We have something like this in Colorado and I incorrectly assumed it was the same everywhere. I hope it goes through for California.
Hate this. This turns old cars into garage queens by removing their ability to be a primary vehicle. It requires the owner to have a 2nd vehicle, negating any gains. It makes classic cars a luxury for the rich.
If I were to fix it, I’d require primary vehicles over 20 years of age to go through a simple inspection. Check for fuel leaks, tailpipe sniff. And then subsidize emissions repairs up to some limit that’s indexed to inflation.
I’d also subsidize up to a limit motor conversions and swaps that put a clean engine into the vehicle, with subsidies going up for going EFI, hybrid, or full EV.
I have two ancient gas guzzlers one is a work truck. I’d love to do a hybrid conversion on it but it’s impractical and hybrid motor swaps are unheard of. There used to be an electric motor addon company that could turn any engine into a hybrid but they haven’t done anything in the last couple of years. My ideas would strengthen the market for these types of improvements.
Doesn’t it also exclude vehicles from needing smog if they were built before 1990? That seems like an improvement since AFAIK they require anything built after 1975 to get smogged currently.
I don’t see them limiting it to secondary vehicles as such a big deal considering it’s already expensive to own a project car and most people aren’t going to daily them because they’re unreliable no matter how many thousands you drop into them.
It requires special insurance which limits what you can do with the vehicle. In most cases you can’t even tow anything with it for example.
This is a case of a bill with a good goal (reduce smog) but with an oddly specific focus that turns it into a tax on the poor.
There are better ways to accomplish smog reduction for old vehicles but with using carrots instead of sticks.
Great points!
I mean, the real answer is to just tell California to resume their old smog exemption law for cars more than 30 years old, which they stopped in 2004 (thus making the cutoff year 1974).
As a Californian, like 99% of all cars on the road, even in the “bad smog areas” are less than 10 years old. It would have next to zero effect on anything except that older cars wouldn’t be restricted anymore.
I’d agree but the article is stating different. Older cars are the problem.
I’m working off the assumption that 1) the statement is correct and 2) sometimes you have to take action to appease an insignificant problem that others believe to be important.
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For real!
Denver about a decade or so ago did a smog study to see if we should change our policy. The question was are there outliers that should be focused on and everyone else left alone. The answer was yes, about 1% of vehicles on the road released something like 80% of the emissions we’re trying to regulate. Mostly folks who’ve intentionally bypassed catalytic converters and so on.
I thought for sure this would be the tipping point to change policy to something more sensible, but nope. We didn’t change a single policy…
