by Araceli Ruano and Rebecca Friendly
Last Friday, California regulators unanimously approved a robust package of progressive automobile standards known as the California clean car rules.
After three years in the making, this emissions-control program will increase the number of low-pollution vehicles available to consumers starting in 2017, with a goal to have 1.4 million zero-emission cars on the road by 2025. These vehicles, which include plug-in hybrids, electric battery-powered cars, and hydrogen fuel cell cars, currently make up a tiny portion of all the fleet in California and around the country.
The clean car rules will begin a new chapter for the automobile industry in California. By 2025 one in seven new cars sold in the state must emit little or no pollution. Half a million of these cars are expected to be fuel cell or electric powered. The clean car rules also set the goal that by 2050 87% of vehicles must be fueled by clean technologies.
The California clean car rules also address emission standards for gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by extending limits on greenhouse gas emissions and smog forming pollutants. Again, by 2025 all new vehicles must emit 34% fewer global warming gases and 75% fewer smog forming emissions. These provisions should be welcomed in a state with over 26 million cars and the top five smoggiest metropolitan areas in the country.
Automakers have been given sufficient lead-time to adjust to these new demands and have largely been receptive. Although they have expressed concerns that new technologies needed to meet the standards may drive up the price of a vehicle by $1,900 and potentially lower consumer demand. However, the California Air Resources board estimates that the initial increase in cost will be offset by an average of $6,000 worth of fuel savings over a vehicle’s lifetime.
Automakers also initially expressed fears that consumers would steer clear of new clean car technologies without alternative fueling stations in place. This problem has been addressed by a private-public partnership designed to build new infrastructure for vehicle charging and fueling.
With more than 26 million cars on California’s roads, this ground-breaking clean car standard will help combat smog, reduce carbon emissions and spur a new era of innovation in the automobile sector.
Araceli Ruano is a Senior Vice President and the Director for California at the Center for American Progress. Rebecca Friendly is a special assistant in the Center for American Progress California office.
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I went to the Portland International Auto Show this weekend and was very encouraged by what I saw. Many manufacturers either already have an electric vehicle (or electric with gasoline generator) available or will have one in the near future.
The Volt is a very attractive car, which I was not expecting. I believed it would take a few years before designs allowed for as comfortable a ride as you get with gasoline-engine-powered cars. Its range is quite limited with battery power only, but I imagine it can only improve in the future. Other purely electric cars are seeing much better ranges than just a few years ago, and as more rapid charging stations are built, they should become more viable for people who travel long distances.
Competition, regulation as described above, and further tax credits should soon make these cars more affordable to a wider segment of the population, including myself. Or so I hope.
By the way, just to clarify, I’m not that Walter Meier.
Its good to see that at least some part of the United States is doing the right thing
“Starting in 2017″ – what’s wrong with RIGHT NOW!?!?!?
This is the only way forward. Otherwise the economy will collapse, again, every time the price of oil goes over $150.
We need to get so much more out of each unit of energy, just to stand still.
Living in California, the Nissan Leaf currently costs me 3 cents per mile to recharge, vs. 10 cents per mile for a 36 mpg car at current gas prices. That’s a $7,000 savings over 100,000 miles in fuel costs alone, let alone the lower maintenance costs, even assuming gas prices don’t rise (which we know they inevitably will).
The real key will be developing a battery that can store enough energy to go a few hundred miles at a pop. The more EVs we get on the road, the more funding will go into that research, and the sooner it will happen.
I remember, shortly before the Volt and Leaf were rolling off their respective assembly lines (but after they were announced), in 2009 I believe, both GM and Nissan stating that they were testing batteries that had double the energy capacity of the batteries used in the initial models of the Volt and Leaf respectively (the newer higher capacity chemistries just weren’t ready soon enough to make into generation 1 of each vehicle).
The expectation for continued significant advancements in battery capacity, durability and power output are expected for the foreseeable future now that serious money is finally being devoted to automotive applications and their requirements.
Each generation of EV or Plug In vehicle will benefit from this rapidly improving technology. Gen 2 Volt’s and Leaf’s are expected around 2014/2015 or so. The next generation of these vehicles should be great improvements over the initial generation in cost and capability, although the 1st generation vehicles are great IMHO.
I would think that the only upgrade to !st models up to the new standards would be to change out the old battery pack.
This is roughly correct, with (IMHO) one exception.
A conventional car has a 30+ kW heater under the bonnet. An EV does not have that luxury and must draw extra power from the battery to heat the interior. This greatly reduces the range in cold weather conditions. There is still a lot of work to be done there to have a truly allround EV. I am thinking about better insulation, perhaps even double pane glazing, a heat exchanger for expelled cabin air, a heat pump instead of a simple resistor, etc.