Actually, this is a good thing for auto manufacturers. We all know that fossil fuel powered vehicles aren't the future. Setting a cut off date gives certainty to the market, enables them to plan more effectively, and for third party suppliers to also plan accordingly.
Unless EVs are actually less expensive in 2035, the ban will be removed. However, they will be cheaper so no one will opt for an ICE car at that point anyway.
That’s … not where I thought you were going. A ban will drive demand for ICE vehicles in the years before going into effect, even if it ultimately does not.
If EVs are more expensive at this time, of course it will drive demand for ICE vehicles. People will then just drive their ICE cars for longer. In this limit, it becomes like Cuba. Great work, gov.
Assume the ban happened in 1995 when EVs would not have been price competitive at all with ICE cars. A ban here just means shutting down all vehicle production and people have to find a way to keep their old cars going. CO2 emissions likely do not significantly change. People likely wouldn't be happy and would (rightfully) turf any government that did such a thing.
Run the same experiment in 2035. Are EVs still significantly more expensive and lack utility / range? If so, it is some approximation of the 1995 experiment. If EVs are cheap and awesome (which will probably be the case), then no ban is necessary as no one would bother to buy an ICE car anyway.
In short, at best a ban makes no difference and at worst makes everyone's lives suck while having no impact toward the stated goal.
> We all know that fossil fuel powered vehicles aren't the future.
Are we sure of this? Are biofuels not an option here? If you lived in California, you'd know that our pathetic grid can barely handle the load now. When everyone plugs in their Tesla at 6pm it's going to be pandemonium. Of course, Gavin is happy handing the extra business to his buds at PG&E.
No, biofuels are not an option, not at the present scale of fossil fuel consumption, or at any likely increase in net fuel consumption which would reflect the rest of the world rising to a modest fraction of US/EU per capita energy consumption.
Realise that we shifted from biofuels to fossil fuels in the 19th and early 20th centuries because the energy-fueled technologically-driven economic growth people wanted simply wasn't possible with agriculturally-based energy systems. In 1900, the US devoted a fifth of its grain supply to transportation, in the form of horse feed. Henry Ford experimented with alcohol-based automobiles. Ultimately large petroleum finds (Spindletop, the East Texas Oil Field, and Ghawar in Saudi Arabia) demonstrated that petroleum would be a reliable fuel source for the foreseeable future.
Biofuel yields vary, and some of the higher claims remain largely theoretical (grasses, pickleweed, and algae particularly). Demonstrated biofuel productivity from crops such as soybean, sunflower, and sugarcane range around 48--63, 63--90, and 700 gallons/acre (about 450--590, 590--840, and 6,550 litre/hectare).
The US consumes about 7.3 billion barrels of petroleum annually, the world about 37 billion.
Given the highest yield above, sugarcane (which has a limited growing zone), substituting for all petroleum use would require somewhat over 2 billion acres. That's ... somewhat ... less than the total present arable land on Earth, but keep in mind that fuel crops would displace food crops, that we're working from the best option (soybean or sunflower would require better than 10x as much land), and that agriculture itself is quite energy intensive, with most present crops requiring more energy input than is delivered.
