Radical plan to axe sales of new electric cars from 2035 gets rolled – report

As governments around the world plan to ban sales of new cars with petrol and diesel engines in the coming decades, one US state has been debating the opposite.

A resolution was put forward to the Wyoming Legislature to put a stop to sales of new electric vehicles by 2035, according to legitimate news outlet Cowboy State Daily.

However, less than a week after the idea was floated, the proposal has been rolled during the early committee stage of procedures.

The proposal, known as Senate Joint Resolution 4 (SJ 4) and titled Phasing Out New Electric Vehicle Sales by 2035, was sponsored by Senator James Anderson, and was designed to protect Wyoming's oil and gas industry.

According to government data, Wyoming is ranked eighth in the United States in terms of crude oil production and ninth nationally for natural gas production, with the sector contributing billions of dollars annually and employing more than 3 per cent of the state's population.

The proposal praised Wyoming's "proud and valued industries," while calling electric-car charging infrastructure "impracticable for the state" and criticising the use of batteries and their materials.

"The critical minerals used in electric batteries are not easily recyclable or disposable, meaning that municipal landfills in Wyoming and elsewhere will be required to develop practices to dispose of these minerals in a safe and responsible manner," it read.

The proposal appears to be a direct response to California's recent move to ban the sale of petrol-powered cars by 2035.

However, the language in the proposal stopped short of calling for an outright ban on electric-car sales, and is seen as a more symbolic gesture that instead "encourages and expresses as a goal that the sale of new electric vehicles in the state of Wyoming be phased out by 2035".

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Had it been successful, there would have been no practicable repercussions to new-car dealers that sold electric vehicles or those who bought them.

In September 2022, Ford said it was aiming to overtake Tesla in global electric-car sales by 2026 – with the Blue Oval's European arm stating in 2021 it would phase out the production of petrol and diesel models by the end of this decade.

In January 2021, General Motors also said it plans to stop producing petrol and diesel vehicles by 2035, but ruled out larger pick-ups from the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra line-ups.