Air board may trim electric car mandate

Regulators could focus more on hybrid vehicles

California's air-quality regulators may wish to lay to rest the legend of who killed the electric car.
But a proposal going before the Air Resources Board on Thursday fails to sway critics convinced that the state continues to retreat from its once-lofty goal of seeing thousands of electric cars on the roadways.

"They're backing down," said Bill Hammons, president of the Electric Vehicle Association of San Diego. "It's a total collapse."

A staff report recommends that the board greatly reduce the required number of purely electric vehicles that automakers offer for sale and instead focus on more readily available and less expensive hybrids that would still cut pollution dramatically. It's a difference that would save the auto industry more than $2 billion through 2017.

Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols said any new approach must reflect the limits of technology but at the same time steer automakers toward adding electric and fuel-cell-powered cars to their fleets.

The staff proposal could be in for a rewrite. "It does not indicate that's as far as the board is going to go. We may see some changes," Nichols said.

Regulators are calling for as few as 27,500 no-emission vehicles to be introduced between 2012 and 2017, compared with 75,000 in the existing mandate. In contrast, depending on how automakers comply, the state could see more than 1 million additional near-zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2018.

As the crucial vote approaches, there could be a nudge on the numbers from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor has enthusiastically promoted zero-emission hydrogen vehicles, touts electric cars and appears to want to set a quicker pace to meet his goal of reducing the state's reliance on gasoline and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

"We've got to force the car manufacturers, the car companies, into making cars that are running on electric power and on biofuel and those kinds of alternative fuels, rather than fossil fuel, which is a huge polluter," Schwarzenegger said during a San Jose forum in January.

Nichols said the board likely will take a closer look at the objectives, given its expanded mission to address greenhouse gas emissions and the urgency to cut gasoline consumption.

"We have an opportunity to think much bigger," Nichols said.

Costs and setbacks
The timing does appear right for a shift. Gas prices are vaulting toward $4 a gallon, and public concern is rising over global warming brought on by burning fossil fuels. Consumers have shown they are willing to pay premium sticker prices for hybrid vehicles powered by gas and batteries to cut the cost of fill-ups and reduce their effect on the environment.

The proposal is the first major update of the state's zero-emission vehicle requirements since 2003. That year, regulators greatly scaled back the state's landmark demands for more nonpolluting cars, once a model for the nation. Electric vehicle enthusiasts felt betrayed and were convinced that the state had sold out. Many of their leased cars were reclaimed by automakers and crushed.

A 2006 film, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" blamed General Motors and the oil industry, with the air board portrayed as a willing accomplice.

"Everybody remembers the movie and not necessarily the underlying facts," said Nichols, who was not on the board at the time. "I don't think anybody killed the electric car. The electric car, in fact, is coming back."

Today, just a few years after abandoning its pioneer electric vehicle, the EV-1, General Motors is participating in an industrywide race to market a range of hybrid vehicles. GM hopes to introduce a plug-in, totally electric car by 2010. "We're very bullish on electrification," said Dave Barthmuss, a GM spokesman.

However, obstacles remain. Most important are advances in lithium ion battery technology for the plug-in hybrids. Easy-to-find hydrogen refueling and battery recharging stations must be in place when those advanced vehicles are introduced, Barthmuss said.

"We're confident we can get the engineering right by the end of the decade," Barthmuss said. "The issue is where do people fill up?"

The American Lung Association of California released a study last week predicting that the state could save more than $2 billion in health care costs and prevent 300 premature deaths every year if all vehicles were converted to zero-emission technology.

"The board has a tremendous opportunity to set a bold new vision for the (zero-emission vehicle) program that includes strengthening the program to fully support the state's goals for both healthy air and global warming reduction," said Bonnie Holmes-Gen, the lung association's air-quality lobbyist.

Revised goals
The air board staff's recommendation that the cumulative goal for zero-emission vehicles produced for the California market be trimmed to 27,500 by 2017 rankles advocates such as Felix Kramer.

"This is less than was required before 2003 and in total, less than all of the ZEVs produced to date," said Kramer, founder of the California Cars Initiative, a coalition that promotes plug-in hybrids.

"Additionally, the lower numbers ensure that ZEVs will never leave hand-built production volumes, and (ensure) that costs remain too high for commercial viability. This combination amounts to killing ZEVs all over again," Kramer said.

Despite the retreat on the electric vehicle front, the air board staff does recommend mandatory increases in the number of types of hybrids and alternative-fuel vehicles that emit little pollution.

Plug-in hybrids that can be used for everyday commuting and errands are viewed as the bridge to the next generation of vehicles that will be powered by fuel cells or other electrification systems. The plug-in hybrid range can be extended for longer trips by using backup gasoline power, prompting mileage claims of 100 mpg.

The report to the air board also proposes encouraging more neighborhood electric vehicles, such as the minicars showing up on the streets of Coronado.

Regulators acknowledge the cost and supply hurdles for automakers as they design cars that can run solely on electricity or fuel cells. But they estimate that adopting the proposal would save an additional 3.4 million tons of lifetime greenhouse gas emissions and 5 million tons of smog-forming emissions over the existing standards.

The combined benefits of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and smog-forming tailpipe releases are simply a matter of putting more than 1 million cars on the road with very clean emissions versus only several thousand with no emissions, the staff says.

Hammons, whose San Diego electric vehicle club has about 70 members, is not convinced that the proposal is the strongest, most viable alternative. He argues that the only way to put electric cars on the road is to force automakers to build more.

"We're not political activists. We're hands-on. We find a way to convert a car to electric, do it and drive it," Hammons said. "We leave the political theatrics to others, which seems to be in plentiful supply north of us."

Spencer Quong of the Union of Concerned Scientists said the state program is at a turning point, not just for the near term but also for the decades to come.

Quong urges the state to implement an aggressive timetable for electric and hydrogen fuel-cell-powered car sales through 2050. That's the year the state is supposed to have reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent.

California cannot meet that ambitious goal by trickling out low-polluting vehicles that still run on fossil fuel, Quong said. There need to be nearly 380,000 no-polluting cars on the road by 2020 to lay the groundwork for emission savings, he said.

"The ZEV program needs to grow up," Quong said.

San Diego Union Tribune
March 24, 2008

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