California Budget Approves Historic Clean Transportation Investments
Originally published on NRDC Expert Blog.
By Miles Muller, Attorney, Climate & Clean Energy Program
State legislators and Governor Newsom just signed a historic California budget that includes unprecedented levels of investment in clean transportation. The new funding will provide significant support for critical zero-emission vehicle and infrastructure programs, unlocking billions in public health, climate, and jobs benefits for all Californians.
This budget comes as the result of months of significant advocacy by a coalition of more than fifty climate, equity, health, and labor organizations to expand investments in California’s most effective programs for clean air, improved health, environmental justice, and a stable climate. The final budget includes more than $3.5 billion for zero-emission vehicles and infrastructure, including:
- $1.4 billion for electrifying medium- and heavy-duty vehicles on California roads to clean the air, including 3,000 zero-emission drayage trucks, school buses, and transit buses;
- $415 million to deploy the necessary charging infrastructure for those medium- and heavy-duty vehicles;
- $400 million for equity-focused transportation projects like Clean Cars 4 All, which enables low-income Californians to scrap their old car and replace it with a new or used option that is less polluting and more efficient;
- $500 million for the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) Clean Transportation Program deploying charging infrastructure for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles;
- $525 million for consumer rebates for new ZEV purchases through the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project; and
- $250 million for zero-emission manufacturing.
This money is on top of the budget’s $5.4 billion Transportation Infrastructure Plan, which includes $500 million for active transportation in addition to funding for improving the state’s streets, roads, and rails.
Securing an Equitable Clean Transportation Future in CA
Moving forward, the Legislature needs to strengthen the state’s commitment to equity to ensure all Californians have access to clean transportation. Fortunately, the Legislature has an opportunity to do exactly that with two policy bills this year — SB 726 (L. Gonzalez) and AB 1389 (Reyes) — that would codify equity requirements for the CEC’s Clean Transportation Program and require that 50% of those investments go towards the primary benefit of people residing in low-income and disadvantaged communities. The Legislature should advance these bills to ensure even greater investment in California’s equitable clean transportation future.
Thanks in large part to the Charge Ahead California Initiative — established by Senate Bill 1275 in 2014, making it state policy to electrify the transportation sector in a manner that ensures all Californians are able to realize the benefits electric vehicles can provide — California already has a rich portfolio of well-utilized equity-focused programs designed to increase access to zero-emission vehicles and mobility in disadvantaged and low-income communities. These programs are complemented by critical zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicle programs that displace toxic diesel emissions that disproportionately impact low-income and disadvantaged communities that often live near freeways, ports, railyards, warehouses and other facilities.
These programs have done a lot to accelerate electric vehicle adoption in the state, especially in low-income and underserved communities, but there’s still a ways to go to meet the state’s long-term climate, equity, and air quality goals. According to a recent CEC report, the state is currently falling behind on its goal of deploying the 250,000 public and shared charging stations needed to support estimated EV adoption in 2025, and faces a gap of roughly one million chargers from what will be needed to support its 2035 goals. The report concludes that significant and continued state, local, utility, and private funding will be necessary to meet these goals.
California Energy Commission, Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Assessment
The 2021–2022 budget will go a long way in putting the state on a path to achieving its goals, but more still needs to be done going forward to fund critical equity programs and help underserved communities realize the benefits of clean mobility. While advocates had been pushing for $500 million in guaranteed funding for these critical transportation equity programs, only $150 million of the budget’s $400 million package is guaranteed, and the rest will have to be authorized by the Legislature in future years.
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China’s first all-solid-state production line is up and running. With the equipment in place, GAC Group becomes the first automaker ready to mass-produce the “holy grail” of EV batteries, promising to double range and cut charging time.
China advances all-solid-state EV batteries
It’s no secret by now that China is dominating the global battery market. CATL and BYD alone accounted for over 50% of global EV battery usage through September.
To stay ahead, Chinese automakers and tech leaders are advancing new battery technologies, including all-solid-state batteries.
GAC Group announced over the weekend that it has officially begun producing all-solid-state EV batteries, claiming to be the first in the industry to meet the conditions for mass production.
