Publication Detail

Technology and Fuel Transition Scenarios to Low Greenhouse Gas Futures for Cars and Trucks in California to 2050

UCD-ITS-RR-25-47

Research Report

Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways (STEPS), Sustainable Freight Research Program, Energy Futures

Suggested Citation:
Miller, Marshall, Lewis Fulton, Hong Yang, Jingyuan Zhao, Andrew Burke (2025)

Technology and Fuel Transition Scenarios to Low Greenhouse Gas Futures for Cars and Trucks in California to 2050

. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Research Report UCD-ITS-RR-25-47

  • The savings to California from transitioning to zero-emission cars and trucks by 2050 is about $300 billion.
    • These savings result mostly from the cost of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) dropping close to or below the cost of gasoline and diesel vehicles; additional savings come from operational cost advantages.
    • Policies at the state and national level, as well as the success of ZEV manufacturers, will affect California’s ability to achieve ZEV adoption targets and realize net economic benefits.  However, even in the absence of ZEV-supportive policies, the global embrace of electric vehicles and the resulting cost reductions from innovation and scale economies will lead to substantial benefits and savings for California.
  • We created several scenarios to examine future costs and benefits of reducing emissions from the transportation sector. The core scenario, “Low Carbon” (LC) reaches 100% ZEV sales by 2035 for light-duty vehicles and 2036 for trucks, with electric vehicles dominating. This is the lowest cost scenario, and the $300 billion savings estimates are from comparing it, over the 2025–2050 period, to a “Business as Usual” (BAU) scenario that has relatively low ZEV adoption rates.
    • In the first 6–8 years beginning in 2025, the LC scenario actually costs $25 billion more than the BAU scenario, because ZEVs still cost more than internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). However, after this initial period, as ZEVs reach price parity with ICEVs and their operational costs remain lower, the LC scenario costs much less than the BAU scenario.
    • Cost parity, which is achieved in light-duty vehicles earlier than in trucks, could be achieved before 6–8 years, especially if battery costs drop faster than we assume in the LC and BAU scenarios. We address this in our sensitivity analysis.
  • Through the rest of the 2020s, in the LC scenario, the annual investment cost requirements for vehicle charging and hydrogen refueling infrastructure will likely be large—even higher than the annual incremental costs of ZEV car and truck purchases (above the BAU scenario).
  • The High Fuel Cell (HFC) scenario achieves the same ZEV targets as LC, but with more fuel cell vehicles and somewhat fewer electric vehicles.  It achieves a similar CO2 reduction as LC, but at a somewhat higher cost.
  • Our BAU with high biofuels (BAU-HB) has BAU levels of ZEV penetration and very high use of biofuels, reaching 100% of gasoline and diesel fuel by 2040. This would require a dramatic increase in ethanol or bio-gasoline, along with on-going high levels of renewable diesel (75% market penetration in 2024). The reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are much larger in the BAU-HB scenario than in the BAU scenario, but they are smaller than those in the LC scenario. This BAU-HB scenario is also more expensive than the LC scenario.