From SignOnSandDiego:

Overview

Background: California adopted a landmark program in 1990 to require that
10 percent of new cars sold by the major auto companies be nonpolluting by 2003. The goal was reduced to 25,000 zero-emission vehicles in California by 2014, far below the original mandate.

What’s changing: The goal was further reduced to 7,500 such vehicles.

The future: The state will require automakers to sell nearly 60,000 plug-in hybrid vehicles in California and continue to develop technology that will allow mass production of pure zero-emission vehicles.

I’m shocked, and so disappointed. Everyone on that board had the opportunity to set standards to strive toward. The bar – at one time – may have been unreasonably high, but now it’s so unreasonably low that automakers don’t even have to raise their legs to get over it. It’s business as usual. Thankfully consumers are demanding better options.

Post from: EveryJoe

CA votes to lower standards –> by 70%

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.)

Post from: EveryJoe

Electric car on the chopping block?