, to these, these vehicles.

We announced last week that 12,000, nearly 12,000 incentives have already been issued. One firm went through their allocation in the first few days. And so, we're very pleased with the response. And it just again demonstrates that, that Californians still demand these, these vehicles. It's a unique and different way of approaching our incentive programs.

It's an experiment. It's the first time the state has ever done this in partnership with the automakers. First time automakers have signed a grant with the state of California. Didn't know if that was gonna happen, but they, but they, and again, I could tell stories about the... How this all came about, but they all wanted in at, at the end, and they're enthusiastic.

In fact, Toyota has even launched a complimentary program because this program is, is really aimed at influencing those EV-curious buyers, those first-time buyers, and gives them a nudge to go that the hypothesis is would this be enough, dollars 3,500 on the hood instantly. Was that gonna be enough to nudge people into the showrooms? And it turns out the answer is yes. So we're very pleased with how things are going so far. We've allocated almost $20,000,000 already in reimbursements to firms.

And we're looking forward to, again, California breathers having access to these, to these, technologies. So, I'll just close that. My first EV is, is just one example about how innovative policies can continue to maintain and, and grow this technology and this market. We are continuously looking at how to improve our current incentive programs so that they're more efficient and that people have access to them. And, and as we're proceeding with our regulatory process, we've had a couple public workshops as well.

We're looking at policy designs that will encourage early action. So firms that could, under the regulation, get credit for taking actions sooner than they have to be. So again, this, this integrated approach between regulatory strategies, between incentive strategies, between investment in infrastructure is the strategy going forward. So I will conclude my remarks and be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. And we will wait for questions till everybody in the panel has had a chance to speak. So, next up, we have Senator/Commissioner Nancy Skinner. Welcome.

Thanks so much, Assemblymember, and Assemblymember Schiavo. You were correct in the other title. We're gonna clap on that, but we'll leave that one alone for the moment. Really appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak in front of you and also to give my appreciation to both Assemblymember Irwin, Assemblymember Schiavo, and Senator Stern for your leadership in this area because all three of you have carried very important legislation that has helped California continue move it... Towards its...

Achieving its goals on EV adoption and the electrification of transportation. So all three of you have been extraordinarily pivotal. A little bit different than what our great representative McCarbe just mentioned, and then some things I think that you should have on your radar and you should consider. So we remain the nation's leader in new E. V.

Vehicle purchases and in-charger deployment, so new E. V. Sales in California, and we just updated our dashboard, maintained a steady market share in the third quarter of 'twenty six despite a drop in new car sales overall in California and across the country. So with interest rates and high interest rates and low consumer confidence, there were just fewer cars bought overall, but our percent of EVs, which was 19.1%, was, or rather, 19.1% for ZEVs, 16.3% straight, you know, fully electric.

You take that percent compared to only 6.4% nationally, so we're doing well, and our charger network continues to expand, so hopefully, maybe we're not quite at the place yet where, Assemblymember Schiavo, you and your son...

Your child would never face what you faced on that Thanksgiving drive, but I'm hoping we're pretty close to there, and I'll tell you where we're at, where we just updated this dashboard additionally. We now have 224,438 EV charging ports at public sites, such as grocery stores, shopping areas, gas stations, that kind of, you know, where you see them very public, and then included in that number are a little bit more limited-access sites, like doctors' offices, workplaces, hotels, and multifamily housing.

Now, among the publicly accessible chargers, about 23,000 now are D. C. Fast chargers, so those are the kinds where you can get a charge in fifteen to forty-five minutes, depending on your car and the charger, but much better than the, if you're, you know, traveling and such, and you want to get a charge quick, the growth in the D.

C. Fast chargers is a huge improvement. Now those numbers are in addition to the approximately 1,200,000 chargers that are installed in single-family homes and in those properties where it's a home or it's a duplex but up to four units, so we have 1,200,000 there. We, the CEC, has just completed our assessment on their estimated charger need, so we're revising it now.

If you recall, the previous assessment, which was a number of years back, projected that we are going to need, like, a million public chargers by 2030, which is really hard to imagine that we would get to that.

But though it was also based on that was based on chargers that were much lower power. That was based on vehicles that had less range. It was based on a lot of factors that have totally changed today. So our revised estimate for 2030 is now that we will need 478,000 charging points at the publicly accessible and more limited locations that I described, as well as 136,000 at multifamily housing.

So, as you can tell from what I described before, we're almost halfway there, which is not bad, and that, in effect, we are charging installations are almost ahead of our vehicles, not quite, but almost ahead because the number of vehicles that those numbers are based on by 2030 is 6,800,000.

And while I think all of us want to get to 6,800,000 EVs by 2030, you know, a lot of factors might get in that way, but we're certainly moving... Making great progress on the infrastructure that's needed. So what are the... What are some other actions that we've taken more... Just in response to, like, Trump?

The legally challenging, the federal actions, and Trump's actions that undermine California's authority, and if you wanna know the whole list of them, certainly ask CARB. One of them I'm very familiar with is we challenged... Our AG's office challenged the feds on the elimination of the federal funding called NEVI, and we won.

So we have NEVI funding solicitations out on the street right now and just about to award, actually, and then there were at least two, for example, that sued the administration regarding revoking the three crucial Clean Air Act waivers.

So our attorney general has been very busy, supported by our lawyers at Air Resources Board and other state, you know, other attorneys in different state agencies, to basically challenge everything that Trump is throwing at us, but more internally, what we've been doing are very strategic funding of charging infrastructure to make up for where public private sector may not be acting. And the other good news I haven't mentioned this is private sector action, but there's much more private and sector investment in chargers now.

There's a new consortium called IONA, and IONA is made up of a number of auto manufacturers who then have put their money together, created this new company, IONA, which is putting in gas station-like charging facilities throughout the state. They have over 175 locations planned and already, you know, under permitting and such, and one of their signature locations, which will have a convenience store, restrooms, DC fast chargers, the whole bit, will open in Westminster in November, so we're really looking forward to that.

But there's a lot of private sector expenditure now in meeting some of our infrastructure gap, the charging infrastructure gap.

So we're... We, the CEC, are trying to be really smart about where do we put the money? Where is the private sector not gonna invest? And one of the areas that we've identified that's really important is funding for multifamily because people... One of the biggest reasons somebody doesn't get an EV is if they don't have access to charging at home.

Anyway, keep going. We've got our reliability regs passed. Legislature directed us to do so. We developed them. They're passed.

The payment regs are underway. We should be in the next couple of months, and the roaming regs are already being, as Assemblymember Irwin knows, very familiar with her legislation. Those will be there... We have a tight, a streamlined timeline for them and moving very quickly.

There was also legislation this session that the governor signed into law that will improve the testing and verification of the chargers and eliminate some of the bottlenecks that have affected public sector's or private sector's willingness to invest in charging infrastructure in California, but that, I think what was passed is going to really help.

The My First DV Incentives, thank you, legislature, for passing Governor Newsom's initiative, and as mentioned, there's already 12,000 drivers so far who have taken advantage of it, and the program is still live. The only automaker that has used up their incentives is Tesla. All of the other EV makers that are participating still have incentives available. So anyone who's listening who hasn't purchased an EV yet, get out to, your, car dealer and you can get it right that the incentive is paid right at that moment.

You're not having to go apply for it later.

The other thing that California has done is the Clean Mile Standard, which was a bill of mine from a number of years ago, where the PUC administers it, and there's a fee on every ride that any of us take on transportation network companies, so Uber, Lyft, etcetera. And that fee, it's, I believe it's 9¢. In Colorado, they mimicked us, but their fee is 25¢. Now, the point of it is to help the TNC drivers go electric and to provide them some funding to do so.

Now my only criticism so far is that PUC sat on the funds they collected for a long time, but they've now launched the program.

It's called RIDE RIDE Share Incentives for Driving Electric, and they are offering up to 20,300 to a certain category of TNC drivers to either purchase or lease a new EV and up to $14,200 for a used EV. So it's quite a significant amount of funds, and I hope that TNC drivers are getting enough awareness of it and it's being promoted fairly, or rather aggressively. Now, to get to the actions I think you should consider.

I think the My First EV is a brilliant program, and the legislature should continue it. The new governor should continue it.

And part of its brilliance, besides that it's an incentive and helps Californians go to EVs, is that it had... It was designed... It made the automakers themselves have skin in the game.

They had to contribute also, so it's really true that one of the biggest pressures we have is automakers pulling back from their making of, EVs or their supporting of EVs, and we need them to stay committed because we're continuing to be committed and our residents want EVs, so the brilliance of my first EV is that the automakers have to have skin in the game, and it's a good program, so we should continue it.

I think we should also continue and strengthen the program for TNC drivers because if you look at the data, the VMT, the miles driven by TNC, just keeps increasing every year.

So every mile that they drive that is in a combustion engine is creating pollution. So what's the best way to get them out of those type of cars? It's through this program. So there it should be expanded and not at all shrunk. And then I think we need to provide some more funding for the gaps in E. V.

Infrastructure, specifically for multifamily housing, because the private sector is not really going to make up that gap, So we're going to need to use public funds to help get chargers in apartment buildings, especially the older ones where there's a lot of electrical upgrades needed to do so, but those are some of the things that I recommend for you as you're thinking of going forward, and I think now I would like to introduce, Spencer Reeder, who is our new director of our fuels and transportation division at the Energy Commission, and that's the division that is under my purview as a commissioner.

I have some other things within my purview, but the fuels and transportation is primarily and Spencer's a great addition to our team. So let me turn it over to Spencer.

All right. Thank you very much, Commissioner Skinner. I just have to say, we are very fortunate that your experience as a Senator was not lost and that you are still representing as a member of the board on CEC. We're very excited about that. And over the last couple of years, things have really improved.

We've done a number of trips from LA up to Sacramento, and there are a lot more chargers along the way now. So I think that's one indication that we are definitely moving in the right direction. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. Yes. I'm not sure when someone member when she had a live. And Senator Stern, nice to see you. Yeah, I am. I'm brand new.

I'm newer than my colleague here from CARB. I'm about six months in. And I think you know, and, and Senator Stern knows, I come from the automotive industry. I ran sustainability and government affairs for, for a company for eight years, and I'm now on the California team. I'm really excited to be here working on these issues.

The significance of what we are doing at this moment is hard to overstate. There are so many headwinds, and people have been rooting for our demise. I think, you know, use the Mark Twain quote. So I think what we collectively are doing here is is quite important. And I've also driven between Sacramento and LA four times.

And what my technique was early on was to bring in their football, so my son and I could go in the parking lot and throw while we were waiting, because I also had those same experiences, the pounding against the window, like, why is it taking so long? And I know we talked in my prior capacity about the reliability and the ease of charging.

And so I will say in my new role as the director of this division, I've established three North Stars for our work and this was in collaboration with Commissioner Skinner and Chair Hochschild. We all sat together in a strategy session. And I wanna share them with you because I think they're indicative of where we need to focus and head and where the investment should focus.

The first North Star is everything that we're doing at the Energy Commission, in collaboration with our partners at other state agencies, should improve the driver experience. We have to pause anything that we're doing in any program. Are we improving the driver experience? We certainly should not be making it worse. So that's the first, first test.

The second is more of a statement that I want all the folks in my division to think about. And that is... And you'll think this will resonate with you, some of my member, Schiavo. The only thing worse than not having a charger where you want it is having a charger where you want it that you cannot use. That's far worse.

Right? If there's not a charger where you need it, then you're gonna make plans accordingly. But if you think you're gonna be able to charge somewhere, and you get there and you can't for whatever reason, That's far worse. So that's the second test. And this is our regulatory work, which I'll talk about briefly, is to address those issues.

And I know many of you have passed legislation to address that issue. The third North Star is that whatever we're doing in our work at the state should be keenly aware of the added cost so that the cost to charge or fill your battery with fuel, electrons, in this case, or hydrogen fuel, should never exceed, or rarely exceed, the cost that it would take to fill an equivalent gas vehicle. Because as soon as we get inverted in that wrong way, then people are gonna say, why?

We know the four of the, the resonance of affordability. So, so after those three is something that I brought into my new role.

And again, this was developed in collaboration with Commissioner Skinner and, sure, Hulk Shield. And I think these are important guiding principles for our work. I wanna share one other thing before I get into the slides because I think this kind of trivia is really important, and it sets the stage for what you all were talking about. And I'd even invite you to, to see if you can answer this question. Guess how many miles a day are driven on the road in California?

Just take a, a wild guess. How many miles per day are driven by vehicles on roads in California?

12.

12 miles. That's how many you drive? A million.

A million. Oh.

Oh, I think... A million miles per day. How many miles per day total in aggregate? All the road miles driven in the state of California per day. 2,760,000.

2,760,000. 900,000,000 miles per day. Between three hundred and twenty and three hundred and thirty billion miles per year in California, just California. So the programs that we're talking about today, when you do the math with that kind of mileage, they mean something. They result in greenhouse gas reductions.

They result in air quality improvements that you talked about. My parents met at Palisades High, a walk from here. Right? My mom went to school here. This is the first time I've actually been on campus.

She left college or late to marry my dad. That's a whole different story. So it... This resonates. I mean, I was one of the authors.

