The trend toward transportation electrification may be inevitable, however, the road to the goal of 100 percent EVs by 2035 may not be as straightforward as some may wish. This path is made even more difficult in urban areas, where on-street parking is often the norm.

This may be the journey New York State, and specifically, New York City will face with governor Kathy Hochul of New York pledging regulatory action to follow in California's footsteps by requiring all light-duty vehicle sales in the state to be EV by 2035. While California and New York are similar in that they're highly populated, politically progressive states, the issue of the implementation of electrification is more acute in New York, where the state is significantly behind the Golden State in terms of total chargers, Level 2 and Level 3 (DCFC) chargers as well as the ratio of EVs to charger ports. Granted, there are differences in geographical area, total EV registrations, and geography between the states, making a pure apples-to-apples comparison difficult.

It would require an increasing percentage of new light-duty vehicle sales to be zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) starting with 35 percent of sales in model year 2026, 68 percent of sales by 2030, and 100 percent of sales by 2035. New pollutant standards for model year 2026 through model year 2034 passenger cars, light-duty trucks, and medium-duty vehicles with internal combustion engines would also be required.

The state's Drive Clean Rebate program administered by NYSERDA receives an additional $10 million for point-of-sale rebate assistance to help consumers purchase or lease an electric vehicle. This point-of-sale rebate takes up to $2,000 off the price of a vehicle and can be coupled with a federal tax rebate of $7,500 for a total of up to $9,500 in savings on new EV purchases. The $10 million is largely symbolic, as it would only cover a modest 5,000 vehicles. 

New York City has the added disadvantage, relative to the suburban sprawl of Greater Los Angeles, of having a high population density, and a street and transportation infrastructure that dates back not just decades, but centuries. Many residential buildings do not offer off-street or garage parking. Offsetting this factor somewhat is the fact that the majority of households in the city do not own cars.

Although 800V vehicle architectures are starting to become mainstream, many of these models are out-of-reach from a cost standpoint of many drivers, which may need to resort to buying used EVs, which are functionally limited to slower charging speeds.

Addressing the issue of charging station availability as the number of EV registrations in the state increases will be a challenging issue, and one that will require focus, dedication, and a coordinated effort of public-private partnerships, regulatory relief and streamlining, as well as incentives for multi-family property owners, homeowners, and others to install L2 and L3 charging points to ease the burden of too many drivers competing for the resources of too few L3 DCFC locations. 

Transportation electrification is a noble pursuit and goal. However, implementation and execution must be approached methodically, deliberately, and quantitatively, rather than relying on naïve wishes and good intentions.    

For a more in-depth look at developments in the EV ecosystem, Strategy Analytics’ Electric Vehicle Service offers reports, forecasts and analysis of the semiconductor and sensor market, and developments in the areas of vehicle charging architectures and public charging infrastructure.