In April 2004, the city of San Francisco acquired two Honda FCX cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Mayor Gavin Newsom held a press conference, and to show off just how clean the vehicles’ emissions would be, he collected condensate from a tailpipe in a paper cup and took a sip. “You are looking, literally, at the future,” he said.
Last fall, Newsom, now California’s governor, signed an executive order requiring all new cars and light-duty trucks sold in the state to be zero-emission vehicles starting in 2035, his ambitions buoyed by a growing list of EVs and rising demand. If you want to go electric, the Golden State is a fine place to be. There are, according to the California Energy Commission (CEC), more than 70,000 public and shared…