I have a background in climate science. I came to my job in the auto industry to work on this issue, to work on electrification. That was why I joined the company I joined at the time. In the 2014 National Climate Assessment, which I was an author on as a climate scientist, we were projecting the dramatic increase in fires, and we're in the middle of it here. Right?

So this, this is deeply personal for me as well. So I just want to offer that as context. It's, it's great to be on the team here in the state of California. Really proud to be at the Energy Commission. Talked a lot with your help shield as I was considering my next move after leaving the industry, and it's great to be here.

So I'll move through this. Luckily, Commissioner Skinner highlighted a lot of what I'm here to talk about, so I'll be able to move through that pretty quickly. The first... So I'll run through our clean transportation program, which is the centerpiece program at the Energy Commission. I'll give you a little bit of a regulatory up...

Update: although Cmmissioner Skinner largely covered that. And then I'll talk about the information that we provide the public and our stakeholders about our progress. So these are the headlines that Commissioner Skinner walked through. 19.1% sales for all new sales in quarter three in California, sixteen point three point four depending on how you do the math, were all electric. So that's great.

And the 6.4 nationally is also for the all-electric. So we are leading the way. We account for more than a quarter of national battery electric vehicle sales in the state of California alone. So we are the leader. And you saw the figure...

Or you see the figure here that Commissioner Skinner talked about the almost quarter of a million public unlimited-access chargers. So we're about 47% of the way to support that 2030 goal. So this is a view of the last decade or so investment from the Energy Commission in infrastructure, and you can see it's dominated by medium- and heavy-duty infrastructure over a billion dollars, 836,000,000 in light-duties of infrastructure over the last decade. This totals to about 2,600,000,000 in total investment in infrastructure.

We can walk through some of these in detail if we want.

This is from the vehicle fees that, that formed the foundational basis of funding that was reauthorized through 2035. Thanks to the, the legislature acting on that. We've also got some one-time funding from the GGRF and the general funds. So this is all of that combined core funding. It's about 100,000,000 a year.

And as my colleague from CARB said, we work together with the other agencies to make sure this is coordinated and synergistic investments. Here's a few highlights from that program. Over 52,000 installed or planned-installed chargers, a number of hydrogen fueling stations. We've got manufacturing investments. We...

Period of time back in 2018, 2019, almost 230 electric school buses, and then a number of workforce training programs. So it isn't just about the charges; it's about a range of activities. And again, really important that we are working in collaboration with our colleagues at CalSTA, at CARB, to make sure these are all leveraged investments. On the regulatory side, as Commissioner Skinner walked through, we have the reliability reg in place. We're in pre-roll making for a payments reg.

And this is really about making charging easier. Right? Can you use a credit card? Can you use tap-and-pay? What are the standards?

Is it reliable? Can people know that they can go to any station and get a charge? The roaming regulation. Plug and Charge, for those of you that have experienced that technology, it's pretty wonderful. There's a digital handshake between the charger and the vehicle.

You can plug in, you walk away, get a cup of coffee, it initiates the charge. This is what we want in the state. This is where we want to drive the industry. And so we have regulatory activity in that space. And then also, something that got a lot of immediate attention a few weeks back was our replacement tire efficiency regulation.

But again, if you think about the number of miles driven every day, if you're improving the tire efficiency by a few percentage points, that adds, adds up quickly. And when this regulation is fully implemented in 2037, when all the replacement tires meet this standard, we're talking about roughly a billion dollars in savings for California drivers. That's huge. Massive greenhouse gas reductions, bunch of criteria pollutant benefits as well. So, again, very important regulation.

In fact, the head of CalSTA, I saw a week ago, and I said, oh, what do you think about the tire efficiency regulation? He goes, oh, it's great. I said, you know, there's a little bit of controversy around that. And he said, well, how... Spencer, how could there be controversy around this?

It's such a win-win kind of regulation. But again, we get sort of caught up in some of the rhetoric around government programs. The thing that I wanted to highlight is on this slide here, on the tire efficiency regulation, is consumer information. You see those leafs, the fuel efficiency class. Think about whenever you bought replacement tires for your vehicle.

What kind of information did you receive about the efficiency of the tire? Probably nothing. This is the first time in the country that we're gonna be requiring tire manufacturers to give you an indication of the efficiency of the tire, so consumers can make an informed choice.

Why this translates to important outcomes is that if you bought an EV with a certain amount of range, let's say, at 260 miles of range, and you bought replacement tires and you didn't know that they were less efficient, that range could drop 10, 15, 20%. Not okay for a lot of drivers.

Your fuel economy goes down for a conventional liquid-fuel-powered vehicle; this translates into cost. So, this is the first time that we are going to be providing transparency for the public when they go out and buy a replacement tire. Really, really important regulation. I'll conclude with this slide. This is the variety of public dashboards that we provide that conveys information on a quarterly basis for new ZEV sales.

We break it down by type. All battery electric, year to date, you can see that number is over 200,000: all-electric battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, and then a smattering of fuel cell electric, electric vehicles. We provide data on the medium- and heavy-duty, the number of chargers, as you heard, hydrogen stations, and even school buses, which we funded in the past. So there's the link that you can access all these public dashboards that are updated at a regular basis.

And with that, I'll conclude my comments.

Thank you.

Well, thank you. I just wanted to clarify because, obviously misunderstood the question. How many miles a year do California drivers?

300 and... Three... Between 320 and 330 billion.

And then what what percent are, like, TNCs?

That's a good question.

Oh, she's seeing you.

I'm trying to get hurt. She just...

No. I'm I'm I'm just curious because...

I don't, I don't know what percentage of TNCs, but we can find out.

Yeah. Commissioner Skinner. And then I, I just have to make one comment. I do wanna start with my colleagues. But one comment on the tire replacement: it obviously became a big subject of right-wing outrage.

That was probably something when you explain it the way you did, it makes much more sense. It was probably something that needed to be... There needed to be more messaging upfront, upfront about that tire replacement program because a lot of people thought it was the end of the world. So... And, and it certainly makes sense once it's explained.

So, Senator, do you have questions for our panel?

Sure. Yes. I. I do have a couple questions. I was doing some of the, the math, Mister Grundler, based on your, your your comments at the outset and sort of looking at program performance. I think we...

We've taken a hard look at things since that LA Times piece came out and looked at Karb's comments as well. We'd love to get some verification from your staff, if possible, but I was trying to sort of run the ground just in a more straightforward apples-to-apples look at how the cost of sort of ZEV deployment overall and then sort of nature of our market transformation.

I remember when we first set up, in the Obama administration, the first loan guarantee program, and there were attempts from... In politics to undercut the program. I think we had a, a less than 1% failure rate of a $9,000,000,000 program, for example, in that.

I think you're actually beating that, that rate. From what I can tell here, and again, I would love to get some corroboration from CARB, but the main... Starting with the maintenance cost of ownership, right, we're, we're talking about around 9¢a mile to own a ZEV truck, to own and operate a ZEV truck for repairs and maintenance and about 20¢per mile on the diesel front. So more than double the cost of owning a...

That's why it starts to pencil so quickly for someone who gets into a ZEV truck, and they actually end up saving right away.

It doesn't just have to accrue over time. You get it right away. I know this. I just switched. I'm...

Been drive... I don't drive a semi. I drive... Went from a 20-mile-a-gallon Ford Transit into a Kia EV9, and it changed my entire life and my whole budget right away. It wasn't like it took time.

Suddenly, you're filling up for $20. And that changes everything as a parent, and someone is trying to pay the bills on a good government salary. The failure rates, there was a lot of talk about the failure rates, but I, I... We, we did our own analysis of sort of how just normal people buy cars and the failure rates out there. I think that they say that...

In California, they say the lemon rates are about 0.50%, 0.55% of people who go out and buy a car. They're not gonna... It's not gonna work for them. It's gonna fail on them. This program has a 0.2, 0.23% failure rate.

So, in other words, you're... From what the average consumer out there is just getting from a faulty car that they get back out of the tens... Out of thousands and thousands of ZEVs purchased through the HVIP program, our sense is that the failure rate is actually much lower than the average even light-duty vehicle, let alone heavy.

So I wanna commend you on actually not just spotting, spotting some of the problems that were emerging, but, but also on the, the really accelerated transformation that we would have expected, I think, when we funded this: a much higher failure rate and, and, and much more losses. I mean, I think you talked about 93% of the firms.

That was a firm-based calculation you gave of only 7% fell out. But in terms of the actual vehicles themselves, from what we've seen, not only are they being used robustly and are those costs lower, but even if you say add in the 27 vehicles that didn't work out out of 16,000, even if you add that in to say the cost of ownership, you're still far below the cost of diesel. And I think just look to the Strait of Hormuz to realize that, you know, for...

In terms of demand, the demand is huge out there from what people are facing in the diesel market, just being crushed right now by federal policy and by wars, that the demand seems robust. But what I, what I heard from your testimony that, that did cause me some concern is that you felt like the supply wouldn't be there to meet that demand, that, that the demand is robust, and that California's poor...

Program performance has been solid, just to... And, and that probably something worth doubling down. And I, I would even submit for my colleagues here and those of us who'd be working on these issues in the years ahead to not look at one-time funding, to look at a continuous appropriation, and to look at something consistent. But can you just... What...

Why, why are you... Why, why do you feel like we're at this, this precipice, if you will, between supply and demand? And what... What's happening out in the marketplace? My understanding was there's a lot coming offline from the new Sparks facility and that we should see those Semis coming into the market.

I just read a Wall Street Journal piece about, Texas is certainly deploying them at very high rates. So the, the trucks seem to be coming in the near term, but is this a medium-term challenge that you're gonna... That you think we're facing from the OEMs? Can you sort of describe the nature of that precipice a little better?

Yeah. The concern... The supply concern, and I, I regret it wasn't more clear, is on the light duty side. That's my concern because of the capital allocations that these firms have been changing. And production is down for reasons we understand because the federal tax credit went away, and, and Nix is backing off of CAFE.

EPA no longer thinks greenhouse gases are a problem and, and, and. And so you don't have a, a regulatory pressure to produce these vehicles. And firms are responding. And they're reallocating those to surprisingly new engine programs. So that's, that's my concern, and that was why, you know, we're enthusiastic about the, the My First EV to demonstrate the current.

And I think, I mean, Spencer will, will know, but while because of the war, increased interest in EV sales, not just in California, but, but outside California as well. So there's, there's reason for optimism. You know, the thought experiment we're living through right now is: what if the Tesla semi truck has the same impact on the market as their model. The world changes. I've been to the facility that it's sized to make 50,000 trucks a year.

Through HVIP, you know, we don't tell fleets what to buy. They choose, and they're overwhelmingly choosing the Tesla vehicle. Some have had them in their fleets and have measured their performance. And Tesla right now, because they're vertically integrated, are very competitive in terms of the cost. Are very competitive in terms of of the cost.

We'll see if their competitors will respond. We appreciate the legislation that was passed this session about more transparency in, in pricing by the legacy manufacturers. And on the light-duty side, again, there's a lot of interest outside of California from other states about adopting something similar. We're forming a work group with the Northeast states; you know, Colorado is looking at. We've met with Maryland.

So this could be another export of California is to export this approach. And we have some OEMs are interested in seeing these other programs develop in these other states as well. And then you start creating a critical mass that, again, along with our drive forward regulations, where we're going to be demanding pretty stringent performance and clean air performance. And we know that the cheapest way for firms to comply will be by building more ZEVs. Still early days, but we put a proposal out.

We're working with the automakers and with the public on that. So that again, this integrated approach with infrastructure funding, we would certainly welcome, continuous funding on incentives and a regulatory push on the supply side. We know that works.

Thanks for that. Aye... You know, we're... I'm anticipating getting through these next few rocky years and then sort of getting back on, on track. The hope is that the capital allocation on the private side doesn't get sort of bottled up in a long-term, you know, chasing gasoline and, you know, a future of cheap gasoline and cheap diesel, which just proves to be out of reach, as their sort of course...

Core mission for the OEMs. I'm, I'm deeply concerned about that. I, I, I would love to see some analysis of... And maybe this could come from you or the stakeholders about what a a longer range My First EV program could look like or or sort of what kind of, cost savings we could achieve by having, say, a longer range partnership, especially if it included the section one seventy seven states or some of them that you mentioned. So I think we'd...

I think that would be helpful information if we're able to take even a three-year view on this. You know, what does it take to get us through our own political valley of death at this moment? So that's something I'd love some follow-up on. And then the, the only other thing I would just wanted to ask you, I know you're in the mobile source division. We have to hit our Clean Air Act goals, writ large, both mobile and stationary, within California under our SIP.

And, you know, we in the legislature, I think, have looked at the challenge. If we don't have the same mobile source tools that we've had in the past, say, as our main tool, we wanna be looking at other ways to achieve those, those outcomes.

We've been looking at indirect source rules and looking at how that could work, not just for the heavy-duty sector where it's being deployed right now in South Coast and in San Joaquin to some limited extents in certain areas, but also more broadly in the light-duty space. In our past exchanges with the CARB Chair, there... There's been discussion whether you all have the underlying authority to pursue such an indirect source rule unilaterally on your own, whether you'd need legislative authorization.

