California recently passed a law saying all new passenger vehicles sold in the state must be completely emission-free by 2035. That pretty much requires them to be electric or some other form of non-internal combustion.
I feel bad for the poor movie stars and zillionaires who live there, because they’ll have to go to Oregon or Nevada to buy their Lamborghinis and Ferraris in the future.
But California’s new law means your average person in California won’t be able to buy a new truck to go hunting, unless the technology gets a whole lot better in the electric vehicle industry. Some companies have made some progress, but I still don’t see an option for those of us who haul six horses in a gooseneck trailer miles and miles into the woods, camp for a week or two, then reverse the process to get home. Even if they increase the range of electric vehicles and put charging stations closer to the trailheads, I’m not optimistic there will be an electric truck that can tow 16,000 pounds 400 miles on one charge anytime soon.
But then I got to thinking about it a bit more. If they do have a breakthrough in the technology, the woods might get a whole lot quieter soon. They’re having to put noisemakers on electric cars in the cities to keep pedestrians from walking out in front of them, because they can’t hear them coming. If we have that same technology – minus the noisemakers – on our trucks and ATVs, we can get around up in the woods a lot quieter, stop spooking herds of elk and deer, and quit ticking off other hunters who are trying to get a critter.
I just hope they get it figured out soon, and give us better options than the CyberTruck.
