New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul announced Thursday there will be “no more excuses” not to buy an electric vehicle after directing the State Department of Environmental Conservation to take significant action to accelerate the state’s transition to clean transportation to protect the environment.
In White Plains, New York, Governor Hochul outlined the state’s new ambitious clean energy and climate goals. The most important takeaway is all new vehicles sold in the state of New York will now need to be zero-emission by 2035, the same requirement that was set in California by the state’s new Advanced Clean Cars II regulation.
California Air Resources Board (CARB) predicts California’s new regulation will cut emissions by 50% between 2026 and 2040. Since it passed, 18 other states have followed in California’s footsteps, adopting California’s Low-Emission Vehicle (LEV) and Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandates, with New York being the most recent.
When the Governor first visited White Plains in 2015, she claims, she was greeted with visions of abundant EV charging and zero-emission vehicles, which is soon to be a reality.
NY is introducing several new initiatives to combat climate change and protect the environment, as Governor Hochul touts, “EVs are the key to achieving this.”
Governor Hochul Drives Forward New York’s Transition to Clean Transportation Source: NY Governor Kathy Hochul
The governor says electric vehicles have been a part of New York’s history for over 100 years, starting in Buffalo. The Buffalo Electric Carriage Company, created in 1900 and later known as the Buffalo Electric Vehicle Company, did not last long. It went out of business by 1916 as oil giants and their money bags took over the United States.
This time, electric vehicles are here to stay as New York reveals specific targets and initiatives to make it happen.
New York outlines electric vehicle requirements and initiatives
By 2035, all new passenger cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs sold in New York will be required to be zero-emission. To ensure they get there, the governor outlined specific benchmarks along the way.
The percent of new vehicle sales that need to be zero-emission will increase as the plan progresses, with 35% being required by 2026, 68% by 2030, and 100% by 2035.
New York Governor Hochul states:
With sustained state and federal investments, our actions are incentivizing New Yorkers, local governments, and businesses to make the transition to electric vehicles. We’re driving New York’s transition to clean transportation forward, and today’s announcement will benefit our climate and the health of our communities for generations to come.
New York has a mandated goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 85% by 2050, and the new state regulations to accelerate its transition to electric vehicles will help it achieve this.
To help buyers that may be on the fence about buying an electric vehicle, New York is charging ahead with several initiatives to help lower costs and provide accessible charging options.
Zero-emission vehicle grants – New York is providing $5.75 million for municipalities to purchase or lease zero-emission vehicles for their fleets and to install public EV charging stations.
NYSERDA Drive Clean Rebate – $10 million is being added to New York’s Drive Clean Rebate to help buyers purchase an EV with an up to $2,000 rebate available in all 62 counties that can be used with the federal tax credit provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.
NYPA EVolve NY – The New York Power Authority (NYPA) just installed its 100th fast charger as part of the EVolve NY $250 million funding to build a state-wide fast charging network to accelerate electric vehicle adoption.
National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program – New York is receiving $175 million over the next five years from the federal NEVI program to establish an interconnected electric vehicle charging network.
New York has some of the nation’s most aggressive climate and clean energy initiatives to reduce harmful emissions by promoting the adoption of electric vehicles and protecting the environment with strict mandates. With these programs, the state is on track to reach economy-wide carbon neutrality and achieve its mandated carbon reduction goals.
Electrek’s Take
New York’s announcement provides a roadmap for how states can achieve meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions while protecting the environment and the safety of those that live there.
California established the regulations, making it easier for other states to follow suit. New York is not stopping at passenger vehicles either. The state is investing in electric school buses to keep children safe, electric transport buses to keep communities safe, and in industries you wouldn’t expect, like street sweepers!
New York City just surpassed 4,050 city-owned electric vehicles, hitting its goal three years ahead of schedule, showing the city is stepping up in a big way.
Transitioning to clean energy and electric vehicles will not only promote a cleaner community but will also stimulate the economy by creating well paying jobs. The state estimates its over $35 billion in clean energy investments will support around 158,000 jobs while lowering energy costs for residents and creating a clean, reliable grid.
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Tesla is being forced to remove 64 Superchargers at stations along the New Jersey Turnpike as the local authorities have decided to go with another provider.
Elon Musk claimed corruption without any evidence.
The New Jersey Turnpike is a system of controlled-access toll roads that consists of a 100-mile section of important New Jersey highways.
The agreement has now expired, and instead of renewing it, the authority decided to give an exclusive agreement to Applegreen, which already operates in all service areas on the turnpike.
Tesla issued a statement saying that it is disappointed with the situation, but that it has prepared for this by building new stations off the turnpike for the last few years:
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (“NJTA”) has chosen a sole third-party charging provider to serve the New Jersey Turnpike and is not allowing us to co-locate. As a result, NJTA requested 64 existing Supercharger stalls on the New Jersey Turnpike to not be renewed and be decommissioned. We have been preparing for 3 years for this potential outcome by building 116 stalls off the New Jersey Turnpike, ensuring no interruption for our customers. The map below outlines the existing replacement Superchargers, and Trip Planner will adjust automatically.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk went a step further and called it “corruption” without any evidence.