The milestone is significant, given that mass production is one of the biggest hurdles holding all-solid-state batteries from hitting the market.
Not only does it require new equipment, but all-solid-state batteries also use a solid electrolyte, which can be costly. GAC Group uses a dry process that combines slurry preparation, coating, and rolling into a single step, saving time and resources.
The production line is already producing EV batteries above 60 Ah. Experts say 60 Ah is needed to use in vehicles. Up until now, most have been around 20-40 Ah.
According to Qi Hongzhong, GAC’s R&D boss, the company plans to begin small-batch vehicle testing by 2026, with mass production scheduled between 2027 and 2030.
The new batteries are expected to provide over 1,000 km (621 miles) driving range, more than double the current 500 km (310 miles).
China established the All-Solid-State Battery Collaborative Innovation Platform last year, which unites nearly all battery makers and automakers to bring the new battery tech into mass production.
SAIC Motor also announced over the weekend that it has completed the main production line for its all-solid-state batteries. BYD and CATL aim to begin producing all-solid-state batteries by 2027, with mass production closer toward the end of the decade.
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For the first time in what feels like forever, Tesla has put a hard date on the arrival of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) in Europe. The automaker confirmed that the Dutch vehicle authority (RDW) has committed to granting national approval for the system in February 2026, which is just a few months away.
Update: RDW has denied that it has told Tesla it plans to grant approval in February.
This is a massive development for European Tesla owners who have been stuck with a severely neutered version of Autopilot for years due to restrictive regulations.
Tesla shared the update via its ‘Tesla Europe & Middle East’ account on X, stating that the RDW has “committed to granting Netherlands National approval” next February.
Rather than waiting for the slow-moving wheels of the entire European Union to turn simultaneously, Tesla is using a “national exemption” route. Once the Netherlands grants this approval, other EU member states can choose to recognize that exemption immediately, effectively creating a domino effect for an EU-wide rollout.
Tesla explained the regulatory hurdle they’ve been facing:
“Some of these regulations are outdated and rule-based, making FSD illegal in its current form. Modifying FSD to make it fully rule-compliant would make it unsafe and unusable in many cases.”
Instead of watering down the software, Tesla is seeking exemptions rule-by-rule. The company notes it has already driven over 1 million kilometers in internal testing across 17 European countries to prove the system’s safety to regulators. However, Tesla didn’t share disengagement data from these 1 million kms.
Tesla has been known to make misleading claims that FSD is safer than humans by releasing misleading crash data that relies on its own crash reporting from customer vehicles, while using police data for the broader comparison fleet, on top of road biases.
Furthermore, even with these flaws, it doesn’t prove that FSD is safer than humans, but that FSD plus humans is safer than just humans, as FSD still requires driver attention at all times. Drivers prevent an unknown number of accidents with the driver assistance system.
Update: RDW responded to Tesla’s announcement with a different view of the situation. The regulator claimed that it has only come up with a schedule for Tesla to be able to demonstrate FSD in February, and hasn’t committed to approving it.
We do not share details about ongoing applications from manufacturers, as this concerns commercially sensitive information. However, we can state that the RDW and Tesla have established a schedule, according to which Tesla is expected to demonstrate in February 2026 that FSD Supervised meets the required standards. Both RDW and Tesla are aware of the efforts needed to reach a decision on this matter in February. Whether this timeline will be met is yet to be determined in the coming period. For the RDW, (road) safety is paramount.
Electrek’s Take
While this is the most serious announcement from Tesla about FSD in Europe, we heard timelines in the past that didn’t pan out.
In early 2022, Musk said that Tesla would launch FSD in Europe that summer. It clearly didn’t happen.
In late 2024, Tesla said it should happen in early 2025, and that didn’t happen either.
Now, if RDW actually said that, it would give a lot more weight to this new timeline.
It should make the few Tesla owners in Europe who bought FSD on HW4 cars happy, but just like what happened in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year, it is also likely to create a situation where the launch confirms that Tesla is not going to deliver its promises to the millions of HW3 owners.
Either way, I don’t think FSD saves Tesla’s freefalling sales in Europe.
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