Steeper Road for Zero-Emissions Vehicles
By Steve Goreham -- July 23, 2025
“A recent survey by the American Automobile Association (AAA) found that only 16% of potential buyers were either “likely” or “very likely” to buy a fully electric vehicle as their next car, … down from 25% in 2022 and was the lowest level of EV interest recorded by AAA surveys since 2019.”
The road to adoption of Zero Emissions Vehicles (ZEVs) is growing steeper. For over two decades, states used incentives and mandates to try to force a transition from gasoline vehicles to ZEVs. But softening market demand, shifting federal policies, and poor economics threaten to halt the ZEV revolution in the United States.
Zero Emissions Vehicles are cars and trucks that produce no tailpipe emissions. These are either electric vehicles (EVs) or hydrogen vehicles. California is the only state with a significant number of hydrogen cars, but its hydrogen car population is declining, so ZEVs mean EVs in practice.
Air pollution reached hazardous levels in the 1950s. The expanding population and automobile fleet in Los Angeles generated recurring episodes of smog, reducing visibility, causing nausea, and burning eyes. As a child, I recall having our car windows coated by pollutants from the steel mills of Gary, Indiana during a drive-by, forcing us to stop to clean our windshield.
https://www.masterresource.org/goreham-steve/steeper-road-zero-emissions-vehicles/
