Compromise reached on California's clean car mandate

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 15, 2003 | by Danny Hakim New York Times News Service

DETROIT -- California regulators, responding to legal pressure from automakers and the Bush administration, last month amended a plan to force the industry to produce clean cars but kept it ambitious enough to please environmental groups.

By a vote of 8-3, the California Air Resources Board altered the influential Zero Emission Vehicle mandate so it would require fewer vehicles to be sold in California with no tailpipe emissions and more with modest emissions, like hybrids that supplement gasoline with electric power.

"Our greatest benefit here is to try and identify technologies that can be commercial successes," said Alan C. Lloyd, the chairman of the California Air Resources Board. "This regulation ensures we are getting this technology on the road."

The mandate has been one of the most effective regulations that never was. It has been blocked by challenges and revisions since it was first set in motion in 1990, but because car production cycles take years, its mere threat has led to the production of thousands of battery-powered vehicles. California is the nation's largest auto market, and other states, like New York, have adopted its stringent air standards. The mandate has also been an impetus in the development of hybrids as well as fuel-cell vehicles, which use hydrogen to generate electricity and are a favorite of the administration.

The new version of the mandate takes effect in the 2005 model year, barring legal challenges, and offers automakers the choice of two compliance options. Each option requires 8 percent of sales to come from vehicles classified in one of two low polluting categories - - highly efficient versions of the Ford Focus and Honda Accord qualify -- though various credits can alter the numbers significantly.

For vehicles with no tailpipe emissions at all, automakers in aggregate must produce 250 fuel-cell vehicles from the 2005 to 2008 model years; 2,500 from 2009 to 2011; 25,000 from 2012 to 2014. Alternatively, they can choose to sell more battery electric cars. Under the old mandate, a full 2 percent of autos sold in California had to have no emissions.

With the state's latest revision, attention shifts to whether General Motors and DaimlerChrysler will proceed with their lawsuit contending that California's zero emission regulation is superseded by federal fuel economy standards. It has been supported by a legal filing from the Justice Department, and last July a federal judge in California blocked the mandate from taking effect in the 2003 and 2004 model years.

"The question remains, will automakers bring their lawyers or their engineers to the table in California?" said Jason Mark, a spokesman for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group.

California regulators said they had addressed the legal arguments against the mandate by removing some of the language linking credits automakers can receive to efficiency.

Environmentalists were generally pleased with this latest version of the mandate because it kept in place ambitious targets for efficient vehicles.

"The board rejected the automakers' broken-record refrain that they can't build better cars," said Roland Hwang, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

One ardent group that has not been happy about changes to the mandate is made up of drivers of battery electric cars, who have strongly criticized the proposals as taking away a product they grew to love because the mandate brought them to the market. The new plan has no guarantees that production of battery electric vehicles will continue.

"The people who have them want to hold on to them and rave about them," said Patricia Lakinsmith, a research scientist in Los Gatos, Calif., who drives an electric version of Toyota's Rav-4 sport utility. She said she believes the air board is overemphasizing fuel cells, a futuristic and complex technology, and largely giving up on battery electric cars.

"We might be making two mistakes at once," Lakinsmith said, "dropping something that works while investing in something that still would be risky."