Electric car on the chopping block?

Wired is keeping track of this one in their blog, and for good reason. While I don’t think the vote will “kill” the electric car, it will turn automakers urgency down a few thousand decibels.

Thursday, the California Air Resources Board – the group which decides how many zero-emissions cars automakers have to produce and on what schedule – will be voting to lower these standards.

Yep, lower. :( They say they’re trying to be more reasonable, and give manufacturers a chance to work out problems like battery issues and the like, with an emphasis on perfectly technologies already in place – like PHEVs and hydrogen fuel-cells.

What do you think? Do the Air Resources Board demands promote research in these areas, or are automakers on this green streak because plug-ins and hydrogen fuel cells are going to be money makers?? I have to lean toward gov’t regulation on this one, and that being the case, I don’t see how lowering expectations are going to be very helpful.

 No one argues plug-in hybrids aren’t a big step in the right direction. But ZEV advocates say they shouldn’t come at the expense of pollution-free electric and fuel cell vehicles. “They should be pushing both,” says Spencer Quong of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

That’s the only way California can meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent of 1990 level by 2050. Hitting that target requires putting 379,000 zero emission vehicles on the road by 2020, Quong says.

I’m with Spencer on this one. There’s no reason companies can’t continue to focus on both. Without the incentive, it isn’t very likely they will focus much at all on zero emissions vehicles until today’s “new” technology is already making money.

Of course, automakers who are already churning out electrics had plenty to say on the subject, including “Are you kidding?” (Okay, so that wasn’t quoted exactly … what you can totally hear them saying it. Seriously.)