Sep 22, 2026

California energy officials have a new favorite term.

Borrowed from the scholarly work of Notre Dame professor Emily Grubert, “mid-transition” has become an inescapable fixture of California Energy Commission (CEC) communications in recent months.

CEC Vice Chair Siva Gunda outlined the concept in his June 2025 letter to Governor Newsom:

“In this phase, demand for the incumbent petroleum-based fuel system, while declining, remains substantial, as the clean, alternative fuel system continues to scale.”

More recently, Gunda told a committee hearing that the mid-transition is “not necessarily defined by a specific moment and it could last a number of years” depending on how fast gasoline consumption declines.

That nuance undercuts the term’s utility. “Mid-transition” is a perfectly reasonable concept for academic theory – but as a characterization of California’s energy reality, it creates a dangerously misleading impression.

Consider:

Making matters worse for “mid-transition” claims, EV adoption is slowing. Through the first half of 2026, just 15.9% of new cars sold in California have been EVs – down from 21% last year.

But no matter how one defines “mid”, the current data imply a shockingly long transition ahead. Asked how fast gasoline consumption needs to fall to meet the state’s climate goals, Gunda recently explained:

“[T]he gasoline demand in California right now is about 800,000 barrels a day, roughly. And if we have to meet the carbon neutrality goals … we need to drop that to 100 [thousand barrels per day] by 2045. So, it’s a, you know, very rapid reduction.”

Using Gunda’s figures, meeting the state’s climate goals would require a 10.4% annual rate of decline in gasoline consumption. The reality is quite different, with Gunda recognizing consumption is falling by about 1% to 2% per year.

Put another way: assuming a 2% decline rate holds, it would take over a century to reach the 100,000 barrels per day mark.

The picture that emerges is clear: California will need a reliable, affordable supply of gasoline for decades to come.

The “mid-transition” label obscures that reality. California’s energy transition is just beginning.