Policy will cost Vermonters money, jobs, tax revenue, and likely increase emissions.

by Rob Roper

With the Clean Heat Standard in a political coma and the proposed Cap & Invest program dead in its crib, the last global warming agenda domino standing is the Clean Cars and Trucks initiative, which phases out the sale of new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by 2035 and starts limiting sales in 2026. And as that date rapidly approaches, another dose of reality is beginning to set in. Unfortunately, reality is a concept the majority party is unacquainted with.

According to this rule, 35 percent of the vehicles manufacturers deliver to Vermont dealerships must be electric. Last year the percentage of electric vehicles sold in Vermont was twelve. So, our delusional lawmakers think that they can — by decree – triple demand for EVs overnight and eliminate demand for new ICE vehicles in a decade. Just like when I was in first grade or so and sincerely tried my best to cast magic spells to make the answers on my homework sheet appear, this ain’t gonna happen. Most people don’t want these cars because for most people they are too expensive and totally impractical.

What’s going to happen is not three times as many EVs will be sold in Vermont next year, rather a lot more ICE vehicles will be sold to Vermonters in New Hampshire (a state not so stupid as to sign onto such nonsense), a lot of Vermont car dealers will go out of business, and the state will lose all the corporate and individual income tax revenue these businesses generated.

Mark Alderman of Alderman Chevrolet GMC and Alderman’s Toyota in Rutland explained that unless you have in-home overnight charging – and most people don’t – owning an EV is a logistical nightmare because the public charging infrastructure isn’t in place, public charging can be more expensive than gasoline, and the time it takes to charge (when you’re not sleeping through it) is often difficult to work around. He told this story to illustrate his point:

I had a lady from Poultney, a mom, two kids, and she had a [Chevy] Bolt. Her concern was that it wasn’t charging as fast as it had been charging. Now this was about January, and, she had a fifty-kilowatt charger in in the Poultney area — hundred percent dependent on public charging. But what we found was… she would take her kids and go and sit at the charger in January, and she’s got the heat cranked up in the car. So, for every kilowatt going into the car, there’s half a kilowatt going out. And this was like, her entire life was turned upside down.

His warning to legislators was until the infrastructure is in place, incentivizing people to buy cars that aren’t functional in their daily lives is turning them steadfastly against the technology. “My firsthand experience with the people that rely on public charging and do not have access to overnight level two charging [is] these people are never driving an EV again and just the opposite. They’re campaigning against EVs and counterproductive to the movement, so to speak.”

The situation is quite possibly even worse where trucks are concerned.

Brent Dragon of Charley Boys Freightliner Western Star truck dealer in New York, which is one year ahead of Vermont in implementing Clean Cars & Trucks, warned that this is what Vermont dealers can look forward to:

Basically, I have forty-two ICE engine [trucks], diesel engine orders that I could sell in New York State or would have already sold in New York State, but we’ve not been able to sell one electric vehicle. [The rule requires the dealer to sell one EV to open up eight diesel credits.] The cost of one of these trucks, just one tractor, is five hundred and sixty thousand dollars and then then to go along with it, you need a charger that takes three phase power. In a lot of these places, you can’t get three phase power into these jobs.

Why can’t dealers sell the electric trucks to trucking companies? Because they are too expensive, and they don’t do the job. As Dragon explained, “A diesel truck will travel seven, eight hundred miles a day, whereas this electric vehicle, we’re lucky to get two hundred miles a day. So, so really, let’s say Pepsi Cola leaves Burlington. They can’t go to Newport and back without a charge, and there’s no place to charge these because it’s not the same charger as a car.”

Matt Preston, a truck dealer from Massachusetts, another state one year ahead of Vermont, described similar challenges. “It doesn’t work…. Two years ago we hired an EV [sales] specialist…. They were going out to see municipalities, private customers. Two years and we’ve sold two trucks [and] haven’t delivered one yet.”

Preston notes that a big obstacle is ironically, or more accurately hypocritically, or perhaps infuriatingly, and certainly tellingly that the politicians who passed the law in Massachusetts exempted the state and all municipalities from the EV mandates. The politicians know this is a stupid, expensive, impractical policy.

But unlike individual car owners who can simply buy ICE vehicles in another state and bring them back to Vermont, the trucking companies, due to registration requirements for trucks, can’t do that. Their only option if they want to purchase the kinds of vehicles they need to do business is to open up shop in another state and register the ICE trucks there. Again for Vermont, this will be a self-inflicted loss of jobs and who knows how much tax revenue.

Preston explained in Massachusetts, “And you just look at tax revenue…. You could count on one hand the amount of trucks that are on order for Massachusetts registration. And a typical year in Massachusetts [for] class six through eight — three thousand trucks. So, you know, rough math, it’s twenty-six million dollars in taxes paid.”

Matt Cota representing the Vermont Fuel Dealers chimed in here, “What Matt is experiencing in Massachusetts and Brent in New York, they’re one year ahead of us. That’s coming to Vermont unless something changes in model year 2026. We’re trying to be proactive here. This is what’s coming to Vermont.”

It doesn’t have to. There is a bill tacked to the wall in the House Energy & Digital Infrastructure Committee and another just like it in Senate Natural Resources & Energy that would get Vermont out of this California quagmire, but the Democrats who lead those committees, assuredly on orders from above, will not take them up.

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com