Governor Polis Applauds Recent Announcements on Electric Vehicles

Statement

Governor Polis released a statement following several recent announcements regarding actions by the nation's largest automakers towards cleaner vehicles and expanding electrification.

This week, multiple automakers as well as the Coalition for Sustainable Automotive Regulation, which represented certain automakers, withdrew from a lawsuit challenging the state of California's authority to set its own emission standards (which can then be adopted by other states). Additionally, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an auto industry trade group that includes 99% of automakers, recently offered proposed principles for a national program of clean car standards that would include focusing future regulations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, immediately strengthening annual vehicle efficiency standards to higher levels of greenhouse gas reduction than the current federal standards, and increasing the long-term focus on electric vehicles. The group signaled their support for working collaboratively with the Biden administration to promote a cleaner environment and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Separately, General Motors announced plans to phase out production of gasoline vehicles and move to selling all-electric vehicles by 2035.

"I'm thrilled to see the major players in the auto industry withdraw their support for suing states like ours that are implementing stronger clean car standards. We are also encouraged to see the auto industry come to the table with a willingness to support stronger year over year improvements to fuel economy and Greenhouse Gas emissions than the rules adopted by the previous administration," said Governor Polis. "Moving forward, we are focused on achieving large scale electrification, which is what is required to meet the climate crisis we face. With most of the real-world manufacturing decisions for the next few years already made, we encourage all parties to put the fighting of the past behind us and chart a new path to successfully electrify the light duty fleet as soon as possible."

Colorado has worked closely with automakers over the past two years to increase clean car options for Coloradans. In 2019, Colorado became the first state in over a decade to adopt Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) regulations, and the first-ever to do so with support from virtually all automakers.

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