Governors of eight states promise 3.3M zero-emission cars on the road by 2025

The governors of eight US states including New York, California, Massachusetts, and others are today vowing to have 3.3 million zero-emission cars on the road by 2025. Connecticut, Maryland, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont are the other states joining the effort; in total, they make up about 23 percent of the US auto market according to the Associated Press. The pledge represents another step forward as officials try to cut down on harmful greenhouse gasses that are regularly emitted from most vehicles on the highway. “This agreement is a major step forward to reducing the emissions that are causing our climate to change and unleashing the extreme weather that we are experiencing with increased frequency,” said Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, in a statement.

Among their duties, participating states will assemble a task force that to develop strategies on widening the presence of charging stations — seen as perhaps the biggest obstacle in making zero-emission cars and EVs a mainstream success. In terms of legislation, the states have already adopted stringent guidelines that call for a certain percentage of new vehicles sold to be zero emission by 2025. California is the most ambitious of the bunch, requiring 15.4 percent of new cars — around 1.5 million vehicles in all — to be free of harmful gas emissions by the target year. But as the AP reports, that’s a very tall order, considering hybrids and EVs currently account for a mere 2 percent of California’s auto market.