SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.—After identifying a lack of tax revenue from vehicle sales, officials are looking at ways to be a city friendly to electric vehicle dealers, citing the predicted rise in such car sales and the ease consumers purchase cars these days with just a click online.
“Electric vehicles are the wave of the future,” San Clemente City Councilman Steve Knoblock said during a May 3 council meeting. “It would potentially create a massive tax revenue for our city.”
According to a 2021 study by consultancy firm McKinsey & Company 42 percent—or approximately half a million electric car registrations nationwide—are in California. The figure was presented to councilors by city economic officer Jonathan Lightfoot.
With gas prices soaring to nearly $6 per gallon in California and air quality officials proposing to ban cars that run on gasoline by 2035, sales are expected to only continue their trajectory.
The state is a “target destination for EV sales and delivery locations,” Lightfoot said in a report on the issue. “[This] presents an opportunity to clearly permit and potentially streamline new EV business uses within the city’s business parks.”
In 2018, the city updated its zoning rules to stop new car dealerships from opening on El Camino Real, which is San Clemente’s main drag and instead began working to move all car-related businesses to an industrial area, known as the city’s “business park” north of the 5 Freeway.
According to the staff report, direct-to-consumer delivery of electric cars—as is the trend—could “fit seamlessly” within the business park environment without requiring “substantial” storage for vehicle inventory.
The McKinsey study also indicated that by 2030, zero-emission cars will make up half of all new vehicle sales in the U.S. if states adopt credit programs and impose stricter emission requirements, like California has.
