Take Action to Keep EVs in Our Future

From the EAA

On March 27th, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is scheduled to vote on a change to their Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) program that could delay production EVs another decade. The Electric Auto Association urges you to take action to make California aware that you want production EVs from the major automakers, back on the roads. We have set up a website to help. The ZEV goals were once 2% in 1998, 3%in 2001, and 10% in 2003, but later the program was put off a decade.

Now as the end of that decade draws near, CARB staff proposes to delay another decade. Staff calls for 840 vehicles per year (0.04%) in 2012 through 2014. The old 1998 target is fifty times what is now being proposed for 16 years later. In 2015 CARB proposes only 0.4%. The 2012 goals do not even approach the number of vehicles previously shown to be possible.

Even if you do not live in California, this impacts you. It determines what vehicles will be available from the major auto manufacturers. If a vehicle is not available, you can not choose to drive it. The truck I commute in everyday was made by GM. It produces no emissions, no pollution, and is not powered by foreign oil. Yet GM stopped making it when this legal requirement was removed.

My hope is that the free market prevails and that electric car start-ups like Tesla, Phoenix, Miles, Zap!, Zenn and others blossom and come into their own. Undoubtedly, some will fail, some will be acquired, and maybe one or two will become a big success.