“There is a persistent belief, among both state officials and the public, that clean cars and clean fuels alone can achieve California’s climate goals, but this is fundamentally untrue,” he says. “Even if we have 100 percent zero-emission vehicles and 75 percent renewable energy production by 2050—both ambitious goals—we still need a 15 percent reduction of VMT beyond what current regional plans project to achieve.”
Plus EVs are not a public health panacea. “EVs don’t relieve congestion, and the dust from brakes and tires are a major source of particulate matter air pollution, which causes respiratory illness,” says Bryn Lindblad, associate director of Climate Resolve. “That last fact doesn’t really seem to be on people’s radar as they look to EVs to be the solution.”
One obvious way to reduce VMT would be to promote housing density5 . The other way is by getting people out of cars and into active or shared transportation methods. This is what planners call mode-shift—in this case, moving trips from emissions-generating cars to other zero-emission modes.
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