California orders hike in number of super clean cars
California, long a national leader in cutting auto pollution, pushed the envelope further Friday as state regulators approved rules to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars and put significantly more pollution-free vehicles on the road in coming years.
The package of Air Resources Board regulations would require auto manufacturers to offer more zero- or very low-emission cars such as battery electric, hydrogen fuel cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles in California starting with model year 2018.
By 2025, one in seven new autos sold in California, or roughly 1.4 million, must be ultra-clean, moving what is now a driving novelty into the mainstream.
The board also strengthened future emission standards for all new cars, making them the toughest in the nation. The rules are intended by 2025 to slash smog-forming pollutants from new vehicles by 75 percent and reduce by a third their emissions that contribute to global warming.
“Today’s vote … represents a new chapter for clean cars in California and in the nation as a whole,” said Air Resources Board chairwoman Mary Nichols.
Auto manufacturers are uneasy with some of the provisions but generally support the package, which took three years to develop. “We know the board wants to push the automakers,” said Mike Love, national regulatory affairs manager for Toyota Motor Sales. “We said we’re willing to go along with you and do our best.”
The requirements are expected to drive up car prices. The board staff predicts that the advanced technologies needed to meet the new standards will add $1,900 to the price of a new car in 2025. But that would be more than offset by $6,000 in estimated fuel savings over the life of the vehicle, according to the board’s staff.
Zero-emission autos now make up a minuscule portion of the more than 26 million cars in California, with just a few hundred fuel cell cars and about 34,000 battery electric autos on the road.
“The fact that we are going to change what consumers can buy is one of the most important things we can do,” board member Ken Yeager said before the panel, at the end of a two-day hearing in Los Angeles, voted 9 to 0 to approve the rules.
Manufacturers are poised to introduce a number of new electric and plug-in hybrid models. “This year, two dozen or more new vehicles are going to come out in the market,” Love said. “Everyone is trying their idea for EVs (electric vehicles), plug-ins.”
Nichols said she has seen “a real change in attitudes on the part of auto companies that have seen the handwriting on the wall…. The reality is that companies see the future is going to be in electric drivetrain vehicles. They’re moving there as fast they can.”
But automakers do still have concerns, particularly whether consumers will buy the ultra-clean cars.