How help for electric cars went sideways

Plus new poll numbers from the right and some recommended reading.

Editor’s Note: This is part of our occasional series about how interesting things died in the Legislature.

Take a stroll around Seattle’s University Village and you might spy a luxurious electric sports car through the window of the fancy showroom of Lucid Air.

You can’t buy it. You can’t lease it. You can’t test-drive it. You can only slap your name on what’s likely going to be a long waiting list. That’s just the name of the game in Washington State where electric vehicle brands like Lucid and Rivian can’t set up shop. Two sweeping bills aimed to change that this last session, but like many ideas in Olympia, they careened into a wall of special interests.

The swank Lucid Air showroom at University Village

This is a story of how powerful forces in the automotive industry sideswiped a far-reaching bid to sell and charge more electric rides in Washington. It’s also a classic case study of why so many bills live and die by the clock.

Here’s why you should care about this: Washington’s transportation electrification policies aim to cut roadway carbon emissions by nearly 60% over the next decade, from 23.5 million metric tons to 14.1 million by 2030. Doing that boils down to slashing EV costs and making EV chargers more plentiful, intending to make every new vehicle sold in the state fossil-fuel-free by 2035. A good 170,000 registered EVs are cruising our roads right now, just 2% of the 6.5 million rides in the state.¹