I think... So maybe that equivocation is unnecessary, and, and the more important question is, you know, if we do need to have that backup plan in place, how would that have to be structured to achieve this sort of... To fill the gap that we're seeing from, you know, uncertainty on the mobile source side. So, is that something you have any comments on for today?

Yes. I do. And then that's it for me. First of all, it's important to have a plan B. I've learned that lesson.

And, you know, last year prior to launching Drive Forward, we, we did a statewide listening session and we, we got a lot of input from, from the public on what options the state has to make up for this enormous emission reduction deficits and that's been caused by this illegal Federal Government. And, and certainly indirect source rule, we heard a lot of suggestions on that. And so we're looking at all the options I can promise you at, at, at CARB,

we're in the midst of a relentless, um, quest for emission, other emission reduction opportunities. I think we would, we would, certainly welcome further nudges

from the legislature, in this, in this regard. I will note that it was uh, in this regard. I will note that. It's 1771, the bill, the legislation, the legislator, legislation that did not pass, but was a tremendous... Implied that this, that CARB already has this, this authority because it wouldn't...

The legislators said... Legislation said this wouldn't be a, a change in, in law. So we're looking at, at everything. We have to look at everything. We know that transportation emissions are...

Have this outside impact on emission reductions. And so, again, I... My own attitude, and this is what I tell our team, and certainly in our executive office conversations, it's business as usual. And, and again, using the world, you know, I, I don't like yous... The words, Hedwin.

We don't have the luxury of despair. You know, we have to keep driving forward. We have to be looking at all options. I meet regular... Regularly with the philanthropic community.

And I'm telling them, we need to have a plan B, you know, fund your thought leaders. You know, we are open-minded about, about what else the state can do because people are going to be dying. Fourteen thousand five hundred, at a minimum, premature deaths between now and 2037 if we don't find a way to fill this. Consistent funding. It's going to be forward-looking regulations, and it's going to be investment in infrastructure.

It's not... Right. So I'm interested in all ideas that, and there are a lot of smart people in the state, which is why I love it. There are a lot of smart people in the state, which is why I love it here, to come up with plan Bs. Because we can't count on a science-based EPA taking office in 2029.

And that will, you know, approve our Clean Air Act waiver request when it comes when it comes in. So thank you for those questions.

Assemblymember Schiavo.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Mister Reeder. Those three kind of principles of how we ground our policymaking and programs, I think, is really helpful because we do want it to be reliable, more affordable, and just make people's lives better. I think in this space, we are not so good about highlighting all of those pieces. I, I feel like people who really hate EVs have never driven an EV because I now...

My EV is in the shop, and I'm having to drive rental cars that are gas, and I hate it. I hate driving those gas cars now. They're so slow to pick up and get on the highway, to pass people. It's like, I just... I can't stand it.

And, and so, you know, there's so many... The lower cost and maintenance, the fact that you get to drive by every gas station and look at those high prices and not stop. I, I feel like we could do a much better job highlighting all of the benefits of having an EV. But, you know, as we've talked about today, there's, there's real challenges too.

When I first got my EV, back in 2022, I think, I did not have charging at home, and so I was on the public charge.

And, and so, driving up to that charger that did not work, I wanted to pull my hair out and scream. And, you know, especially if you're really low and you don't know if you have enough charge to get to the next one, it can really put you in a, in a terrible position. And so, you know, I'm proud of the work that the legislature has done to... Around reliability, and I think that makes a huge, huge difference. But I'm curious on the...

And I'm so glad, you know, as a single mom, having the, the federal tax credit made the difference between me getting an EV or not for my budget. And I know that, you know, I'm really proud that we, as a state, invested in my first EV and make sure that, you know, that $3,500, that's real money. That, that is real money in your pocket, and makes a difference for people. Do you know how many folks are choose... Or who are doing the program?

Do we have a sense of whether or not they're buying new or used EVs or how that breakdown is happening?

I'll turn to my colleague, Carab, on that one.

It's overwhelming the new purchases or leases. And the reason is because most OEMs don't have an ability to control the used vehicles. So we're... But we are... For, for those firms that do the direct to consumer firms like Lucid and, and Rivian, they own those used vehicles when they come back.

And so they are offering them. And Ford has offered a few remarkably. They have to be the... Have to go through their certified program. But most Californians are choosing to buy or lease a new EV.

And it's colleague once, once said for your earlier comments, an EV is just like a gasoline vehicle, only better.

Yeah. It's true. I, I will I will add, because this is important and it actually ties into something else, which I think we should really think about carefully. Roughly 70% of the vehicle transactions that occur anywhere are used sales. So although the 30% plus or minus and are disproportionately taking advantage of this program, the mass market, the drivers that are going to be less tolerant to what you and I have experienced are the folks that are buying used EVs.

There's a bow wave of EVs in the market right now that are gonna continue for the next eighteen months or so because of so many EVs that were sold because of the federal tax credit. They're coming off lease. If you do the math and you look back in time, like, okay, those three-year leases now, some are two-year leases are now mature. All those vehicles are coming into the market.

I just bought a used EV for a fraction of the cost of the new price, even incentives and subsidies aside, which there are many, and it's great that the state has those various programs and that local governments and utilities and all the various players are looking at this issue of incentives.

We need to be prepared for all of these people who've never driven an EV before or buying a used EV. And, to Commissioner Skinner's point, many of them live in a multifamily housing. Like, how do we serve their infrastructure needs in a way that is a good experience, that's frictionless, that doesn't cause them to say, what did I do? This, this is not working out for me and my family.

So I think this is our challenge, what I think about every day at the energy commission now in my new role and talking to our leadership team.

Like, how do we put ourselves in the shoes of the new drivers, the next wave of a mass-market drivers that are far less tolerant of inconvenience? Like, all of us that were early adopters, we tolerated some in... Level of inconvenience. The next wave of buyers will not. So we really have to think carefully about our programs, and that's what we're trying to do.

Well, I conveniently author to build this year, AB1820 to help make the... Basically, to have more reliable, multifamily housing charger costs to install chargers and make sure fees were not unreasonable. But I also... We had a hearing... This...

My select committee had a hearing the end of last year, I think. And this was a big topic at our hearing. And one of the things that we discussed also, which I think is important that we don't overlook, is that, you know, most people don't... What's the average that people drive, like, 34 miles a day or something like that? Do you remember?

Yeah. It's roughly between thirty and forty miles. The problem with these kind of statistics though, is you, you... You know, it's not an evil in the distributed curve. And you've got people, many of...

Or lower-income who are driving great distances to get to their jobs. And so I know this is a... When I was in the industry, this is, oh, well, you know, EVs only need to have a 100 miles of range because the average distance people travels 30 miles a day. Well, no. It doesn't really work out like that.

And for people that are most impacted, that have a couple kids and they're shuttling kids here and there, and they've got a job and maybe two jobs, and they're driving all the... This distance. So, no, this... If we're gonna get the deep penetration, the 90, 95, 100% transition to this technology, we have to reach all of the drivers and all of their various use cases. And I think it's really vital to not get seduced by this idea.

Oh, it's only 30 miles a day. Yeah. For a lot of people, it's miles a day. Yeah. For a lot of people, it's three miles a day, some less.

And this gets into, like, what is the proportion? And Commissioner Skinner and I talked about this regularly. How much level one charging is even viable for a lot of these folks? I mean, yeah, if you are retired and you're driving to the store and the library twice a week, then level one is great. But if you're someone who's commuting every day more than 30 miles, then maybe level one doesn't work.

So, level two: what power levels of level two like that level two goes from two or three kilowatts to up to 19. Utilities get nervous when you say 19 kilowatt level two charging, how our transformers are going to handle that. I would say six to nine kilowatts is the range, and then for DC fast charging like what makes sense?

Like, all of these questions are on the table as we think about our investments: the requirements we put into our grant agreements for state money being leveraged for charging. So, really, really important questions about like: do we have a target, or do we need to look at a distribution and a range of different kinds of use cases and make sure we're not losing people at the margins?

Just one last question. One of the conversations that I've been having locally with utilities in my area is around emergency vehicles and the requirements around emergency vehicles. And, and the... I recently had a meeting... Hour-long meeting with my water board and water agency, and they've been, you know, doing a lot of due diligence.

They've been trying out heavy-duty vehicles and have not actually found anything on the market that can do what they need. And so it's a real it's a real barrier for adoption, obviously. You know, they're talking about having Semis that you can fill with gravel, and then it can tow a trailer with a, you know, with a... With some kind of heavy machinery on, on it. Right?

I mean, that... If you imagine a battery doing that, it's a, it's a lot of load. And so I, you know, I know the heavy-duty vehicles are critical in making our goals. I think it's a really different scenario when you're talking about, you know, big heavy-duty trucks that have a planned route, and they know where they're going, and they know how many miles they need, and all of that, and they come and charge at key points or when they get back or whatever.

And obviously, you know, the, the...

Some of the trucks that are coming on the market right now are, are changing the game and a game-changer in this space. But when you're talking about emergency situations where there may be power down, where you cannot charge up, where you may not... You may be out in the field for, you know, days; I'm wondering what is the thinking around carb.

And the other piece of this, which, you know, for this particular agency, they've already raised their rates 5% for the next five years, each year. So 25% increases over the next five years, and every additional million dollars that they spend.

I think this is a statistics. Don't point me if I'm wrong. But is for every million dollars they spend, it's an additional 1% increase on ratepayers. So, you know, as we are struggling as a legislature to also control the cost of utilities, and

this is something that is stretching people's wallets, especially with these hotter days that we have all the time now. Is there conversations happening within CARB around these challenges? I know there were exemptions that were given, I think, to fire and maybe someone else around emergency vehicles. Are... How are we thinking about...

You know, we have this challenge of, of chicken-and-egg where, like, we need the demand to, to be able... For the market to produce the kind of vehicles we need, but then... But they're not yet. And the, you know, the deadline is around the corner for some of these agencies who plan five, you know, or more years in advance. So what is your thinking, and how are you trying to address this?

Yeah. So I wouldn't be surprised if our team has met with the water board. There's a strong emphasis by me for our people to get out in the world and to listen. And so we've talked to a lot of fleets, and that informed amendments to our state and local fleet regulation to provide more time provide streamline exemptions.

And kind of the bottom line is if there is no vehicle on the market that, that can do the work that firms need to do or agencies need to do, then again, then they're exempted.

But we need to do more than that. And so, I think, in this first year of implementation, information gathering and understanding the, the experience and getting more information on this. The fact is that, first of all, there are lots of different kinds of emergency vehicles. So can we come to a common understanding about what that is? And then, what, what does that duty cycle require?

You know, there's a fair amount of interest in the, in the, OEM community. Part that it's going to save us. But depending on who you talk to, they're called extended-range electric vehicles, or REEVs. But for example, Ram is coming out with an extended-range truck purposes. That will go 600-plus miles.

But you'll never run out of... The function of the battery is simply to constantly recharge the engine. So you will always have a, the engine. So you will always have power. Right.

The better. Exactly. Thank you, Steve. Spencer. The engine is just used to recharge the battery.

So an emergency vehicle will never be stuck in terms of accomplishing its, its mission. And that's, that's gonna be on the market shortly. Now, that won't work if you're trying to tow a, you know, semi-trailer truck that's on, you know, clogging up the eye five. And so for those, those applications, they may still require a very clean, decent, and so we recognize these realities. And, and that's why, again, we're out in the world listening, understanding, and, and adapting our rules.

Thank you.

Okay. I'm gonna ask two questions. Hopefully, a quick answer because we have a whole another, panel coming up, much larger than this one and want to make sure that they all have an opportunity to speak. So the first thing is for the MyEV incentive program. What are the parameters around it?

Is there income limit? Is it just second used EVs? What are we doing to make sure that we're getting the most bang for the buck in this program?

Yes. There's no income limit. There is an MSRP limit. Manufactured suggested retail price of $50,000, so to be an eligible vehicle, it has to be $50,000 or less. Headquartered in...

Headquarters in California. So that, that price limit on the vehicle does not apply to Rivian and to, to Lucid. So the, for a used vehicle, the MSRP limit is $25,000 to be eligible. And then the corresponding incentive is, is less for the used vehicle.

Okay. And then the very last question, the, the... And this is maybe Commissioner Skinner has something to add to it. The CEC is working on vehicle-to-grid integration. Commissioner Skinner had the bidirectional charging bill.

What can we expect in the next few years, in the next decade, on that issue?

Commissioner Skinner, do you wanna take a shot? I can add to anything.

Sure. And maybe, Chair, or one of you, indulge me; I'd like to just address a few other things that were raised in the questions. And one of those is that while the My First DV program has... The incentive has been used less for used DVDs, nationwide, used DVDs sales broke records this last quarter.

And while we don't have the breakdown yet of used EV sales for this quarter for California because it's harder to discern that from the EV data, but we're gonna have that for the next quarter.

We've got our staff working on how to parse that out. We know that EV... Used EV sales are way up. And as, was already mentioned, got a lot of EVs coming off of lease. And so...

And, of course, when you're buying a used EV, many Californians will buy a used EV from out of state. There's so many ways now to buy, whether it's, you know, CarMax or whatever, where you're buying a vehicle that's then delivered to you. So we wanna get those numbers because we know that there's a lot of used EV sales in addition to our good numbers on, on new EV sales.

