SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ It's a long drive to just about anywhere Gary Wright needs to go. A rancher in the far northeastern corner of California, he sometimes has to drive nearly 100 miles, one-way, to get to where his cattle graze. It's 36 miles to Klamath Falls, Oregon, for a significant errand run.
There are only a few gas stations along the routes through the forests and high deserts in Modoc County _ let alone electric vehicle charging stations. There are none near the rangeland where Wright's cattle graze.
So he was baffled when Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that California would require all new passenger cars and trucks to be electric or "zero-emission" by 2035 to combat climate change.
Newsom's directive signaled the governor was moving more aggressively on climate change during one of the hottest years in California, and with wildfires consuming nearly 4 million acres _ the most in modern history. But his order comes with significant challenges for rural California and the Central Valley, where many people drive all day for work, not just to commute, and traveling long distances is a necessity.
Electric vehicle companies say battery technology is improving, but as it stands, the best electric car batteries currently on the market have a range of no more than 250 miles. There are few options for electric pickups like the ones Wright would need to haul equipment and livestock trailers over long distances.
"It's not practical at all," Wright said. "It's almost a joke to me. I just can't fathom anybody thinking that's a reality."
Newsom's executive order expanded on a 2018 mandate by then-Gov. Jerry Brown calling for 5 million zero-emission cars by 2030. Brown also established a goal of 250,000 charging stations, including 10,000 direct-current fast chargers, and 200 hydrogen fueling facilities in the state by 2025.
"It shall be a goal of the State that 100% of in-state sales of new passenger cars and trucks will be zero-emission by 2035," Newsom's order reads. "It shall be a further goal of the State that 100% of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles in the State be zero-emission by 2045 for all operations where feasible and by 2035 for drayage trucks. It shall be further a goal of the State to transition to 100% zero-emission off-road vehicles and equipment by 2035 where feasible."
"Drayage" trucks are on-road, diesel-fueled, heavy-duty trucks that typically haul freight short distances to and from ports and rail yards.
State officials and environmental groups say the 15-year runway in Newsom's executive order gives the state plenty of time to make it work for everyone. They say more options for pickups are coming on the market, battery technology is rapidly improving, and the vehicles are growing cheaper as demand increases. Power companies and electric car manufacturers also are already working aggressively to install charging stations across the state, even in its remote corners.
"We're going to start seeing charging infrastructure everywhere," said Kathryn Phillips, the director of Sierra Club California.
But concerns about low income and rural areas not having access to charging infrastructure are well-founded, a Sacramento Bee analysis of state data shows. The state will need to make a significant investment if rural or low-income Californians will be able to make the switch to zero-emission vehicles by 2035.
The number of electric vehicle charging stations is multiplying in California, but areas without a high concentration of wealth continue to lag behind the rest of the state, including the vast rural stretches of Northeastern California and much of the Central Valley.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Energy, the number of charging stations open to the public in California grew from fewer than 6,100 in 2014 to more than 27,700 today. Another 35,000 charging stations are private but shared by others at workplaces, apartment complexes or other non-public gathering spots, state data show.
There is a significant correlation between income and the prevalence of fully public charging stations in a community, according to a Bee analysis of Department of Energy and census data.
In ZIP codes where the median household income is above $100,000, there are about 115 public charging stations per 100,000 residents. That's much higher than the 55 charging stations per 100,000 residents in cities where median household incomes are between $50,000 and $74,999.
The large and mid-size cities with the most public charging stations per capita are in wealthy parts of the Bay Area or Southern California: Menlo Park, Santa Clara, Los Altos, and Santa Monica, federal data show.
Several counties with the lowest number of public charging stations per capita are in the rural Central Valley, including Yuba, Stanislaus, Kern, Tulare, Sutter, San Joaquin, and Merced.
Some rural counties have a relatively high prevalence of public charging stations. Still, they tend to be tourist destinations such as Mono County or along thoroughfares like Interstate 5, which bisects rural Siskiyou County.
Other rural counties such as Lassen, Lake, Modoc and Calaveras have next to none.
Tesla has no rapid charging stations in the entire northeastern corner of California, east of Interstate 5 from Chico, and north of Lake Tahoe, to the Oregon and Nevada borders. The company's map of its rapid charging locations does show four of them coming online soon in a few far-flung towns in the area.
The lack of charging stations is reflected in the number of people currently driving zero-emission vehicles in those areas. According to state data, Modoc County has 9,570 residents, but just two zero-emission vehicles are now on the road. Lassen County, population 28,833, has 13.
