Subject: EVNewz,(Automakers get 5-year reprieve)
EVNewz,(Automakers get 5-year reprieve)
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Automakers get 5-year reprieve Air board overturns requirement to sell vehicles by 1998 By Paul Rogers Mercury News Staff Writer SACRAMENTO
In a decision with broad impacts for America's fledgling electric car industry, state air officials voted Friday to pull the plug on a series of landmark rules that would have forced carmakers to begin selling thousands of electric vehicles in California by 1998.
With an 11-0 vote, the state Air Resources Board chose instead to allow automakers to voluntarily sell electric cars in the next seven years based on market demand.
The board held to a deadline, however, requiring that 10 percent of all new passenger vehicles sold by major manufacturers in California be electric by 2003. That amounts to about 100,000 cars a year. In effect, the vote gave carmakers five years of breathing room.
The original rule would have forced the introduction of about 20,000 electric cars by 1998.
Supported by Gov. Pete Wilson, the change was criticized by environmental groups as a sellout to big oil and auto companies.
It came after nearly a year of furious lobbying by the auto and oil industry. The carmakers and business groups such as the California Chamber of Commerce, however, contended the technology to make successful electric cars is not fully developed and that forcing thousands of inadequate electric cars into California showrooms would bring wholesale rejection from buyers.
Because of limitations in battery technology, the best electric vehicles can travel no more than about 100 miles before they need a recharge and could cost $30,000 or more, the price roughly of a new BMW.
``Our goal is to make sure that auto manufacturers make vehicles that consumers want to buy,'' Air Board Chairman John Dunlap said after the vote.
[Edditors Note: I thought the goal of CARB was to insure clean air for Califorina]
Surrounded by prototype electric cars, Dunlap added: ``By our action today, we are assuring a stronger future for zero-emission vehicles.''
Originally, the seven major auto makers -- General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Mazda -- were given quotas. By 1998, 2 percent of all new cars sold in California had to be electric. That quota would have jumped to 5 percent by 2001 and 10 percent by 2003.
``We're disappointed,'' said Jamie Phillips, a spokeswoman for the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental group based in Sacramento. ``We don't think this has the strength or the teeth in it that it had before.''
Phillips predicted that automakers will be back in 2003 asking for another extension. Asked why government should require any industry to sell a product, she replied:
``We didn't have catalytic converters or seat belts until the government said put them in,'' Phillips said. ``This happens to be a technology that's critical to the health of California citizens.''
By the numbers alone, the clean-air benefits of electric cars are relatively small, at least initially.
Under the original rule, 260,000 electric cars would have been required on California streets by 2004. They would cut smog-causing emissions by about 2.5 tons a day, according to air board scientists. That's about a 1 percent reduction statewide.
By comparison, the new cleaner-burning gasoline the air board has required for sale at all pumps statewide by June 1 will reduce emissions by 15 percent, or about 300 tons.
Nevertheless, some observers say, the true benefits of electric cars will come over time.
``It's cumulative,'' said Jerry Martin, a spokesman for the air board. ``A 10-year-old electric car still has zero emissions after 10 years. No other car does.''
California's decision to go slow on electric cars will ripple across the nation.
After the air board passed the original rules in 1990, Massachusetts and New York later copied them. That prompted auto companies to accelerate research and testing of electric cars.
Under federal law, when California's rules change, other states' must also.
Auto companies have said they think they can introduce 14,000 electric cars for sale by 1998 in California.
This fall, for example, General Motors will sell the GM-EV1, an electric car with a top speed of 80 mph, at 25 Saturn dealerships in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Tucson. Other carmakers have similar plans.
``The electric car is certainly a vehicle of the future,'' said Dave Hermance, a Toyota spokesman. ``And we intend to be part of that future.''
Under Friday's vote, the state and car companies enter into a ``memorandum of agreement.'' Although they don't have to sell them, the companies agree to build up to 3,750 electric cars by 1998. That was intended to pressure automakers not to abandon electric car development.
The deal also forbids car companies from restarting public relations
campaigns attacking electric car rules.
...
San Jose Mercury Center Online editor JOHN MURRELL
(JMurrell@aol.com)
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