How will the State enforce Lujan Grisham’s EV mandates?

With the Environmental Improvement Board starting to hold meetings over plans to force New Mexicans to buy electric vehicles (and regulations already in place to buy smaller numbers of EV’s starting next year) we figured it was worth looking at how these regulations will work. The simple answer is that car dealers have the most to lose as currently written.

So, we asked our friend Todd Myers who works on environmental policy in Washington State which is also foisting such regulations (all based on California’s) on its citizens. The answer is that the system will largely work as a “cap and trade” mechanism.

According to Myers, “When dealers sell EVs (or PHEVs) they generate credits. Those credits count toward their sales targets. Dealers who have more credits can sell them to those who need them. It is just another cap-and-trade system.”

For dealers who cannot make up the difference, they pay a penalty of 4 times the value of a ZEV credit.

Interestingly, the law applies to dealers and not to vehicle registrations. So, if someone went to El Paso to buy a gas-powered vehicle, they could bring it back to the state and register it (at least until the politicians decide to tie vehicle registrations to being electric.”

Here is the whole rule: 1962.4 ZEV Standards 2026+ (ca.gov)