But I think if the legislature will continue, the My First DV program, which I highly, highly encourage, might look at how to add some design elements that could for sure help the ability for a person to use it for a used DV. And, you know, that just needs some additional thinking because, you know, it's part of the design part, part of it.

But I think I also wanted to say that every one of these programs that we have it's a market signal. And to the point of the fear of lack of supply, I mean, it's, it's a fear I've raised too right now. We are, you know, we are ahead on infrastructure, but behind on vehicles. Not behind in terms of our total goals, but because we projected we're ahead of how many we thought EVs that we thought we'd have of today.

But in terms of what the manufacturers are doing, they're sending to consumers a kind of uncertainty around EVs, and we don't need that.

So everything we do, if we continue incentives, we continue the infrastructure, we make sure people can buy used, then we're telling the automakers, hey. This biggest market in the whole country is still going EVs. Do not ditch it. So these are very important market signals to send. And the thing on multifamily housing I wanted to raise, like, yes, level one alone is not adequate for most people.

However, in multifamily housing, level one is very much more affordable. And if we can mix level one with level two in multifamily, then we can serve people's needs much better and get much more charging into these multifamily properties. So we don't wanna abandon that at all. And, of course, as we expand the public DC fast charging, those folks who, you know, have less charging accessibility at home or maybe it doesn't charge them fully in one night, they can then augment with the public DC fast.

But we really need, you know, just ability to charge at multifamily housing.

Now, on the bidirectional, the legislature, thank you, retained CEC's jurisdiction in that area, but you just passed that. So we... And we just got allocated some funding. So we are bringing on some staff into the FTD division to, to do that work, and we're developing the work plan for it right now. But I'm, I'm bullish on it, so hopefully, we'll make some great progress.

And then, before we totally close, and if you don't mind, Sherwin, I'll say it now, the, the CEC, our funding for these programs right now is pretty much confined. You put a little bit into the greenhouse gas fund for heavy duty, but pretty much our funding is confined to the Clean Transportation Program Dollars, which is a fixed-fee revenues, which is continual, and it's about... It's 96,000,000 or 94,000,000 a year for us.

Now one of the things that Spencer showed on his slides was what we're funding. And we...

So we have to fund multi... I mean, excuse me, heavy-duty and medium-duty with that. We have to fund EVs, but we're also required a set aside of 15% for hydrogen. And when you look at the numbers now in hydrogen, they, they just... You know, it's just not materializing.

The, the, we fund stations, and then they give us money back, or the stations close. The total number of light-duty hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the state right now registered is only 14,000. Within the heavy duty sector, we have some transit going to hydrogen, but not really other big trucks or freight or such. They're going EV. So our...

That requirement is now forcing us. We've spent hundreds of millions, believe it or not, on hydrogen fueling for really very few vehicles. And if you compare that to what we've spent to support EVs, it's disproportionate. So we do need to fix that proportion, but we are under a legislative mandate. So thought I would raise it.

Just very quickly on the vehicle-to-grid, there is a webinar we're hosting on November 10 on vehicle-to-home technology. So we have a VGI unit within my division. Got staff for hiring more. So there is a lot of activity right now. So I would just say, for folks interested in the first logical step in the vehicle-to-grid, is the vehicle-to-home technology. November 10, if you go to CEC's website, you'll find all the information you need for that.

Yes. I think there's a ton of opportunity there. So yes, especially in our area where we're dealing with the PSPSs. All right. Well, thank you very much to our panelists.

Maybe we can give them a round of applause. Alright. And I'd like to welcome our second panel up for an in-depth discussion of EV deployment in California, what is being done to support EVs, and what more we could do at the state level. And I don't know if you can kind of sit in order. We are first gonna have Anne Carlson, then Tricia Dello Dello, Kurt, Tim Hagel, Laura Renger, and Craig Siegel, and then Professor Carlson.

So we gotta...... The flanks. I like...

Yeah. We, we have a very esteemed panel here. There, there definitely is. You don't have to. Don't worry.

But it, it might make it a little easier.

The music stops while I sit.

Yeah. That's... I'm not doing it here. Yes.

Alright. So, our, I think everybody's gonna do five minutes?

Five minutes, and then we will, I'm sure, have many questions. Our first speaker is Ann Carlson, who is professor of environmental law and the faculty Co-Director at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA, and is a former acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Welcome.

Thank you so much, oh, is this on? Nope. There we go. You just have to press a button.

Thank you so much, Chairwoman Irwin. And it's great to have such a nice turnout by the committees. I want to thank you also for hosting this at UCLA. It made it very convenient for me. But the other thing it did is it allowed a number of our students who are in a legislative policy clinic at the law school to watch live instead of watching it on Zoom.

So thank you so much and it's great that they're here. Shout out to our students. So I should just start by saying that I was a California Assembly Fellow in 1982. I spent four years working for the state Legislature. So, it's always fun for me to come back.

Although, obviously, it's very different place with entirely new faces. I also wanna just highlight the improvements in air quality that a number of people have acknowledged. You may or may not know that I just wrote a book called Smog and Sunshine: The Surprising Story of How Los Angeles Cleaned Up Its Air. And I wanna highlight two statistics as I do think it's really, really important to talk about just how much our air quality has improved.

One is that lead levels in Los Angeles in the 1970s were 50 times higher than they are today.

And it was the invention of the catalytic converter that really led to the elimination of get... of lead in gasoline. So that's one. And the second is that if you grew up in Southern California and you're as old as I am, you experienced smog alerts. And they were a regular part of childhood in the 1970s.

We still have stage one smog alerts on more than half of every day. I mean, of, of every year, rather, more than, you know, upwards of 200 days a year. The last smog alert we had was in 2003, that's pretty remarkable. So, I just think it's important to celebrate that. Third, I wanted to reiterate something that Senator Stern said, and that is that we're not going back. And I think that's really important to stress.

We may have been slowed down, but we are gonna electrify the vehicle fleet, and we are gonna move to a 100% clean energy regardless of what happens at the federal level. I think there are, there are headwinds, but the headwinds are only slowing us. They're not stopping us, and I think that's important. Fourth, I wanna just stress that I agree that invest, that incentives combined with regulation are the best way to go.

I think California has been really admirable and not just regulating but also incentivizing. We see progress because of that. We've heard a lot about those programs, and I just want to stress how important I think that is. And then fourth, I wanted to just tell a little story about tire efficiency because it involves California. Of course, California has these new tire efficient regulate, efficiency regulations.

When I was at NHTSA, we spent a lot of time on tires and we did nothing about them. And that's in part because there are very stringent research requirements that have to undergird NHTSA's ability to regulate. And the mantra over and over again is, go California. And California, once California moves, that makes it a lot easier for the rest of the country, and it's not just an emission standard.

So I just wanted to provide some kudos to the Energy Commission. That was really, really important. And it's a really remarkably important part of the transition to cutting greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Okay. So I have four recommendations.

I'd, I'm gonna try to be quick because, and I'm not gonna say all that I have. I'm just gonna try to focus on four that I think are really important. The first is I wanna add my voice to the chorus about continuing to invest in infrastructure.

And I want to do so with my own anecdotes. So one is that I lived in an apartment for the last year while we were being in a, building an ADU. More kudos to California for encouraging the building of ADUs. And I had to use high-speed chargers in the neighborhood, and I could never get into one without waiting for an hour.

And I found that frustrating, but my husband had a conversation with an Uber driver who had used the incentives to transition to an electric vehicle.

And he said he wishes he had never done so. And that's because every morning, he would get up at four in the morning to go charge because otherwise the lines were too long for the high speed chargers. I know you're aware of this, but I just thought it was an incredibly poignant story of the way in which we're trying to encourage the transition to EVs.

But we really do need to think about the individual circumstances of people who are driving long distances and need to, and need to charge and don't live in homes where they can charge with Level 2 or even Level 1. So I'm super happy that California is investing so much.

I just think that's a really important place to emphasize. I also want to commend CARB and the Legislature at least for considering the expansion of indirect source rules statewide. I think that's a really, really important way to do two separate things that I think are important.

One is to speed the transition to particularly heavy-duty electrification or zero emission vehicles, but also to tackle hot spots that disproportionately affect low-income communities who live near warehouses, live near freight yards, live near the ports.

Senator Stern, when you talked about driving in the circle and breathing in the diesel, that's the everyday existence for people who are exposed to those sources.

But in the meantime, ISRs are a very creative use of policy, and I think anything CARB can do to help local districts move in that direction, I commend. Third, and this one is a little complicated and probably a little controversial.

And you know, ideally, we would transition fast to heavy-duty electrification with all the incentives and all the regulations we could. We are stymied right now in how strongly California can regulate. Hopefully, that will return.

So as you all know, the Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn the greenhouse gas regulation of passenger automobiles and in doing so it has withdrawn the endangerment finding that undergirds federal regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Like, that's a terrible idea.

I think it's legally dubious, although the Supreme Court could uphold that, that decision. States, as you know, except for California, preempted from regulating air pollutants under the act, and California can do so only if it gets a waiver. If the federal government withdraws from the regulation of greenhouse gases, I think there's a pretty decent legal argument that states can just go ahead and regulate greenhouse gases without a waiver.

And particularly if we're talking long run and if we're talking about, you know, God forbid, a bad outcome in 2029, I think it's something the state ought to be considering. I, I get that it's legally controversial.

I want to highlight again the ways in which the South Coast Air Quality Management District in the Central Valley are out of compliance with the ozone standard, out of compliance with the PM2.5 standard and literally cannot come into compliance even with the 2008 ozone standard, let alone the 2015 standard without zeroing out emissions in transportation.

I think we ought to be pushing the envelope there. And the fourth thing I'll say is going in a slightly different direction.

And one of the things I think that, that CARB should really be thinking about as we move forward if we're going to return to the days of regulating under the Clean Air Act is to really focus our efforts on conventional air pollutants. And the reason I say that is because you also get the co-benefit of reducing greenhouse gases without all the legal uncertainty.

So you could go to zero emission vehicles entirely based on regulating for air pollution. We need it in the South Coast. We need it in the Central Valley. Probably gonna need it in other air districts given the tightening of the ozone standard in 2015. You don't need to even talk about greenhouse gases and you could still get there.

I'll stop there. Thank you.

Or, if we didn't and our lungs burned. Or we ignored it.

Thank you, and I always, I grew up in the valley and, and always tell the story about the yellow air. We had to go inside, you know, when we were at school. We had to move inside quite frankly...

Right. Yes. Thank you. Trisha?

Yeah. Good afternoon.

I'm sorry. Trisha is the head of policy for Catalyst Mobility. I apologize.

That's okay. Good morning, everyone. Chair Irwin, Chair Schiavo, and Vice Chair Stern and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to be here today with you all. As Chair Irwin said, I'm Trisha Dello Iacono. I lead our policy team at Catalyst Mobility, formerly CalSTART.

We are a national nonprofit working with vehicle manufacturers, fleets, charging providers, utilities and other industry partners to accelerate clean transportation. We recently merged with Forth Mobility to expand our reach and our ability to connect policy with real-world deployment, especially as it relates to the light-duty sector.

California has been a national leader in advancing zero emission transportation. I think that's no question. And that leadership matters now more than ever, as we've heard with the recent federal or the ongoing federal slots.

The federal landscape has shifted dramatically. We've lost important federal incentives. California's vehicle regulatory authority faces significant challenges, and uncertainty around federal funding and regulations makes long-term planning increasingly difficult. But California still has meaningful tools available to keep the market moving forward. The question isn't simply how California replaces what we've lost federally.

It's how we use the authority, resources, and partnerships we already have to make electric vehicles more affordable and accessible while continuing to deliver the emissions reductions and air quality benefits Californians need. At Catalyst Mobility, we've been working with our members on practical policy recommendations for the next legislative session and the incoming administration. And I'd like to highlight three of those opportunities. Many of them are not new. Let's carry the theme over.

First, we need to make charging infrastructure easier, faster, and more affordable to deploy. California has made important progress in expanding charging infrastructure and addressing deployment barriers, including Assemblymember Schiavo's AB 1820 to reduce permitting costs for multifamily charging and SB 1283 to streamline the permitting of charging infrastructure.

But getting a charging, charger permitted is only part of the challenge. It also needs to be connected to the grid in a timely, predictable, and affordable way.

Utility energization delays can increase costs, slow projects, and ultimately make it harder for consumers and businesses to transition to electric vehicles. We've made important progress establishing utility energization timelines and accountability requirements through legislation like SB 410 and AB 50, but we need to ensure these requirements translate into faster, more predictable grid connections, particularly for multifamily housing and public charging infrastructure.

One idea that we've been playing around with at Catalyst Mobility is this coordinated effort among state agencies, utilities and industry to identify where charging projects are experiencing delays, improving transparency around energization timelines, and recommend practical administrative changes to accelerate deployment.

Something like an infrastructure strike force is what we've been calling it. This could help ensure that recent legislative reforms are being implemented effectively, particularly for multi-family housing, where charging access remains a significant barrier.

