I looked up this bill.
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43018.11. (a) (1) By July 1, 2022, the state board shall, consistent with federal law, adopt cost-effective and technologically feasible regulations to prohibit engine exhaust and evaporative emissions from new small off-road engines, as defined by the state board. Those regulations shall apply to engines produced on or after January 1, 2024, or as soon as the state board determines is feasible, whichever is later.
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So this only applies to new engine sales. If you already own something with a small engine or buy a new one made before the implementation date, no impact on how and when you use it. And, presumably any small engine manufactured before that date a CA resident can purchase and use so you can buy new or used from anywhere in the country as long as it was built before the implementation date. Considering most small engines easily last 20+ years with no or minor repairs, this isn't really impacting a lot and by the time it does, the battery electric tech will be even more advanced. In the end, this isn't an outright ban against using small gas engines like some articles imply. It's phasing out the sale of new small gas engines starting on the implementation date.
In my first hand experience, for most residential lawn care, battery/electric is a better solution for most users anyway. It eliminates the following: storing gas, runs to the gas station, cost of gas, oil changes, noise, emissions, carb rebuilds if an owner forgets to stabilize their gas, etc. Plus, one can safely store them in more places than gas engines/tanks/cans, etc. We live on a few acres (not in CA) with about 2/3 lawn and 1/3 naturalized trees/forest and we switched to battery power for all of our yard equipment a few years ago. We would not even consider switching back to gas. First we replaced our gas self-propelled walk behind mower. Soon after, did the same for leaf blower, hedge trimmer, line trimmer and 18" bar chain saw. To this day, the chain saw is what impressed me the most. I've run chainsaws for 30+ years and for residential use or even going out and cutting a cord of wood in the forest, I'll never go back to gas. One battery will cut the same amount of wood as one tank of gas in any of my previous 2 stroke chainsaws (and we have 4 batteries as all of our yard equipment is the same brand). Also nice to be able to grab an electric chainsaw and cut one branch in your work clothes and not wreak of two stroke exhaust. Ha. Cutting through a trunk is the same speed as my previous two gas 18" bar chainsaws. So no loss in cutting performance.
In our last two pickup campers, we've used a battery bank and solar panels to run a refrigerator, furnace blower, water pump, lights, recharge devices, etc. No need for a generator. No need to pull DC from the pickup alternator. Though I do have that wired as a backup, I've only used it once and that was on a 10 day fall trip to the Northwest that had 8 days straight of rain. Flipped the switch to charge off of pickups DC while we drove a 4 hour leg one day and we were back up to 100%. On a typical day, our one solar panel would have our battery bank back to 100% by 10 or 11AM. Could have overpaneled by installing a second one to help when it was cloudy, we parked in the shade, or early spring/late fall when sun was lower in the sky, but never seemed to need it. Adding the solar panel, solar controller and shunt/monitor on my last two pickup campers was super easy and was way cheaper than a generator and way less weight and fuss than bringing one along. Just my experience with my rig. Bigger rigs have a tipping point where the battery bank and solar,solar controller are more expensive than a generator, but then, you don't have to deal with, and listen to, a generator. So there is that. Ha.
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