With the election of Mikie Sherrill as New Jersey’s 57th governor, the Sierra Club is hopeful that she will energize New Jersey’s transportation picture by strengthening New Jersey Transit and continuing the push to electrify the transportation sector.
Former Gov. Murphy started out on a positive note, completing the installation of Positive Train Control safety automation, bringing NJ Transit up to full staffing levels, inaugurating the Electric School Bus Program, and adopting California’s Advanced Clean Car and Advanced Clean Truck goals. In the end, though, he failed to make good on fully funding NJ Transit’s operating deficit, and he cut back on financial incentives for zero emission autos.
Hopefully, the Sherrill administration will build on Murphy’s successes and further improve the funding for NJ Transit and electric vehicles.
Electric School Buses
As we reported in the Jan-March 2026 newsletter, a surge of electric school buses hitting the road in 2025 added 52 more in New Jersey, bringing our total to 73. Many of these buses were funded from grants that were awarded 2 to 4 years ago, attesting to the long lead time for grant approval, manufacturing, and hooking up needed infrastructure.
Unfortunately, we know of 114 buses that were approved for grants where the school district decided to turn down the grant. Some of these resulted from the unexpectedly high cost of installing the charging infrastructure and some, frankly, from political opposition.
On the bright side, in January the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced a second round of funding under the Electric School Bus Program (ESBP) totaling $17.8 million for 53 buses. For the first time, some school districts are using the grant to lease buses as opposed to purchasing them, thereby lowering the upfront costs of going electric.
The coming state budget fiscal year beginning in July 2026 will be the third and final year of funding under the ESBP. The Sierra Club will be working with the DEP and the Legislature to design a follow-up program to continue the progress toward electrifying all 20,000 school buses in the state over the next two decades.
We are also hearing that the Trump administration may release the last tranche of funding under the Biden Administration’s $5 billion Clean School Bus Program, although the Environmental Protection Agency, under Trump, has indicated that they want to divert some of the grant funding to low-emission diesel buses as well as zero-emission (battery/hydrogen) buses.
NO2 Drops in California
Using satellite data, researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California identified the first statistically significant decrease in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) linked to zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs).
In a press release issued in late January, the school reported that “When California neighborhoods increased their number of ZEVs between 2019 and 2023, they also experienced a reduction in air pollution. For every 200 vehicles added, NO2 levels dropped 1.1%. The results, obtained from measurements of how NO2 absorbs and reflects sunlight, are among the first to confirm the environmental health benefits of ZEVs in the real world. The study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health.
EV Sales in 2025
New Jersey residents registered substantially fewer EVs in 2025 compared with 2024 (43,461 vs. 60,832), with most of the drop-off occurring in the final six months of the year. Sales in the last half of 2024 totaled 32,106 compared with 18,498 sold in the last half of 2025, a period that saw the state eliminate the sales tax exemption, reduce the purchase incentive from $4,000 to $2,000 for most buyers, and impose a $1,000 EV special registration fee.
In addition, the Trump administration discontinued the federal $7,500 and $4,000 purchase incentives for new and used EV purchases, respectively.
Kelley Blue Book data, reported by Cox Automotive, indicated that national sales of new EVs in 2025 achieved the second-best total ever, just shy of 2024’s record of roughly 1.3 million. The new EV share of total market sales was 7.8%, down from 8.1% in 2024.
“As widely forecast, sales of new electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States fell sharply in the fourth quarter, following record-breaking results in Q3,” Cox Automotive wrote. “With government-backed sales incentives revoked at the start of October, total EV sales in Q4 plunged to 234,000 units, down 46% compared to Q3 and 36% lower year-over-year. Sales in the final quarter of 2025 were at the lowest point since Q4 2022.”
Kelley Blue Book estimates EV sales will make up 8% of all new car sales in 2026.
It is clear from these statistics that the federal and state incentives were critical for encouraging the shift to all-electric vehicles. While some companies, notably Ford, have announced substantial cutbacks in their EV investments, EV sales at GM continued to grow, and hopefully GM and other auto companies will continue to invest in R&D and manufacture and promote EVs.