And beyond getting chargers installed, we need to ensure they are reliable, accessible, and affordable to use. A charger that doesn't work or that costs too much to use doesn't help build consumer confidence as has been the theme. So second, we need to make limit, limited public resources work harder. Incentives remain an important tool, tool, as Ann just shared, especially for consumers who face the greatest financial barriers to EV ownership.

But we also know that California can't fully replace the federal incentives that we've lost. So that means looking at other ways to reduce costs and support market demand without relying exclusively on new appropriations. One example is using the state's existing purchasing power.

California's My First EV program is an encouraging example of how the state can structure incentives to be more immediate and accessible while leveraging manufacturer contributions to stretch public dollars as Chris shared earlier.

California already has statewide procurement contracts for certain zero emission vehicles and charging equipment.

Expanding those products and services available through those contracts, improving access for local governments and smaller purchases, and identifying remaining procurement barriers could help more communities access clean vehicles and infrastructure at lower cost. I know one of the things that many of the community members are talking about is this kind of cross-state procurement and how do we work with our neighboring states to, to make a procurement agreement.

These may not be the most visible policy changes obviously, but they can make a meaningful difference in how quickly and affordably vehicles and chargers are deployed. And then the third thing, California should look beyond its borders to sustain market momentum.

California doesn't have to navigate these federal challenges alone. Through existing partnerships with Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, including the Pacific Coast Collaborative, we have an opportunity to strengthen regional coordination on clean transportation.

That can include shared approaches to charging infrastructure deployment, utility energization grid readiness, harmonized technical standards, and strategies to make limited incentive dollars go further. We're particularly interested in moving beyond general commitments to collaboration and identifying concrete actions that states can take together with clear implementation priorities and measurable outcomes.

California's market influence is significant. Coordinating with neighboring states can help create greater certainty for vehicle manufacturers, charging providers, utilities, and other businesses making long-term investments in this transition. I'll close with one broader point.

Strong vehicle standards and consumer incentives have played a critical role in California's progress, and they remain important tools. But given the uncertainty at the federal level, we also need to focus on the practical barriers that determine whether consumers and businesses can actually make the switch to electric.

I'll stop there and look forward to discussing more.

Thank you very much, Ms. Iacono. And next up, we have Curt Augustine, who is the Senior Director of State Affairs for the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.

So today, I was asked to address developments in the ZEV industry regarding federal action, what California has done since, automakers' reaction to that, and finally, what future actions we can all take collectively to, increase the expansion of ZEVs.

Good afternoon, Madam Chairman, Assemblymember, Senator. Thank you again. I'm Curt Augustine, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. We're the trade association that represents the light duty manufacturers, as well as EV battery producers, autonomous vehicle technologies, as well as a fairly wide swath of the auto industry.

First off, I, I need to acknowledge and thank the state, Governor Newsom, and the Legislature for their continued and ongoing support of EV sales in this challenging time.

So very quickly looking back at a couple years, the automakers initially sought to work with CARB to achieve modifications to the ZEV mandate to make it achievable in the face of market acceptance and fueling infrastructure deficiencies. I'm must note, we did not oppose the implementation of the ZEV mandate, nor were we seeking the elimination of the mandate.

We were simply seeking a combination of lower annual mandates and a pushing out of the final 100% requirement date. While we were seeking these changes, several things did occur.

They ended the HOV single occupancy lane access program, which was critically important here to California. And also, we've heard revoking these California waiver, which then ultimately ended the ZEV mandate for several years in California and the Section 177 states. Out of some of the frustration we had in our efforts to try to make a workable ZEV mandate, our members did support the initial congressional action.

Four states that were participating in the California program ended their participation in the ZEV mandate. Notably, three of those states are led by Democratic governors. Also, President Trump, and Congress, ended the Biden-era 7,500 dollar rebate we've heard about.

However, as it relates to this second and third round of congressional actions on taking some of the standards, we have no position. We have not advocated for anything and have said nothing about those. We, again, are focused with seeking some relief on the ZEV mandate. So, what's the current situation here?

Our companies have spent nearly half a trillion dollars' worth of investments in this industry and technology, they are not walking away from that. Yes, have there been reductions in plan output, but that is not in reaction to automakers' desire. It is in reaction to what the marketplace is showing. And the end of the federal rebate has hurt significantly.

I have to add, I wasn't planning on saying this, but hearing prior testimony, the automaker's commitment to zero emission vehicles is still there.

Here in California, the last full year of the federal rebate, we hit 26% of new car sales... As we've seen, it's now rounding up. It's, it's 20%. That's even worse around the country. But what's, we've got to know is that 20%, if the mandate was still in place, this year would have been 35%.

We're barely achieving 20%. We're not sure how we would have gotten to 35% this year. And most certainly, how we were going to get to 68% in 2030. We've all seen about the new, impact on gas prices. It's a little early to see what those higher prices are gonna do on buyer behavior.

It takes a few months for people when they're making new car decisions what to do. But clearly, this maintains its rate. It's going to be an issue and would hopefully positively affect EV sales. We've, we've heard many times about the My First EV program. We are a very strong supporter of that.

In fact, we worked with Mr. Grundler and his team to help develop the rules that were initiated by the Governor. In fact, our association president was actually on the Governor's original press release announcing the program. And then we worked to seek its passage through the Legislature, and we were glad it did. Now, it's still kind of the early days for our members participating in the, in the program.

So while the program was announced in the beginning of August, didn't mean that automakers automatically had to start that.

So they're getting their programs up to place. So it'll probably be a, a couple more months till we get really some meaningful results. But clearly, we have seen some positives, and the Governor recently announced those 12,000, rebates have been done. But some of the initial lessons we have learned is we think it's a problem that the program excludes plug-in hybrids.

We also think that the program cut out several manufacturers from participating in their vehicles by lowering the MSRP cap from the federal level that the Biden eras had.

We found that very effective. And that was 55 for cars and 80,000 for trucks. We are working with at least five other states to establish a similar program, and we are coordinating our efforts, with CARB, as Mr. Grundler had mentioned earlier. And then finally, I will address a couple little recommendations at the end. So what's happening with our, relationship with, with CARB and its new rules?

In short, we're regularly engaged with CARB on, on all levels. We're waiting for CARB to release a more detailed regulatory proposal. So far, they've only share, we're at the stage where they're sharing concepts. We submitted multiple comment letters and have had many meetings on those concepts related to ZEVs, greenhouse gas emissions, and criteria emissions.

So many of our positions right now are undetermined because we need to see a more detailed, proposal. But we are trying to work with them. And I want us to emphasize, we are working with them to provide feedback, data, and develop shared policy solutions. And then finally, so a request with some recommendations. If the state does continue the My First program before our First EV Program, we certainly would recommend that.

But we do think that it should align the MSRP caps with the Biden Inflation Reduction Act numbers. We need to be as inclusive as possible to help deployment. Again, I mentioned no plug-in hybrids, we believe that's absolutely essential, to have that in there.

Because we believe the plug-in hybrids really provide the opportunity for a lot of these range anxieties and all these issues that we have. We believe it's an easier price point and also a point of assurance. And finally, I would like to echo the, excuse me, not finally.

One last thing. We'd like to echo the comments on; we've heard on the multifamily charging infrastructure. Critically important. One thing that we have not heard, Commissioner Skinner did touch on a little bit, is about bidirectional charging. We see four things that need to be done.

Reducing the interconnection application fees for, for bidirectional charging. California currently has, if not the highest, some of the highest fees. We need to develop rates to compensate drivers for providing energy to the grid at times of high demand. We need to eliminate costly meeting requirements, metering requirements for solar customers who also want to install bidirectional charging.

And finally, we need to approve managed charging systems. These things could be done through the Legislature. Right now, they're under the purview of the PUC, but we strongly believe all four of those things are creating a hindrance to the bidirectional charging that the Legislature and automakers want to do. And thank you.

Thank you, Mister Augustine. Next up, we have Tim Hagel, the Executive Director of the Safe Passage Youth Foundation.

How's that? Great. Thank you, so much. You're wondering what is someone with a youth foundation doing here? Well, our foundation has one simple function, removing barriers to low income families, providing robust future and a pathway to adulthood for children that overcome resiliency and joy every day by getting through barriers.

Their day starts out with a barrier. Their day ends with a barrier. So we're perfectly suited to do a study of low income families with EV vehicles in California. We're grateful to the state and to CARB for providing the funding. And what I'm going to do, I'm going to go way off script, which I'm known for, because I'm listening to everybody here.

And I'm just gonna kind of tell you what is really going on on the streets. Okay? And this is dealing with 600 plus low income families every day. So what we've done is really cool. What we've put on is placed EV vehicles in the hands of low income families and allowed them... It's a symbiotic relationship. You drive the vehicle all day, go on with your low income life. Take those kids to their school. Do your two jobs that you do.

Sometimes three jobs that you do, and trying to maintain your normal lifestyle. So the cars have been out there for 32 months. Sometimes as the director of research, I'm pulling my hair out at night because these are real world people. They have car accidents. They run late.

They run out of electricity on roads in Southern California because of just the non education or coaching. So I want to go over a few of the stats. Our report will be released this week. If you want to read 89 pages that make your mind, it might make your mind a little dizzy on some of the charts, but the real world research from these families.

What they agree to is telemetry on the vehicle 24 hours a day, weekly surveys with researchers, and monthly face to face surveys of tell us what's really going on in your world. You've got three kids. You're hauling them to soccer. You have two jobs. One is at a fast food.

Another is maybe cleaning houses. How are you doing it? And we've learned a lot from it. So I think I did enough about why it goes on and the 59,000 miles that we're tracking each year with this. I'm gonna give you a little bit of snapshot. So the low income EV driver weekly mileage, again, this is coming out this week, but you heard it here first. I don't care what studies say in New York or other states. This is California. This is our state of all of us here in this room. The weekly mileage is about 189 miles per family in their EV vehicle.

Only, out of those families, all these families doing this study, out of 58,000 miles, only three trips were made for more than 100 miles in one trip. That shows you where your low income folks are held to a geographical area strictly because of economy and economics. They don't have the ability to vacation, take a trip to SeaWorld in San Diego from Southern California. This one, you've heard ad nauseam through this entire group, but the dwell time is 46 minutes.

So imagine this, you have two kids. You've got to get them to school because you gotta get to your job, and you've got to park it at your level three charging station. Oh, I forgot to mention. They don't have level one or level two chargers. Not a single participant has level one or a level two charger. Why?

Because they live in converted garages, ADUs, hotels. They live in apartments. They live in condominiums. One family I had to go, recently go correct, the low income housing apartments that they can afford really almost never have garages. It's carports. There's no electrical outlets for level one chargers. So the idea is great, but there's no level one ability for infrastructure in the apartment. So what do they do? We're humans.

They remove the light bulb in the ceiling of the carports, hundreds of light bulbs. They go to the do it yourself center, spend $3, plug in an electrical cord, dangerous as heck, and they get about 6 miles a night while they're sleeping. It's ridiculous. Right? So imagine this. I drive an electric vehicle. I come home. You know what my dwell time is? Zero.

I arrive at home. I have solar at the house. I'm gonna just skip all the details. You all know the same thing. Cost me about 3 cents a kilowatt. Okay? Which is 3.2 miles. So I'm going 3.2 miles for 3 cents. That's it. What do they pay? I'm glad you asked. They pay in Southern California, of all of our metrics, 52 cents a kilowatt. Okay? So what does that actually mean? That means it's about 16 cents a mile for them, 3 cents for me, maybe 9 cents for you.

But they're paying the three times the rate of anybody living in the middle class is what they're paying. And they make 3 to 10 times less money than anybody living in the middle class. So one last thing. I kinda have all these different areas, three areas, but I'll just sum it up. Policy framework, we're talking about apartment buildings, condos, and those.

There's so many laws out there. You know, most people don't even know that a renter can ask their landlord to put in infrastructure, and they have to do it under state law at the renter's expense. Not one renter is going to ask their landlord to put in the charging because they're gonna get evicted, and this is a common feeling that they have.

So I think for the state for policy idea is actually supporting the apartment complexes for conversion of carports, put in 110, 120 volt outlets in there and let them have their charging abilities. We're big into supporting the actual owners and the companies that are have the low income housing, and that's going to help them. Number two is make it sustainability. Imagine this. Gasoline is not regulated.

We all know you can go to Four Corners right here on Wilshire, and there's four different gas prices, okay, with competition. But there's no competition whatsoever with EV vehicle charging. It's unregulated. They're getting their, they're getting their electricity out of a set fee from the Public Utilities Commission, and then they're selling it at anything they want. Recently, saw a charging system.

It was 75 cents a kilowatt. Because it could be 100 it could be $100 a kilowatt. There's no laws doing that. And where is it? In front of a Social Security benefits center. What does that tell you for what they're doing? It's unregulated. So that's the second one. And the third and final one is we've learned so many lessons, and you can read it in the report. But this takes coaching. Imagine. I know you've all heard of charging anxiety. I drive an electric vehicle. Heck yeah. It exists. Now, doesn't matter to me, man. I'll take that thing down to four miles, and I'm good. But I know. But for six months, scares me to death.

If you look at it and you're down to 30 miles, that's the equivalent for a Toyota Corolla having one gallon of gasoline in their car. Okay? So think about that, and that's anxiety. Well, imagine that when you live as in a low income family and you live in a charging desert. People keep talking about we're making all these chargers.

