By the San Francisco Chronicle
Take a short ride on Bay Area freeways, and you typically will spot a half-dozen electric vehicles. Despite those sightings, the state will fall short of the target of 1.5 million zero-emissions vehicles by 2025 that Gov. Jerry Brown set when he signed an executive order in 2012.
Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, D-Inglewood (Los Angeles County), seeks to speed up the evolution of car technology from polluting to clean by introducing a very-late-in-the-legislative-session bill this week. It would require 15 percent (300,000) of new cars sold in the state be emissions-free by 2025. This is a big reach, because just 3 percent of new-car sales are electric and plug-in hybrids today, according to the state Air Resources Board.
Getting more zero-emissions vehicles on the road sooner, however, is important to Californians’ health and the future of our state. While the state has made tremendous progress in cleaning the air, California cities still are among those with bad air. Vehicle exhaust is the No. 1 cause. Getting more zero-emissions cars on the road will reduce air pollution and advance the clean-energy economy that is the state’s future.
New rules are needed, Burke told the Associated Press on Friday, because the current program is bringing zero-tailpipe-emissions vehicles onto California highways much too slowly. Automakers are getting around state-mandated quotas of zero-emissions vehicles by purchasing credits, not selling cars. Meeting the quotas is a requirement of doing business in the state. If carmakers exceed their quota of electric car sales, they can sell credits. If they don’t, they can buy credits. Selling credits is a major source of revenue for Palo Alto’s Tesla, which sells only electric cars.
The governor has given Burke’s plan his blessing. Gareth Lacy, a spokesman for the governor, told Digital Trends that it “will lead to more zero-emissions vehicles and more Californians able to purchase them.”
Burke’s plan would put pressure on other automakers to start producing more attractive zero-emissions vehicles. Tesla’s story, where demand for its vehicles far outstrips the automakers’ production capacity, suggests that California drivers are willing buyers — for the right electric vehicle. Recent polling by the Public Policy Institute of California revealed that 47 percent of Californians polled are seriously looking at buying an electric car.
Global Automakers, a consortium of automakers that sells 72 percent of the green vehicles in California, opposes the last-minute introduction of what they call “Tesla’s proposed legislation.” They are particularly incensed by the idea of outlawing internal combustion vehicles by 2050 and that plug-in hybrids, which get credits for meeting environmental requirements, would not be included in the 15 percent mandate. They want the state to restore subsidies for electric vehicle purchases and revive the carpool-lane-access sticker program.
California has set what were considered audacious energy goals before, and in doing so created new industries. Subsidies and stickers aren’t the best incentives to sell electric cars; attractive cars are. Hopefully, a challenging goal will encourage carmakers to design them.
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©2016 the San Francisco Chronicle. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