The automaker’s agreement with NJTA expired, and they decided to go with a sole provider. Applegreen will reportedly deploy chargers at all 21 turnpike service stops.
Here are Tesla’s replacement Superchargers off the turnpike:
Electrek’s Take
I don’t like the decision from the Turnpike authorities. More chargers are better than fewer chargers. However, I also don’t like Musk calling everything he doesn’t like fraud or corruption.
While I agree with Tesla that it is unreasonable to force them to remove the stations, it appears to be an oversight on Tesla’s part not to have included stipulations in their agreement to prevent such a scenario from happening in the first place.
Who signs a deal to deploy millions of dollars worth of charging equipment with only the right to operate them there for 5 years?
It looks like Tesla knew this was coming since it specifically built several new Supercharger stations off the turnpike to prepare for this.
On the other hand, I don’t like the Turnpike Authority using the term “universal charger” as if this is a positive for Applegreen. They are going to use CCS, and everyone is moving to NACS in North America.
Yes, for a while, only Tesla owners will have to use adapters, but that will soon change and the current NACS Supercharger will be even more useful.
At the end of the day, the stations are already there. Let them operate them.
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ZQUIP is working hard to bring more smart, efficient, modular power solutions to commercial job sites everywhere – and at the core of their vision for the future is battery-swap technology. You can see just how easy it is make that happen here.
MOOG Construction’s energy skunkworks ZQUIP made headlines last year by bringing the cordless power tool battery model to the world of industrial-grade heavy equipment.
“The 700V ZQUIP Energy Modules are at the core of this innovation, said Chris LaFleur, managing director for QUIP. “ZQUIP modules are interchangeable across any machine we convert regardless of size, type, or manufacturer, and will enable a level of serviceability, runtime, and value that is far greater than current battery solutions.”
ZQUIP generator prototype on Caterpillar excavator; via ZQUIP.
Most machines on most sites sit idle most of the time, but converting all those machines to battery electric power means that megawatts of battery capacity are being wasted. By utilizing swappable batteries, job sites can do what technicians and contractors have been doing for years with power tools: quickly get the energy they need to the tool they need when they need it, without the need to have a dedicated battery for every tool.
If you need to be able to run the machine non-stop and don’t have a reliable way to recharge your batteries quickly enough, a 140 kW diesel generator is built into a package the same size and shape as the batteries. In fact, if you look closely at the CASE excavator below (on the right), the “battery” on the right is, in fact, a diesel Energy Module.
The demo video, below, shows a pair of CASE-based electric excavators – one wheeled, one tracked – operating on ZQUIP’s Energy Modules. It takes less than two minutes to remove one battery, and presumably about the same time to swap another one in, for a 5 (ish) minute swap.
Even if you call it ten, by eliminating the need to get the entire machine up and out for charging (or for service, if there’s an issue with the battery/controllers), the ZQUIP battery swap construction equipment solution seems like a good one.
ZQUIP HDEV battery swap
SOURCE | IMAGES: ZQUIP.
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The Trump administration is confident that a massive liquified natural gas project in Alaska will find investors despite its enormous cost.
President Donald Trump has pushed Alaska LNG as a national priority since taking office. Alaska has already spent years trying to build an 800-mile pipeline from the North Slope above the Arctic Circle south to the Cook Inlet, where the gas would be cooled and shipped to U.S. allies in Asia.
But Alaska LNG has never gotten off the ground due to a stratospheric price tag of more than $40 billion. Trump has pushed Japan and South Korea in particular to invest in the project, threatening them with higher tariffs if they don’t offer trade deals that suit him.
“If you get the commercial offtakers for the gas, financing is pretty straightforward,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. “There [are] countries around the world looking to shrink their trade deficit with the United States, and of course, a very easy way to do that is to buy more American energy,” Wright said.
Energy analysts, however, are skeptical of the project. Alaska LNG “doesn’t have a clear cut commercial logic,” Alex Munton, director of global gas and LNG research at Rapidan Energy, told CNBC in April.
“If it did, it would have had a lot more support than it has thus far, and this project has been on the planning board for literally decades,” Munton said.
Defense Department support
Wright said the project would be built in stages and initially serve domestic demand in Alaska, which faces declining natural gas supplies in the Cook Inlet. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the Department of Defense is ready to support the project with its resources.
“They’re ready to sign on to take an offtake agreement from this pipeline to get gas to our super strategic, important bases across Alaska,” Burgum said of the Pentagon in a CNBC interview at Prudhoe Bay.
Alaska LNG, if completed, would deliver U.S. natural gas to Japan in about eight days, compared to about 24 days for U.S. Gulf Coast exports that pass through the congested Panama Canal, Burgum said. It would also avoid contested waters in the South China Sea that LNG exports from the Middle East pass through, the interior secretary said.
Wright said potential Asian investors have questions about the timeline and logistics of Alaska LNG. The pipeline could start delivering LNG to southern Alaska in 2028 or 2029, with exports to Asia beginning sometime in the early 2030s, Wright said.
Glenfarne Group, the project’s lead developer, told CNBC in April that a final investment decision is expected in the next six to 12 months on the leg of a proposed pipeline that runs from the North Slope to Anchorage. Glenfarne is a privately-held developer, owner and operator of energy infrastructure based in New York City and Houston.