The state announced a new rule on Tuesday requiring all new cars sold in New Jersey to be electric by 2035.

It's part of an effort by the Murphy administration to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that have contributed to climate change.

But the ban on new gas powered vehicles comes despite objections from industry groups who warn state infrastructure just isn't ready, and it will cause a spike in the cost for buyers.

Senior political correspondent David Cruz reports.

If you thought Orsted's pulling out of its offshore wind projects dealt a fatal blow to the Murphy administration's ambitious clean energy future plan, you'd be mistaken.

According to environmentalists who are cheering the new guidelines announced this week that will require all new cars sold in the state by 2035 to be zero emission vehicles or ZEVs or EVs for short.

But not everyone is applauding the measure.

This is bad public policy being forced on an industry.

And, you know, frankly, it's going to start to show in the marketplace as soon as next year.

Jim Appleton of the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers says the new rules, which begin to ramp up in 2027, are going to be a big financial burden on consumers who are not only not ready to pay more for zevs, but will also find scant infrastructure to charge them.

Manufacturers in order to manage this mandate will start managing the allocation of vehicles they send into the state of New Jersey and consumers will start to see as soon as next year that they don't have the choice or the affordability of the new car.

First off, environmentalists say don't call it a mandate.

Nobody's coming for your gas powered cars and just not going to be able to buy a new one in 2035.

Suggestions by auto retailers and industry associations that the economics don't work are overblown, says Doug O'Malley of Environment, New Jersey.

You suddenly will apply and qualify for that $7,500 tax credit as of January 1st.

So that's a big deal.

This is in addition to the electric vehicle rebate.

This in addition to no sales tax that, you know, when you buy an EV, you don't have to pay that in the state.

This is obviously in addition to the other costs of maintenance expenses that you'll be saving.

Just yesterday, I believe I read a report from Bloomberg about how the cost of batteries for EVs is going down dramatically over the next couple of years so that we will achieve a point of affordability and of market equilibrium that will help us to fight climate change and clean up our air quality.

We are already a net importer of electricity in that state, so we already can meet our existing needs If this mandate actually does take a back and it is people start buying EVs in those greater numbers.

We don't have enough electricity to supply them.

We don't have enough private or public chargers to deal with them.

We don't have enough transmission lines or distribution systems in place to be able to handle this.

While it's true that chargers are scarce and zero emission vehicles make up less than 10% of the cars on the road in New Jersey, federal law and state incentives will help to change that over the next decade.

And the reality is anyone that who buy cell phones in the year 2000 kind of looked like they had egg on their face in 2011.

So, yeah, technically it's not a mandate.

And while cell phones are ubiquitous today, it still can cost a lot to buy one.

And nobody said stop selling those big clunky cell phones.

It just kind of happened, which the business industry says is how the growth of the zero emissions vehicle market should be allowed to work.

I'm David Cruz.

NJ Spotlight News.