Really? Take a look at where you're putting them. They're probably all over the place here, but they're all over the place. But where the low income families, it's not, there's not a capital return for the four or five major companies to put them there. So with that, I could go on and on, and I'm just gonna pass on.

Oh, we might be asking some questions later. Just for everybody here, Tim Hagel used to be the police chief of Thousand Oaks, and then he founded Safe Passages. And a lot of the discussion we were having in the legislature is we have all the early adopters, but we're never going to meet our climate goals unless we figure out how to get EVs to low income folks. So I actually approached him and said, we can we give you some money and can you do this study.

It's not like this was something that he regularly did. And he designed a study with academics and that report is coming out next week. I would really urge... This is like as grassroots as you get with real answers on how these folks are coping with trying to get into EV. So I would encourage you to read the report and Tim is happy to share any of his experiences with you. You've done a phenomenal job. And next we have Laura Renger. And Laura is the Executive Director of the California Electric Transportation Coalition.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair Irwin, Chair Schiavo, and Senator Stern. Appreciate you having us here today. I have some prepared remarks. I do wanna point out that we also have a handout that's over there in case anybody wants it. And I can also send it to you or grab you one, maybe Ross can share.

But I want to echo some of the themes that we've heard from some of the other panelists and maybe put even a little bit finer point on some concrete actions that I think we can take right now to continue the great progress. Before I begin, just a little bit about Cal ETC. I think most of you guys know us, but we are the electric transportation coalition.

Our members are the state's electric utilities, both the publicly owned utilities and the investor owned utilities, as well as the automakers and ChargePoint operators and other companies in our charging industry that are working to make charging more available and electric vehicles more available to all Californians. So today I wanna talk about three different actions that we can take that are mostly in line with everything that you've heard so far today from other panelists.

First and foremost, I wanna talk a little bit about incentives, and we really want to applaud CARB for the work that they have been doing with the My First EV program. I had the honor of sharing the stage with Governor Newsom when that program was launched, And it's nice to see the results coming in that, you know, we've seen so far. One of the great things about this program is that the incentives are available at point of sale.

And so to the extent that we can continue to try to make incentives available at point of sale from the work that we've done in the past, as you know, the state's utilities were very involved with the first iteration of the California Clean Fuel Reward Program, which is funded by the low carbon fuel standard.

I'll talk a little bit more about what's currently going on with that program later. But making the incentive available at point of sale was critical for customers. And so we want to continue to do that, continue to streamline incentives and make them easy to understand. One of the pieces of feedback that we continually get is that there's too many different programs.

It's too confusing and it takes, you know, a lot of education to try to understand what you're even eligible for. And my small anecdote is my mother lives in a disadvantaged community. She was eligible for additional incentives. I'm the executive director of the California Electric Transportation Coalition, and I had a heck of a time trying to figure out exactly what she was eligible for and did have to rely on other experts to help.

So to the extent we can continue to make them streamlined, easy to understand, that resonates with customers. The automaker match, I don't think we've really given enough attention to that today, but that is a really critical part of that program because it shows the public private partnership. And the automakers were putting in money to have some skin in the game and to support this program.

And if we can replicate that, if we have more funding, I saw something coming out from the Governor's office today that it looks like our numbers might be a little bit better than expected, continue the My First EV program with additional funds and keep that momentum going. Okay. Second point I wanted to talk about, we've all talked a lot about multifamily housing.

It is critically important. Chair Schiavo, I was on your hearing last year when we talked about this. We debated about level one, level two, DC fast charging. I think to the points that we've all made, we need all of those different solutions. And one solution is not going to work for every customer.

But what is so critically important is we have to find a way to allow customers to be able to charge at near utility rates. And to the point that Tim just made is that we cannot further disadvantage customers who are living in multifamily housing by not allowing them to charge at rates that are more equal to what the rest of us are paying.

And so one thing that we could do in that regard is really to send a clear direction to the state agencies that we need to prioritize multifamily housing. And I think that we've heard from, you know, a lot of our state agencies today that that is a priority, but maybe have a clear direction from the legislature or from an executive order that would just say that we really need to help residents charge where they live at near utility rates. Okay.

Third recommendation is make better use of the electric grid. And by that I mean vehicle grid integration. Not only bidirectional charging, but vehicle grid integration. And vehicle grid integration, in the way we're thinking about it, includes vehicle to home, as Spencer talked about earlier. The CEC is doing a workshop on that coming up in a few weeks.

Vehicle to building, manage charging and demand response, and bidirectional charging. There's many different flavors of what vehicle grid integration can look like. And we've had a lot of challenges with the costs of the equipment, lack of standardization, many different reasons why bidirectional charging has been slower to launch.

And so for what we're recommending for vehicle grid integration and what could be done is if the governor could issue an executive order or however we wanted to handle it, the legislature could encourage the Public Utilities Commission to really work with the investor owned utilities to approve or modify their plans for vehicle grid integration. Because that is really a place where we can make leaps and bounds. The IOUs are in a good place to support. They need to be allowed to do so.

And then lastly, and I will close with this, please continue to support the low carbon fuel standard. And if there are any questions about the clean fuel reward, the new program, I do have some statistics if folks are interested. I wanna respect your time, but please do continue to support the LCFS. It is an essential tool for funding in this area. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And last we have Craig Segall, a senior advisor for the Federation of American Scientists.

Well, thanks for having me, and I'm aware I'm the closer. So I'll try the TLDR version of this. Sam has my unnecessarily prolex testimony. Please enjoy it if you'd like. I'll give you the short version. And I should say I'm both a senior adviser at FAS at their new Center for Regulatory Ingenuity and somehow a senior advisor to UC Berkeley Center in Law, Economy, and Environment and a senior advisor to both RLF and California Forward's efforts.

And none of them are responsible for my opinions. I will also say, used to get to do more work with UCLA and they are great. I'm glad to be here. So I think what I want to do is talk a bit some concrete suggestions in both affordability and jobs. And I'm going to start by framing this fundamentally as an economic and industrial policy problem.

We are in the fast and historical situation, which Ann's book discusses. We've been running an economic transition through our air agencies using oddly President Richard Nixon's environmental laws. It is 2026. This is a large scale global economic transition.

There are many more tools we can put on the table now, especially in the context of globally affordable EVs, far more affordable globally than they are in California or the US with cars and trucks, and a global diesel fuel crisis. And we just saw, I think, 16 trucking firms declare bankruptcy in, like, the last month. We've just heard the enormous squeeze that people are facing in their individual budgets.

And we just had the legislature pass, and thank you, last year, SB 1213, is this first effort of getting price transparency and financeability into these markets. So I think there's a platform that combines these things. And what I'll say is the way I think about this problem is we tend to frame this as what can the incentives do and what can the regulations do. And a way, another way of thinking about this that Chris Grundler, my much better successor at CARB, talked about earlier, is as a CapEx and industry behavior problem.

One way of thinking about that is who's making long term investments. Senator Stern got this a bit, as did others. Another way of doing this is thinking about pricing and investments and seeing that there's been the shared problem in the market of persistently high prices. For instance, in California, we saw zero emission truck prices go up 30% as they fell 30% in Europe as we put our regulations in place. And that's because those prices have largely been secret for trucks.

Many of them are under NDA, and it's a hyper concentrated market. For buses, noted liberal stalwarts, the American Enterprise Institute, along with Brookings, put out a study showing that public buses have stayed at a half million dollars. And there are only two companies in that market. For passenger cars, we see some of the highest rates for loans or EVs even though they have the lowest delinquency rates. Over and over and over, we see strategies, especially in our market, where folks price EVs as boutique niche products.

They don't sell them for ordinary peoples like Teslas in Marin rather than trucks and Imperial. That's a huge problem. And we don't see prices fall in the way they would in a transparent, competitive market, nor do we see sufficient manufacturing or competition in our own market. So we keep that hyper-concentration. So I think the questions are now, not, you know, what can we do in '29, but from a, you know, don't mourn, organize perspective, what can you do in '27?

Some thoughts here. First, I think looking at 1213 and what that sets up, which is basically transparent pricing if you take state dollars, a market monitor, and a request to the IBank, to start figuring out clever financing tools. How do you surge capital into a market where right now, let's just focus on trucks. You have thousands of small truckers, like 19k between ports of Long Beach and LA and West Oakland just to start.

Maybe 30k or so statewide trucks who are now just being hammered. They're caught between giant shippers, giant truck companies that have high prices, incredibly high diesel prices. Those folks, we can't buy them all a truck. Think what you will about the state's pioneering incentive programs. This isn't a problem of, you know, finding the money for 30,000 trucks out of our ever strained budget. It's how do you get private capital into this market.

And what I want to really emphasize is people want to make those loans. That has been an information problem. Just concretely, most banks don't know the value of a used EV truck. So it's really hard to write a loan because you don't know the collateral value or the residual value. There's very good data out of Europe that suggests that you just guarantee those loans.

And bear in mind, public money mostly doesn't pay out because mostly these are high value. That's a 25 to 1 leverage ratio. Maybe that's off by a factor of two. Maybe it's 10 to 1. But that's at the stage where if you look at the numbers between that and the price transparency and downward pressure we're already seeing from things like the Tesla Semi, you could easily turn over 19,000 trucks.

And now you're talking about hundreds of millions, maybe tens of millions in partnership with the banks if you can guarantee those loans. That's new. So I love, you know, the My First EV program for cars. I'd love to see a My First Electric Truck program that's about credit.

Not more and more state money, but graduating the market from its birth that California created into just a commercial market where it is easy to get a truck loan and get out of your now very high cost, hard to maintain diesel fleet to the numbers you were citing into here's your electric truck. You're a small business. We'll back that credit. We probably won't pay out because that's gonna be valuable down the line.

Maybe, heck, we ask to be paid if it's more valuable than we thought it was in that guarantee. That's a possible design. But let's go forth and build it. That could happen next year. It could happen fast as a trucker relief package. It could happen in tandem with other states IBanks up and down to the West Coast or out to Houston.

That's a lot of capital. Because it'd be sitting in the catalyst fund, you know, by next spring, we could turn over those fleets. It would vastly improve air quality. It would cut asthma rates. It would really help truck drivers. So that's thought one. Thought two, we spent a lot of money in procurement. We're working through this public fleet mandates.

You raised those, Chair Schiavo. Well, we don't actually have a structured procurement policy aimed at either lowering prices for the public or ensuring some of those vehicles are made in California, and hence provide some competition to manufacturers who perhaps have been assuming that they can absorb state rebates and keep prices high.

I would love to see that happen. As an example, Microsoft, IKEA, lot of the other big fleets did this ZEV scale purchase just last month. It's the biggest combined procurement in history of electric trucks, 2,500 to start, 10,000 total over the life of the program. They negotiated with all the OEMs, the truck makers, they all bid.

They lowered prices, I think, from around half a million to my guess would be about 250,000 through that volume, and they'll double the national EV truck population. California could do that and with their own procurement. We could also scale in more capital. Maybe we do lease to own for private fleets. Huge thing. Last thing I'll say is it's worth thinking about direct job investments.

And this is the last piece I make. We've spent billions on buying trucks for people and cars too. We spent, as far as I can tell, about 20 million since 2017 through CalSEED on on-shoring. That is just not a great ratio for us. We've got, like, a $7 billion annual trade deficit on batteries.

Are we gonna make every battery in the world every truck? No. Do I think GO-Biz and others should have the authority and some funds to get people across the Valley of Death and maybe take an upside share if they do well as we did not do with Tesla? Yes. So I think that would be what I, where I would start next year.

Credit, procurement focused at scale made with allied states, and thinking really seriously about who we bring the competition to bear that gives people both a better market and a stake directly in this industry at home, so they can see themselves not just in a car, but in a job making those vehicles in the long term for their family.

Thank you very much. Senator, do you have a...

I just wanna say thank you to the panel. I'm sorry I have to leave before things wrap up here, but I do appreciate it. And noted on your, a few of your recommendations, I would love to hear, just for the record, my staff's gonna be staying. But a little more from perhaps Ms. Carlson or Mr. Segall on the OEM's assertion that they're sticking with, they're sticking with the EV future and sort of how to sort of wrestle with Mr. Augustine's testimony, which I really appreciated you making.

But I'm curious to have your reactions to that and also a little more on ISR of what that what that actually could look like in both light and heavy. So if you don't mind presenting that in the record for the panel. I hate to ask a question and leave, but I have a... Yeah. I have I have, yeah, I have my senior counsel here in Ross Zelen. So, we'll leave it to him, and thank you all for making time today. And kudos to you, Chief Hagel. You're still the chief as far as I'm concerned.

Let me start with ISR and the thing I'm going to do is direct you to a publication that we issued last year on ISRs and all the kind of legal ups and downs and how you can construct them super helpful. I'm happy to send it to you. I mean one thing to note is that I think the legal authority is pretty clear and it's important.

It can be resource intensive for Air Districts to actually implement an ISR and I think one of the things that we might see is that CARB might provide a lot of technical assistance. There are ways actually to fund also the compliance mechanism.

So I will just say that and then turn you to this publication which is really, really helpful. Carol Horowitz helped author it. I think she had to leave but was in the audience. With respect to automakers, I don't know what to tell you about the OEMs.

