Musk is still stinking up the EV pool

Politico

29-05-2025

With help from Camille von Kaenel, Thomas Frank and Kelsey Brugger
THE MUSK EFFECT: Elon Musk played a key role in killing California's electric vehicle mandate — and he's still a thorn in the side of Democrats as they try to get their EV ambitions back on track.
A new national poll conducted by the Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report just before Senate Republicans voted last week to revoke California's vehicle emissions rules — shared exclusively with POLITICO — shows how much Musk and Tesla have complicated the EV landscape for Democratic voters.
While liberal voters — the most likely buyers of EVs — leaned toward both supporting requirements for car companies to sell more electric models and keeping California's ability to set stronger-than-federal emissions standards, they don't like the credit-trading system state officials devised to make that happen.
More than half of Democrats surveyed — 56 percent — said they oppose 'allowing carmakers to sell their extra credits to other carmakers' that don't hit their sales targets, while only 20 percent said they support the concept, according to the poll from Democratic consultant and pollster Evan Roth Smith. Republicans and independents also balked at the idea, with fewer than 30 percent in both categories saying they support credit sales.
Tesla has already contributed to stagnating EV sales in California, which saw slightly fewer purchases over the first three months of 2025 compared to the same period last year. While registrations of EV models by other makers jumped 14 percent, Tesla plunged by just over 21 percent, canceling out any gains.
Market experts say the results are in part due to the complicated nature of EV sales regulations. But they also point to a string of stories highlighting the fact that California's rules undoubtedly helped turn Tesla into an EV behemoth. That's because the state's mandate requires automakers who don't meet their sales requirements to buy credits from those that sell more, offering Musk's company a lucrative revenue stream as the dominant player for over a decade.
'I think what it's really about is hostility to Tesla and how they've been benefiting from this,' said Dan Sperling, director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis and a former member of the California Air Resources Board. 'They just see it as Tesla getting a boondoggle deal.'
Musk's rise to the role of Trump's top fundraiser, adviser and architect of the administration's slash-and-burn of the federal workforce has made Tesla — his largest and most public-facing company — the target of Democratic outrage.
The eccentric billionaire has since hinted that he'll step back from politics, as Tesla's revenues have plummeted amid sales contractions in Europe and California, America's biggest car market.
But Smith said the damage has already been done, and California officials now need to go on the offensive to create daylight between Musk, Tesla and the larger EV market.
'We have the president of the United States selling Teslas from the White House,' Smith said. 'So if Democrats want to preserve a political environment where they can enact real climate policy around EVs, they have to be a little more courageous and play a similar game.'
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signaled he's thinking about playing hardball. Newsom said in November that he'd push to restore state EV tax credits if the Trump administration does away with a $7,500 federal incentive, as the 'megabill' passed by House Republicans last week would largely do. (It would cap benefits for companies that already have a large market share or have received substantial state support, i.e. Tesla).
Newsom spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor, when asked about the tax credit proposal, pointed to a press conference last week where the governor said he's still waiting to see what happens in the Senate and that lawmakers should assess impacts on the state budget.
Smith said now is the time for Democrats to dig in.
'I don't think Democrats should be shy about this,' he said. — AN
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JUST CHECK ZILLOW: Angelenos with federal disaster loans to repair and rebuild homes destroyed in the January firestorm are borrowing $310,000 on average — six times more than the average borrowed by other disaster victims nationwide between 2017 and 2024, according to an analysis by Tom Frank of POLITICO's E&E News.
That's partly because the Biden administration increased the maximum Small Business Administration loan for home repairs after a disaster to $500,000 from $200,000 in July 2023, the first such increase since 1994.
But it's also because the Los Angeles recovery is just so expensive, with the January fires hitting high-end real estate and causing more damage than floods and high winds.
For comparison, other states have also seen their average disaster loans increase, but not by as much: In Florida, the average disaster loan in 2025 has been $65,000, compared with $47,000 from 2017 through 2024. In North Carolina, the average in 2025 has been $55,000, compared with $36,000 from 2017 through 2024. — TF, CvK
NOT SO LAST-RESORT: The growth of California's insurer of last-resort, the FAIR Plan, has not slowed despite the rate hikes regulators are approving for other private insurers to entice them to do more business in the fire-prone state.
FAIR Plan President Victoria Roach told lawmakers in Sacramento today her organization, which is actually a pool of private insurers required by state law to provide back-up insurance, is on track to grow by 40 percent in number of customers this year and 60 percent in total value insured, which is similar growth to last year.
'The growth just keeps going,' said Roach. 'It shows that the market is in an unhealthy state right now.'
What's more, those newcomers aren't just coming from high fire risk areas, which private insurers ditched first because of historic wildfire losses. They're also now increasingly coming from what Roach called 'normal suburban tract homes,' with the FAIR Plan's highest growth this year so far in low fire risk areas. — CvK
PUT A FORK IN IT: California air regulators have settled a lawsuit with the propane industry that challenged a rule banning the sale of new gas-powered forklifts.
The Western Propane Gas Association announced the details of the settlement Wednesday, a day after the California Air Resources Board issued an advisory encouraging companies to voluntarily report their progress at phasing in electric forklifts, but saying the agency wouldn't retroactively hold them responsible if the rule is enforced in the future.
CARB approved the rule in June, but never received an EPA waiver that would make it enforceable. State officials agreed in the settlement to not enforce the regulation before getting federal approval, to name a new deputy executive director to serve as a liaison for the forklift industry and to hold three public workshops with WPGA. — AN
PERMITTING SHERPA: The Trump administration has tapped a top energy and environment staffer for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to lead its efforts to speed up permitting for major projects.
Emily Domenech is the new executive director of the Permitting Council, a federal agency tasked with modernizing the permitting and review process for large infrastructure projects. She was most recently a lobbyist at the firm Boundary Stone Partners, Kelsey Brugger reports for POLITICO's E&E News.
Domenech told Kelsey her role is to 'sherpa' major projects through multiple agencies, and pointed to mining projects as a top focus. The agency added 10 mining projects, some of them contentious, to its public dashboard of projects earlier this month. — AN
— Get ready for the first heat wave of the year.
— Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the Trump administration over cuts to National Science Foundation research.
— The San Diego Water Authority is proposing to hike its discounted water rate for farmers because of lagging demand.