Maine will not adopt California’s car standards after state regulators Wednesday rejected a proposal to mandate more electric vehicle sales.
Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection voted 4-2 to reject California’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulations, a set of annually increasing limits on new gas-powered vehicle sales that have been adopted by a dozen other states.
The rules would have required 51 percent of new car sales to be zero-emission vehicles starting in model year 2028, eventually reaching 82 percent of new sales by model year 2032. Automakers would have also been able to comply by selling more plug-in hybrids or buying credits from other manufacturers.
But regulators said Maine’s cold climate, frequent power outages and lack of charging stations raised too many questions about whether the state is prepared to mandate EV sales.
