This situation happened already with vehicles. California used to get special cars because of their strict emissions regulations. Now every car has "50 state legal" emissions because A) more states signed onto the California standards, B) it was cheaper to build one vehicle to the strictest standards than to make two for a single market.

What's the point in running a diesel semi when it can't be used to make deliveries to key states in the country? That will force a "relay" model in the freight industry which kills point-to-point delivery, where diesels deliver to a border state and an EV semis runs the last leg. Once that happens, then it becomes economical to run more EV semis between diesel relays, or add rail depots to the relays for ultra-low cost transport over long distances, then EVs for the last leg.

The diesel truck industry is going to die slowly, then all at once.

A figure that I've seen bandied about is that there are 17 states that have already adopted rules based on some portion of the CARB advanced clean transportation rules, and that those states represent I think 35% of the population and 50% of the economic activity in the US. That is less definitive than saying that all of these states will adopt the same rules (like the most recent Advanced Clean Fleets rule). But it's still enough that fleet operators, government procurement officers, and vehicle manufacturers are investing in zero emission vehicles and infrastructure faster than they would without those regulations.

>No one cares if the dakotas don’t ban them if no one will build them for just their market.

New producers of diesel vehicles would show up to cater to those markets. Econ 101.

>Think in systems. Find lynch pins and apply maximum force. It’s either a climate emergency or it’s not, and if it is, treat it like an emergency.

Very emotionally charged rhetoric there. That kind of action would result in bifurcation of the market. Balkanization. Separate economies. That sort of thing.

Developing a new vehicle is quite a substantial fixed cost.

So I think what will happen is that a few existing car manufacturers decide they're OK with being a larger share of a smaller market. Or else a new/adjacent player buys out legacy IP and operations while the original manufacturer focuses on EVs. Or there's a bunch of remanufacturing going on to keep hydrocarbon vehicles running.

Either way, there'll be quite... boutique prices.

Right, but it would make it more expensive to ship, which makes pretty much everyone in that state poorer. States do not want this.

If the states want to avoid costly shipping, what would they do if someone published some research suggesting that "Heavy electric trucks cheaper than diesel goods transport"?

Yes. Humanity has been living on credit essentially for the last century through cheap fossil fuels. No one likes having to pay true costs for what they want. We’ll innovate (as we’ve clearly done with renewables, storage, and heat pumps to name a few tech) and grit our teeth in equal measures as we unfuck our enegy systems. What’s the alternative? Not? I admit it is an inconvenient truth. But the bill has come due.

If the poor cannot afford the transition, fix this with policy. We have the aggregate system wealth. Allocate accordingly.

Every time i see such emotionally charged rhetoric about what we must sacrifice for the environment I think "there is no way this person grows any of their own food".

Part owner in a family farm that raises steer as well as cash crops, and occasionally assist with fall harvesting ops when short handed.

Edit (throttled, replying here): Growing your own food for self sufficiency is an unreasonable ask and challenging at best for your average citizen. Check out how many acres and the work involved for a family of four’s annually nutritional needs. It simply doesn’t scale (no pun intended), although it can work for those with ample land and no time commitments.

Then why aren't you pushing the "grow your own food" mantra rather than the "get rid of fossil fuels" mantra. We wouldn't need such volumes of liquid fuels if not for industrial agriculture and transportation of food. That seems like much lower hanging fruit than eliminating fossil fuels.

How is it lower hanging fruit? If people move out into the country, then non-food goods will have to be transported to them instead. You're just swapping one problem for another.

You can grow surplus food in the yard of a single family dwelling. No one has to move anywhere.

This is like suggesting the solution to plastic pollution is recycling and reduction by individuals. You can't regulate your way to changing people's behavior, but you can regulate away the source of the problem.

Individual action isn't the solution to a systemic problem, because there's more incentive to cause the problem than to fix it. Individual action requires time, money and effort on behalf of the individual, whereas the ones causing the problem have financial incentive to continue causing it, in greater amounts.

No need to have to grow all their own food, any kind of a supplement at all is a positive.

Plenty of single family dwellings with grass yards.

And time commitments/work involved? I guess they aren't serious about climate change. This just reinforces my original point. Screeching about climate change but unwilling to do any of the work or make any _real_ sacrifices.

It only takes a few hours a week to operate a backyard garden that produces more than even a large family can consume.

Increasing density to the point where folks don't have a yard to grow produce in would be even more positive than families growing a small amount of produce that still wouldn't cover their nutritional needs. That's also a real sacrifice, and like your proposal, it's not one that would be accepted, and not one that meets the needs of varied people.

You're taking an extreme, untenable, position as an alternative to an incremental solution that generally fits everyone's needs at a slightly higher cost.

Electrification is inevitable.