So, with all due respect to the alliance, my alliance frontier, you know, supporting Congress in not just getting rid of the California waiver but doing it with a process that by all accounts was illegal basically not consistent with the statute, the Congressional Review Act.

On a day when I was actually meeting with John Bozzella and others in Washington DC was I thought kind of stunning I have to say and it makes me question the commitment. I I get that there were problems. I do understand that there were states that had withdrawn from... So 177 states that had withdrawn. But I don't know what the commitment is.

I mean, obviously, we're seeing, you know, Ford commit to a $30,000 truck. That seems great. But I think the the existential threat to the American auto industry is from China. Craig has already alluded to the fact that there are high quality low cost electric vehicles that the rest of the world is now buying and I don't know how we get from a world where the protectionist United States is not allowing those vehicles in to...

And maybe we hold on long enough that the legacy auto manufacturers can compete.

But I'm worried. I I don't have much more to say about that. I think Craig can add some things. But I mean, I think we're at an incredibly critical juncture. I think the withdrawal of consumer incentives and the combined with the regulatory push that was coming from the Federal Government was not at the automakers interest.

I wish that the Trump administration could have seen that. I think we've seeded unbelievable leadership on the auto sector to China and I don't know how we get back to being competitive.

Quick thoughts. So my team at CARB negotiated both the framework deals with the car deal... The car industry in 2019 and the Clean Truck Partnership in the early 2020s. The industry's basically walked back both of the deals they made and walked away from a lot of their commitments. That's just true.

And that's unfortunate both in terms of whether you can trust these folks is to be long term at the table. It is a demonstrated they will not be and when administrations change. And it's self immolation in the long term for workers and communities, which is the real tragedy beyond how I feel about those deals. As far as state posture on it, two thoughts. First, we do hear a lot about all the things that the industry hopes for from the government.

Nepal is currently over 70% EVs sales. So is Kenya is heading rapidly in that direction. This isn't a case where they need to demand this level of support from the world's fourth largest economy to get their act together. This is a corporate feeling. And so what does one do in that situation?

One finds ways to move them forward where they can because we care deeply about the workers and the communities, and we do in fact want an onshore industry. And we also think about ways to bring in real competition. I'd point to BYD's Lancaster facility as union. It could be expanded. And more broadly, we have a history in California of joint ventures.

Numi, which became the Tesla facility ultimately, was GM and Toyota, brought in skilled technology transfers, built up companies. There's nothing stopping our I Bank from supporting joint ventures to do technology transfers experienced innovators abroad and making sure innovations that our universities develop are then tied to the workforce from our community colleges and then builds up tax bases here. And I think about it that way, not how can we plead with OEMs to come to the table to provide like $3,000 for a car.

How do we ensure this is a competitive market where they feel real pressure from their shareholders?

Can I just add one more thought and that is this is not a California based suggestion, but we do need to rethink federal policy in a way that is going to make it more rational, more durable and not subject to the whiplash of administrations that change every four years? I'm trying to do that right now or think how we might do that, but I do think that that's a commitment that I think the auto industry would be interested in. I think California should be interested in.

I think consumers should be interested in it. The current policy is not working.

Mr. Augustine, I'm sure you have some comments on that. I was going to ask something kind of along the same lines as you saw Norway that they are I think 90% EVs and a few years ago it was Tesla's and now it's a lot of them are the Chinese vehicles. So how how does this industry stay competitive when that's going on around the rest of the world? And if you could answer all these...

Okay. No. All great questions and and I actually agree with some of the things miss Carlson said. I hope that doesn't offend you. But I think fundamentally, on the federal policy, the whip saw is incredible.

I mean, these are long term investments. Not... When it's an EV or a gasoline powered car, the development cycles are three to seven years. So changing the policy every three to four years in a seven year development cycle is impossible, and it's quite challenging. There is an existential threat to the EV market of The United States, and people do wonder why are cars so much cheaper, in Europe and other places.

There's one fundamental reason. The Chinese government subsidizes each and every electric vehicle $25,000 per car. Free market companies cannot compete with that. It is impossible to meet. That is one of the reasons why the Federal Government has not allowed, among national security issues, why they've not allowed them into this this country.

That subsidy is impossible to to meet. I mean, I said we're very happy and very thrilled about the 30... Or excuse me, the $3,000 that California provides. That's $25,000 on on on every car. And also, the Norway example gets pointed out a lot.

I've had the pleasure of a former... At the time, he was the minister of the environment. And he basically said, the reason we have a lot of electric cars in Norway, we have collective national guilt because we've pumped more oil out of the North Sea than anybody else in the world. And again, they are heavily subsidizing the price of those vehicles. So the combination of what's happening with the Chinese and other federal, national governments subsidizing.

That's what we don't have here. And that's why we see these these price differences that are so dramatic. And again, I want to reiterate one thing. Our companies are in business to make and sell cars. We are responding to market demand.

We cannot make people... Despite kind of the illusions that I'm hearing, like, we can... If we only made them, people will buy these cars. We can't make people buy cars. We make cars that people want to buy.

And until that kind of really is better understood, that is why we we have challenges. We, you know, we're not we're not selling cars in the middle of the country because we don't want to. The people in the middle of the country just aren't buying electric vehicles. And it's... Yeah.

Are we perfect? No. But I think that's the fundamental thing is we don't... You know, you have to remember, we are making cars that people wanna buy. We cannot make people buy cars they don't want.

I just had one more question before I go to... I mean, we'll have a few questions. But everybody's talking about skin in the game. What is the skin in the game for the car manufacturers with this first time...

It's it's half the rebate. Half the rebate comes from the state and half comes from the manufacturer. Okay.

Yeah. Alright. Assembly member.

You know, I think to your point, obviously, car companies are not gonna do any of this if they're not able to make money on it. Right? I mean, that's... It... It's...

They're in the business of of selling cars, not giving cars away. At the same time, I... You know, you talk about how the... You're gonna do what the market demands, but companies... Car companies are very good at selling cars, are very good at make...

Creating demand around cars. And I have not seen... It's something that I've noted for a very long time. I just don't see advertisements on EVs. I don't see car companies highlighting them.

I don't see... I mean, right now, you guys could have an ad of just a car driving past gas stations all day long. And, you know, like, this could be your future. And, and that would resonate with people so much right now when you're paying $2 more or more a gallon than we were just paying at the beginning of the year. So, so I hope that part of creating that demand would also be seen as a responsibility of the companies to incentivize it, to really...

And to invest in the... I mean, you... I I I understand that it is a huge investment to change your production over to an EV, to develop that technology, you know, all that goes into it. It's an incredible, incredible investment. Why not promote that and make it worth it and create demand too?

Because I think, you know, as I said earlier, I think the the benefit and the joys of having an EV, nobody talks about. I don't ever see ads about the get up and go of an EV and how responsive they are and how quick you can get on a highway or get out of a dangerous situation or whatever it is. Right? I don't ever hear that. So I just...

On that topic, since you were asking about it or talking about it, I just had to make that point.

Maybe Mr. Yeah.

Certainly. Yes. There is some advertisement, but you're right. I mean, the vast majority of it is for more traditional cars. But I would also note that if you...

What we do not represent them, the most successful electric vehicle company in this country, Tesla, has never advertised. Country, Tesla, has never advertised. So it is not a function of advertising that makes people buy that vehicle. And I I would suppose that it's probably not also the case of why people bought other vehicles. So it's...

It can motivate behavior, but it's not the the the the the sole behavior either. Can we do better? Absolutely. I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and say we can't. But I I think it's not...

If if the record was clear that this type of advertising would direct more sales, the companies would do it. You know, it's...

I mean, I don't know why companies do advertising if it doesn't direct more sales. Like, it

It seems like it does. But it... It can't necessarily always create a demand for something that people don't want. You can stimulate it, but it doesn't always work out.

I... And and I would say on the Tesla, I mean, Tesla's obviously their integrated system and having the vast charge... Charging network, I think, is a huge sale point that the taxpayers have invested in, by the way, and we should take credit for. But, you know... So I haven't seen a lot of companies investing in that.

I think, Mercedes was looking at investing in their own charging network. Is that right? Are there any other companies that are looking at doing that?

Yes. There are several, and I I believe that Commissioner Skinner actually alluded to it as as well too. Yes. There... There...

A couple developments that have happening there. You know, there's been... There were a couple different charging standards, and most of the companies now have reasons you just said. But there are also these charging stations that are being developed and other coal... Yeah.

So I mean, they... To be honest, they have been resistant. They don't... They didn't build gas stations. Resistant in doing that.

But there Yeah. There is now an effort to develop more of those charging standards. Or excuse me, charging stations.

Okay. And just very... One last quick question. So in terms of the used market, you know, I know originally there was a lot of concern about how long battery life would last and what kind of used market would be out there. And I'm I'm not sure if this is up for anyone on the panel who wants to answer this.

But, but, I mean, we're seeing that these batteries are lasting. They're lasting, and certainly, there's some degradation, but they really are lasting. And so that feels like a game changer also in terms of the affordability. And, I mean, I have... I bought a used EV.

I was not gonna buy a new one. I couldn't afford it. But but I think that that really does open it up to more affordable options for people too. And correct me if I'm wrong if that's not where we're seeing. But...

No.

I mean, that's absolutely right. That's why I'm sort of banging on about loans for truckers, but same deal for ordinary people. Like, I will never buy a new car. Right? I cannot afford that, won't do it.

Thinking about the auto industry as a loans company is probably worth thinking about, right, as a big profit center. So how do you ensure you've got low cost auto loans for normal people and then add on the state had durability standards and warranty standards for the batteries in the ACC II regulations my team designed that the industry blew up. Those durability warranty rules, so far as I'm concerned, could be reenacted and I think would really help.

Can I add one other thing and that is the education of dealers and auto sales people who don't push electric vehicles, it's a huge issue? It's something that the manufacturers actually could do something about. If you want people to buy EVs, your salespeople have to know about them and have to understand their benefits.

They have to, like, tell you how to charge it. I leased an EV before I bought my used EV. And the salesperson was the nicest guy in the world, but he did not know anything about electric vehicles. And I was like, how does this work? What do I do?

How do I get this set up? Up? And he's like, look, go on YouTube. You know? So, yeah, it's a it's a learning curve for everybody.

Thank you.

Right. I have... Well, first for, Ms. Renger, you talked about making, better use of the grid and I would say that that, you know, is absolutely, something that the PUC has not been, great at. I mean, I would point to a completely different program, DSGS. I don't know why we're still fighting on that program.

But, what it... Are they... Is the PUC... Because we heard before the CDC is working on, on, the the, vehicle to grid integration. But do you in your mind is the PUC the holdup there?

I think that there's more that could be done to have coordination with the investor owned utilities, especially with regard to using the low carbon fuel standard funds. A portion of the funds that the utilities receive from low carbon fuel standard goes to the statewide program. And then another portion goes to what we call the holdback programs. And those are for each utility just to decide what to do with them within some parameters that the carb regulation provides.

For the investor owned utilities, they have to go through an additional step, which is to get approval from the public utilities commission.

And I think within that step in particular, there's a lot that could be done to have more coordination, more speed to scale, even if it's starting with pilots to get some of this learnings, you know, some of the learnings that we need to get done, I think that that could be a way where we could really make some, you know, progress there.

And do you think it has to be an executive order because it did probably that the legislature tries and all those bills get killed.

I think it's an idea that if the legislature wanted to work with us on that, we would be open to talking through that. I feel like I kinda came up with all these ideas and it's like, oh, who should we throw them to? So now if if any... If anybody's interested in working with us, please let me know....

Too general...

Because I know these guys. Yeah.

They're taking a lot of notes right now.

Okay.

And then I would just like for, chief Hagel to talk a little bit more about the program. So what do you think the most is most underappreciated about the day to day experience of an EV owner that does not have at home charging? What did your folks do? Where did they go if they didn't plug it into the light bulb socket?

Yeah. That's a great question. One comes to my mind instantly. This one intrepid, driver, lives in low cost apartment housing. Every single night, drive about a mile from her apartment, knows where there is a level two charger from a public facility that has a trash bag over it because Hank, the maintenance guys never repaired the meter on it fully.

And it's a public access non profit, government charging point. Plugs plugs the car in every night at 07:00 when she gets off her shift and hoofs it home. And then at five in the morning, takes her dog with her because she's scared to walk on the streets, goes back to it.

It actually works. It's just the maintenance department hasn't ever got around to fixing some of the attributes of it so that she can charge it for free. That's why she's doing it is there is no charger available whatsoever in her apartment complex, and the nearest fast charging is about six miles away. So that's what she does, and I think that's an intrepid solution at that point.

I think that one of the points that I'm listening to everybody here is we just keep talking incentives, and I'm a neophyte with all of this. Aye... This is not my regular industry. So I don't know. I've lived here my whole life.

I'm gonna live here to my last breath in California. I love it, but I'll bet you... And someone can answer it. You all know he probably spent billions on incentives, if not hundreds of millions, an incentive that will work for sure for low income families. We can get them in the cars.

I can go get you in a car right now. It only has a 70 mile range for $3,000, $2,000. It's gonna get you collagen back. Okay? What kills them is the unregulated charging of that vehicle, and they don't have the access.

