COLORADO, USA — Colorado released its newest plan to get more electric vehicles on the state's roads and to encourage more people to purchase e-bikes in an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
"Colorado is very much on the frontlines of climate change," said Will Toor, the director of the Colorado Energy Office. "Transportation is one of our largest sources of emissions."
The 2023 plan calls for a quarter of all new cars sold in Colorado to be electric by 2025. Market share for EVs has already increased to 10% in 2022 from 3.5% in 2019.
"I think particularly important for Colorado is the fact that we seeing so many SUVs and trucks about to hit the market," Toor said. "I think given the nature of driving in Colorado, that's really important."
The new plan also calls for the state to get into the e-bike rebate game. It wants to give grants and tax credits for at least 10,000 new e-bikes in the next two years. Denver's e-bike program has already proved wildly popular.
The plan calls for the state to extend and expand its tax credit for people buying new EVs and to add thousands more charging stations.
"We want to make sure that people have access to charging when they need it, wherever they're going in the state," he said.
The plan also proposes slowly increasing the percentage of new cars sold that must be electric, Toor said. It shouldn't be hard for manufacturers, he said, as car companies adapt to states like California planning to ban gas vehicles.
"I think there is little doubt that the future of cars is electric," he said.
He believes electric cars will help preserve Colorado's future down the road.
"It's one of those key areas that we need to be able to tackle if we're going to be able to meet what science says we need to do on emissions reduction in order to maintain a livable future," he said.
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