Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Legislation and Policy, USA



One of the big complaint that automakers had with America's fuel economy legislation a few years ago was the potential for California to lead the way, setting up its own, more-stringent rules that would lead to a "patchwork" of mpg laws. That never happened because the federal government came in and established a national standard or 54.5 mpg by 2025. A newer automotive legislation push - again led by California - is aiming for another big milestone by that same deadline.

This time, the issue is electric vehicles. California and seven other states (Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont) want to make regulating the new powertrains easier and thus get more people behind the wheel of a zero-emission car. They're even willing to set a target: 3.3 million EVs by 2025. It's unlikely that the US will see President Obama's target of one million EVs by 2015 become a reality, but can we ready 3.3 million over the next decade? It looks like the US is on track to only sell around 45,000 EVs this year, which, if we extend that out to 2025 and add in the last few years of sales, gets us only to around 600,000. Still, given the trends, finding another 2.7 million ZEV sales over 12 years sounds entirely reasonable to us.

Not everyone agrees. Karl Brauer, a senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book, said in a statement that, "While 2025 is a long ways out, it's difficult to imagine electric and fuel cell vehicle sales hitting multi-millions in 10 years. The cost, functionality and infrastructure for these vehicles limits them to a relative sliver of the car-buying market." But the Sierra Club's executive director, Michael Brune, said in a separate statement that, "This announcement is possible because the president's strong new fuel economy standards have put electric vehicles in the fast lane." See the full statements (and more) below.

The issues that the coalition proposes to tackle include things that just make sense: EV-friendly building codes, more HOV lane access, promoting time-of-use electric utility rates and charging stations that all take the same type of payment (where have we heard that before?). The states are also committing to buying more ZEVs for governmental fleets. Another key thing to note is that the coalition is promoting all zero-emission vehicles, which is why hydrogen vehicles will be supported, should they become popular before 2025.Continue reading California leads 8-state coalition shooting for 3.3M EVs by 2025

California leads 8-state coalition shooting for 3.3M EVs by 2025 originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 18:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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