So why not? You're giving someone $3,000 to go to Hank's... I'm picking on Hank's. So Tim's local retail commercial top five place to go buy his used EV and get a great incentive. They're not going there.

There's this place called Facebook Marketplace. You may have heard of it. That's where they're buying their used cars. They're not going to the dealer when your combined income in your whole household of four is $30 an hour. That...

That's not where they're going. But providing incentives for low income dwelling families that have an EV, maybe one year. Cut that cut that 56 to 75¢a kilowatt down to equal of all of us in this room, having the state give them the ability with the... They're controlled by four apps on their phone. That's another thing, by the way, all I'll add, is if the state offered an incentive for someone that owns a used vehicle that makes under x amount in the low standard...

Low income standard for a year to give them a charging incentive. They still go to the paid charger. Charging companies aren't gonna fight your bill, because they're gonna get their money. So their carrots... They're happy with their carrot in front of them, and help assist them to cut that rate equal to us.

Imagine this, that you drive by a gas station, four of them on Westwood right now, and you have to decide which one will fit your income rate. Not which one's more convenient. Not which ones... We all do it. It's gonna save you 10¢on your gallon of gas.

Actually go to that doesn't judge against you about the economics of your family, and make it make it an equal playing field?

So I... Everybody else has a lot of expertise in this area. Is it is this well known that that chargers that low income folks often have to utilize have unregulated costs? Nobody's come to the legislature yet and try to I guess that's a good idea for next year. But in general, okay, so they have the issue with charging, but how do folks like the EV experience, no exhaust, driving by gas stations, is there would they be interested in buying an EV the next time?

Yeah. That's great. What's been your experience? Yeah. And you're...

You brought up zipping along, like you're saying, you're you're going fast, you're zipping along, you're able to get places. They absolutely love them. We've had... We do weekly reports, like, do you like it? If this program was over, would you keep the vehicle?

And would you... More importantly, what we're looking at is would your next vehicle be one of these? Are you switching back to combustion? I mean, that's the important question. I think that's what you're asking.

They love them. Charging cost and access in their multifamily homes. That's it. Otherwise, hands down, they love it. There's so many anecdotal stories from them that just I I get to read these on Monday mornings.

The research comes through and sometimes I'm just laughing on how much they really love having the electric vehicles.

And is that... And what is the most surprising thing that you have found? Is that it? That...

Yeah. That's the most surprising for me is that I thought this is gonna be so difficult, but because of the charging situations, I thought, wow. Personally, unbiased when the when the project started, I thought they're all gonna wanna dump these things and go back to combustion. They're gonna take their 400,000 mile, car that they're buying for $3,000 on Facebook, and they're going to run that car and go go back to that. And so far, what we're finding is that that's not the case.

That's great. So, we have a little time, so I thought we would do maybe a minute or so wrap up from all the panelists, and we'll start with the the last speaker.

Well, I'll keep it under a minute. I will just say we've heard throughout this is a question of economic policy, whether it's the industry's perception of itself is in a bind or in the experience that you were just discussing. And so I'm just trying to figure out how to make it through the day. I think there are real opportunities here. As I've said, looking at the world situation, this is where the world's going.

California helped get it started. And now it's about how do we make sure this isn't just two or four companies up charging the state and up charging people? How do we go from us creating this to this just being shared prosperity for everybody? I think that's really available the more we focus on this across all our tools and the vast majority of those tools. One, can make us money back, you know, which is a big deal.

And also, I don't need to ask Donald Trump's permission for them and neither do any of us because they're within the authority of the states. I think focusing there now changes the politics and gets us in 2029 when president whoever takes office and thinks, oh my god. We're behind the world, critically behind the world, and we're exposed to all these costs.

I want them looking at California not as the most unequal state, not as the state that started this, but as a state that is now making this a mature market for ordinary people. I think that's where we can go.

Thank you, Ms. Reiner.

All right. Just with regard to the last question that you asked about the concern about charging for low income customers. I don't know that it's necessarily I think part of what we talked about was whether or not it's regulated. We also have to be concerned when we're looking at the companies themselves that are making these technologies. These are not typically huge corporations that are have a lot of wherewithal to be sustaining and they also have a business that they need to run as well.

And so I think where we might want to focus our efforts is more on what are some alternatives, recognizing that the charging companies need to make money as well. There's been fits and starts as to whether or not there's a business model there, but also looking at possibly what are some other alternatives like charge cards. And that's something that's gained a lot of traction recently. There's been a number of pilots.

There's been proposals even to allow the automakers possibly not to have to provide a level one cord, but instead to chart to provide a charging card.

Different community based organizations have been working, on these charging card models. And I have some studies from GoBiz. They did a pilot on this a couple of years ago, and we could share that as well. So some of these options are are looking to be a little bit more promising.

Thank you.

I think she just said it succinctly. The people that are driving these cars and that all of us in this room want to get into cars, low income families, they don't have Mastercards in American Expresses. So when I saw the slide deck or whatever of tap and go, you try that with what your PayPal card, that's like... That's high level. There's no place to take cash.

So that is a major stumbling block. So as she mentioned, that would be huge relief for families.

I think it's very clear that it's an electric vehicle future. But the challenge that is before us is to how to make that happen sooner, affordably, available, and usable to the to the real folks. But that is that is where we're headed. But we've got to do... We have some hurdles to get there.

I have a lot to say, but I'm not sure how to make it just in a minute. I I feel like we are saying two things. I'm just gonna address it. EVs are fun to drive and there's no demand. If they were not fun to drive, where is the demand issue?

So I think let's not confuse regulatory uncertainty for market demand. We need the regulatory certainty so that the OEMs and the manufacturers produce the vehicles they have a North Star, but at the same time and we hear this both in the light duty and the heavy duty side, trucks, cars, EVs, they're fun to drive, they are ergonomical. They're easier on your body, especially for truck drivers who are driving eight hours on the road, dry aged vehicles. People want to keep buying them.

I think the other couple of things that we didn't talk about when it comes to costs, especially as it relates to California.

So California has Power Forward, which is a battery program. This is, you know, batteries are one of the reasons why the costs are high. We need to do a better job of investing in the technologies. I think California has amazing technologies available to them. There's businesses here that are investing in the future of batteries and helping to draw down the cost.

So more investment into power forward the program to bring that those costs down will be helpful. And then just putting a finer point on the TNC program, obviously, this also goes to my first point. EVs are fun to drive. Uber drivers prefer... And Lyft drivers prefer to be in an EV.

So ensuring that we're continuing that program that has been wildly successful So they have the opportunity to drive it in EV.

A few things. First, just commending the State of California for thinking about policy as everything everywhere all at once is really, really important. I mean, you've heard just an array of ideas here. You have many more on your own. I tell my students all the time California codifies everything.

That's because the legislature is super active and super professional and that is a huge asset and trying to tackle what is an extraordinary challenge. As Craig put it, this is a massive economic transformation and it's not simple in any respect. So I guess that's just a sort of an observation about the resources that the state brings to the table in your expertise, your ambition, your willingness to introduce legislation, to work it out, to work with stakeholders. We don't see that in a lot of states.

And I just think it's worth noting.

I guess secondly, and I think California needs to play a role here. I really do think we need to think about how we revamp regulatory policy. I think there are huge problems at the federal level.

Having served as the head of NHTSA, I will tell you that the CAFE rulemaking combined with GHT rulemaking combined with California was far and away the most complicated and frustrating thing I did and we passed something like 30 rules including very, very strong safety regulations for automatic emergency braking and so forth. There's something wrong with the system and particularly given the whip sawing.

The whip sawing is just not good for anybody. I think there may be ways to at least reduce the possibility of whiplash going forward. And then the third thing is just to always focus on the fact that we still have air pollution problems. And one of the great things about regulating air pollution is that we frequently also get the co benefit of greenhouse gas emission reduction. And I think oftentimes our first move should be about thinking about reducing air pollution and we get the great benefit.

And that that is true absolutely in the vehicle market. There's no question in the heavy duty sector, in the light duty sector, we need to electrify. We will never come into compliance with the Clean Air Act unless we do so. And we get the added benefit that zero emission vehicles also don't emit carbon if we have electricity coming from the right places.

Right. Can we give our panel a big round of applause? Just really appreciate all of you joining us today. This was very informative and like a great diversity of opinions here and backgrounds and so we really appreciate you joining us today.

And... Thank you for inviting us. Thank you.

And now we do have an opportunity for public comments. So, I would ask that you limit your comment to maybe around two minutes or so. You can stay or move or whatever you would like to do.

Good afternoon. Tom Vanhiti. I'm senior policy advisor at Rivian Automotive. We're a California headquartered company. We're a manufacturer of EVs and a rapidly growing charging network operator as well, sort of on the on the Tesla model, if you will.

I hope there wasn't an order and I just jumped to the front of the line. No order. Look, I think it's very clear, and you've heard that California has a tremendous legacy of leadership on EVs. We all owe a great deal to that. It's a vision for the future that has helped to give rise to the industry that Rivian is a part of.

So to start with, I do wanna say thank you to the legislature for the My First EV program. We're participants in that program. Our customers are benefiting from it today. I wanna say thank you to the legislature and to the CEC for the ongoing durable funding support for building out public charging in California. That's extremely important.

And we're excited about CARB's continued work to develop a future generation of emission standards that can help inspire continued innovation from the auto industry. We're part of that process. We look forward to continue to be part of that process. All of this is really, really good. At the same time, I think this is a really exciting moment to look ahead and think creatively and boldly about what else is possible.

And I think you heard a number of really exciting ideas from the panel just now. I hope that some of what I'm just gonna touch on very briefly at least rhymes with that and and sounds like, you know, we're starting to all push in the same in the same direction. So, you know, there's a number of things we could talk about here. I'm gonna get...

I'm just gonna sort of summarize a few of the ideas that we have that I'm happy to get into more detail on at some point.

But, you know, one thing to consider, perhaps, is to establish a dedicated EP transition account in the state budget to support ongoing investments in this area, whether it's incentives, infrastructure, or other initiatives to provide certainty and sort of a a dedicated pool for that for that kind of work.

Calling capital to market with reverse auction incentives or low and no interest revolving loan funds that target priority fleets, including the local governments that are working hard to electrify their operations addressing market failures and public charging, namely the challenge of providing charging in crucial but often uneconomical locations across the state. That could be rural communities. It could be underserved urban communities as well.

Leveraging the power of the state to strengthen the drive forward leaders program that the Air Resources Board already operates and exploring opportunities for both new regulatory initiatives, like the indirect source rule idea that we talked about a little bit today, and leading the nation with a multistate procurement of EVs for government fleets driving scale into that into that business.

And finally, acting strategically to enable bidirectional charging technology to go to market and deliver value for customers in the state as soon as possible, perhaps in a phased approach. So, you know, we look forward to working collaboratively with everybody in this room on these ideas. There's a lot more to say. We'll be glad to share additional details.

Perhaps we can provide some written follow-up, but thanks again for now for convening this important discussion, but it's the beginning of of many more, and for the chance to offer some reflections on that.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, honorable chairs. Chris Chavez, Deputy Policy Director of Coalition for Clean Air. Thank you for having, this hearing. One thing I appreciate the comments at the beginning, is that we can't lose sight that California's efforts to support clean transportation, are rooted in the state's persistent air quality crisis. Simply put, California cannot have clean air without cleaning up the transportation sector.

Nearly 50% of our state's greenhouse gas emissions, comes from transportation, 80% of our smog forming pollution, and 95% of carcinogenic diesel particulate matter is from the transportation sector. We support a three pronged strategy to clean our air. One is creating more walkable, bikeable, and transit oriented communities. Two is supporting strong rules, including indirect source rules, ISRs, to accelerate the transition towards electric vehicles.

And three are incentives to support low income and disadvantaged communities in their ability to purchase electric vehicles and chargers, as well as incentives for trucking, transit agencies, and schools, for fleets to operate in...

Particularly because those fleets operate in pollution burden socioeconomically vulnerable communities. We understand that California is facing challenging headwind due to the Trump administration's hostility towards clean energy and clean transportation. At the same time, the state's budget choices have displaced clean transportation, clean mobility, and transit have largely displaced those from California's climate investments. Though we appreciate the 2026, twenty twenty seven's budget committing $2,020,000,000 collectively to the five regional air clean cars for all programs, it falls far short of the 120,000,000 a year needed to satisfy demand.

Similarly, the 135,000,000 allocated for medium and heavy duty incentives only addresses a third of what Carver's projected HVIP's projection or needs actually are.

Meanwhile, the most recent cycle of the active transportation program of the more than 300 submitted applications, ATP can only fund 13 of them. One other thing I would note for Clean Cars for All and ACHIP, this is another year where those programs are not directly receiving green... Any greenhouse gas reduction funds. For Clean Cars for All that came out of the motor vehicle account, which was money that had originally been from, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

And for ACHIP, that money is coming from the Air Pollution Control Fund.

This is a challenging time for the state, both fiscally and politically. We cannot, however, view clean transportation as a nice to have. Rather, clean transportation is an investment in our communities and our public health as well as directly addresses one of the main affordability drivers facing California families, transportation. Thank you for your time.