California will give $2000 if owners convert their ICE cars to EV

While the HN headline matches the headline on the article, it is misleading.<p>&gt; California State Senator, Anthony Portantino, has introduced a bill which offers incentives of up to $2,000 if vehicle owners convert their ICE-powered cars to EVs.<p>So, one legislator has proposed this. It is not law. It very well may pass, but if you do what the headline says today, California will not give you $2000.

This just seems like a way for someone to say they passed some bill that &quot;helps&quot; climate change, when in reality no-one will actually use it because EV conversions are exceptionally rare and generally high priced.<p>No-one is doing a bottom of the barrel EV conversion on a run down 2008 toyota corolla. I just don&#x27;t see who this is targeted towards in any practical sense.

<i>According to reports, a new EV on average costs $66,000, however, a conversion from ICE to electric power can be done for a relatively low amount of $14,000.</i><p>14k does not sound right for my vehicle. The battery pack for the Ford Lightning is $35+k and I would need a bigger one. It would surely be a lot more for my truck and that isn&#x27;t counting the controllers, motors, coolant lines and heating system for the battery pack, new wiring and input controls and of course all the labor to do this. If I am going this far I may as well replace the frame to start rust-free and maybe even put extra corrosion mitigation on it. There is a lot of salt on my roads.<p>I think this would be a fun project for a vehicle hobbyist but I can&#x27;t even fathom doing this for $14k and a $2k rebate is not much of an incentive in my opinion. If I had my own shop I could see starting a project like this but it would surely cost at least 8x what they are suggesting and that does not even factor in warranties.<p>[Edit] I forgot the most important issue. Supply chains. The way things are going globally all of these parts would have to be made and supported in the US, Mexico or Canada to have a reliable future for US residents. I think I personally would wait until the US or Mexico are mass producing 3D printed solid state batteries which should be relatively soon.

Opening a can of worms, perhaps, but... wouldn&#x27;t converting ICE cars to be able to run on flex fuel be a better intermediate stage? From what I&#x27;ve seen&#x2F;read, many cars can be converted for under $1000. With more FF cars on the road, more stations would have incentive to carry the fuel, and... fewer emissions, etc.<p>Full on move to EV has always seemed like the big moonshot, and is being pushed back on heavily, but we have other levers to pull to help slow emissions while a more gradual shift to EV happens.<p>I say this as someone who bought a car a few years back that supports flex fuel, and have been more keen to use it when I can over the last couple years. MPG goes down around... 10-15%, but the cost is usually.... 10-15% less, so that seems to balance out some, but flex fuels reduce emissions (no?) which would seem to be the more pressing concern.

Awesome to see California leading the way. Sad my state is going the other direction - the fee to register an EV here is $200&#x2F;yr. This is a nascent market and the state should be promoting it and upgrading the grid, but petty politics makes it impossible.<p>I won&#x27;t be surprised if my state does what some folks in Wyoming want to do, ban EVs entirely: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.autoweek.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;industry-news&#x2F;a42532545&#x2F;wyoming-wants-to-ban-electric-cars&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.autoweek.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;industry-news&#x2F;a42532545&#x2F;wyomin...</a>

Aren&#x27;t EV conversions a horrible idea? All the EV conversions I have seen have all kinds of quirks and safety issues as well. Most could be consider project cars and would be illegal to operate in Europe (not sure about California).<p>Safety calculations like crumble zones and weigh distribution go out the window. The car will weight more and the other parts may not support it, breaking distance may change, etc.

if California really wants to incent electric cars, they&#x27;ll promise to keep the electricity turned on. (this past year they asked electric car owners to refrain from charging on the daily due to power shortages)

I&#x27;m not sure it makes sense to push more people to EVs when California&#x27;s grid can hardly keep up with household electricity usage. Over in the Northeast, I suspect Vermont regrets its &quot;pay people to move here&quot; move in 2020 that has only worsened our housing crisis. This feels very similar to me.<p>Does anybody know if California has plans to significantly expand power generation in the next couple of years? Otherwise we might see even more rolling blackouts soon.

They should do a dutch auction for this kind of stuff.<p>Enter your bid to convert it and if your in the X cars you get accepted.

I have made 4 EVs in lab settings, and I would very much not recommend doing a conversion unless you are an emthusiast. 2k will get you nowhere.<p>You could maybe do some 15 mph conversion golf cart style with lead acid batteries for local block or farm use or whatever. For other use cases, don&#x27;t do it.

I&#x27;ve been wondering what would be involved in converting my Prius Prime to full EV. In theory it&#x27;s just a massive battery upgrade, I guess.

Aaaand then introduce a weight-based tax, Norway style.

Anyone have a Renault Alpine A310 laying around?

It would be great if we could switch over to using punitive taxes instead of incentivizing subsidies for behavior modeling.<p>The correct sustainable choice is to use public transit - offering a subsidy for EVs will be a generally inaccessible benefit to the working poor and will further encourage congestion.

The good news is that carbon neutral synthetic fuels are rapidly maturing and arguably have a better carbon footprint than manufacturing millions of short life span BEVs.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;coryton.com&#x2F;lab&#x2F;videos&#x2F;how-can-we-decrease-carbon-emissions-from-transport&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;coryton.com&#x2F;lab&#x2F;videos&#x2F;how-can-we-decrease-carbon-em...</a><p>Hybrid is clearly the way to go until SMR&#x27;s and a 1st world electric grid are successfully operating in California.<p>I was in a home brew electric car club back in 2012 era, people had the entire pickup bed of trucks full of batteries with a deganging lever like a giant train brake to disengage the batteries in the event of thermal runaway.<p>Asking people who aren&#x27;t interested or experienced with cars to &#x27;convert&#x27; for 2k is going to end up with a lot of cowboy jerry rigged opportunist fire hazard vehicles on the road. Portantino&#x27;s proposal is naive and highly irresponsible IMO.<p>People who are serious about EV conversions use excellent companies like EVWest.com you can do the conversion math there...