California's Energy “Transition” Still Has a Consumer Problem

California policymakers have spent years describing the state's transition away from petroleum as though the destination is settled and only the timetable remains in question. But an interesting new San Francisco Chronicle commentary highlights a fundamental problem with that assumption: electric vehicles still have not achieved the broad consumer adoption necessary to support such a sweeping transformation of California's transportation system.

For CIPA, the issue is not whether Californians should or should not purchase electric vehicles. Consumers should buy the vehicles that best meet their needs. The significance for California's independent oil producers is what EV adoption tells us about the state's larger energy assumptions.

If electric vehicles cannot achieve broad, durable adoption across California's population, then the state's planned transition away from petroleum becomes considerably more difficult to achieve.

The Chronicle commentary focuses specifically on disparities in EV adoption among California's racial and socioeconomic groups. The author cites research indicating that only 2.7 percent of Black Californians and 7.6 percent of Latino Californians drive EVs. Asian American and Pacific Islander adoption is higher at 12.8 percent, but the larger point remains: after more than a decade of subsidies, mandates, incentives and aggressive government promotion, EV adoption remains far from universal.

The barriers identified in the article are familiar and practical rather than ideological.

Affordability remains significant. The Chronicle notes that the average new EV costs roughly $57,000 compared with approximately $49,000 for other new vehicles. Insurance can also be considerably more expensive. Then there is charging. Lower-income and disadvantaged communities have substantially fewer public chargers, while renters and households without garages frequently lack convenient access to home charging.

Those realities matter because California's energy transition ultimately depends upon millions of individual consumers making decisions that conform to the state's policy assumptions.

Government can subsidize vehicles. It can construct charging stations. It can establish sales targets. It can regulate fuels and impose increasingly stringent requirements on petroleum producers and refiners.

What government cannot easily do is make a technology affordable, convenient and practical for every California household.

There has certainly been progress. The California Energy Commission reported that zero-emission vehicles represented 19.1 percent of California new-vehicle sales during the second quarter of 2026, including 16.6 percent from battery-electric vehicles. That makes California the nation's largest EV market. But viewed from another direction, roughly four out of every five new vehicles sold in California during the quarter were still not zero-emission vehicles.

That distinction is important.

California's petroleum policies increasingly presume that gasoline demand will decline sufficiently and predictably enough to justify reducing oil production, refinery capacity and the infrastructure connecting the two. Yet the consumer marketplace continues to demonstrate that the transition is neither uniform nor complete.

The Chronicle article unintentionally illustrates why CIPA has repeatedly cautioned against dismantling today's energy infrastructure based upon assumptions about tomorrow's energy system.

The problem is sequencing.

California should not eliminate reliable petroleum production, pipeline capacity, or refining infrastructure before consumers have actually transitioned away from the fuels those facilities provide. Doing so risks creating an artificial shortage of conventional energy while the replacement technology remains inaccessible or impractical for large portions of the population.

That is particularly important for lower- and middle-income Californians. If a household cannot afford a $57,000 EV, lacks access to dependable charging, or simply needs a conventional vehicle for work and family transportation, eliminating petroleum infrastructure does not make that household transition faster. It makes the gasoline it still needs more vulnerable to higher costs and supply disruptions.

The state should also pay attention to what consumers are telling it. Even the Chronicle commentary, written from a perspective strongly supportive of EV adoption, concludes that substantial changes in affordability, charging access and consumer acceptance are still necessary for EVs to become broadly adopted.

For California's independent oil producers, that is the relevant takeaway.

CIPA does not need to take sides in the debate over electric vehicles. EVs will succeed or fail in the marketplace based upon technology, price, infrastructure, and consumer preference. But policymakers should recognize the implications if adoption proceeds more slowly than their regulatory timelines assume.

California's transition cannot be accomplished merely by making petroleum harder and more expensive to produce. The replacement must actually be capable of replacing it.

Until that happens, Californians will continue driving gasoline-powered vehicles, airplanes will continue requiring jet fuel, trucks will continue moving goods, farmers will continue operating equipment, and California refineries will continue needing crude oil.

The prudent energy policy is therefore not to dismantle the existing system in anticipation of a transition that has yet to occur. It is to maintain reliable and affordable conventional energy while new technologies compete for consumers and prove they can operate at the scale California requires.

The marketplace, not a regulatory calendar, will ultimately determine when that transition is possible.