Auto Makers Bid to Brake Electric Car Program Air Quality

Lobbyists hope to persuade regulators to lift the state's mandate that thousands of zero-emission vehicles be offered to consumers in 2003.

By Gary Polakovic, Environmental Writer
Los Angeles Times

January 25, 2001

The world's biggest auto makers, sensing that their opportunity to stop the state's mandate to build electric cars may be slipping away, are mounting a last-ditch attempt to prevent California regulators from ordering them to deploy thousands of the vehicles.

With less than two years before manufacturers are supposed to begin offering the cars in large numbers, the future of the so-called zero-emission vehicle mandate is headed for a showdown this week in Sacramento. In the days leading up to what is expected to be the decisive meeting of the state Air Resources Board today the issue has been generating a high-voltage lobbying effort as auto makers bet that the state's current electricity shortage can help them turn back a requirement they have resisted for 11 years.

"This is a big deal. Once they [state officials] make this decision, it's locked in stone," said Greg Dana, vice president for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents 13 major car companies from Detroit, Japan and Europe.

The air board's executive officer agrees on the stakes. "This meeting is important because 2003 is very close, and that's the start date. This meeting is the last word," said Michael P. Kenny.

The auto makers have taken out ads in newspapers. They have hired high-powered advocates, including former Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor and Sacramento legislative fixture Phil Isenberg, to lobby Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature.

To their long-standing litany of arguments against electric cars, representatives of the auto makers have added the assertion that California cannot keep the lights on and recharge thousands of electric cars at the same time.

The state Energy Commission disputes that. Thousands more electric cars on the highways would have a trivial effect on power supplies, said Susan Brown, manager of transportation technologies at the California Energy Commission. The cars generally charge at night, when demand for power is low, she said. In addition, large numbers of electric cars would not even be on the road until after 2003. By then, several power plants now under construction are expected to be open, meaning supplies will no longer be as tight as they are now. Finally, even if tens of thousands of the cars took to the streets by 2010, Brown said, recharging them would take less than 1% of the state's electricity supply.

"We just don't see a huge impact on the energy supply," Brown said.

Still, William A. Burke, head of the Los Angeles area's air quality regulatory agency, is urging other members of the state air board not to proceed with nonpolluting cars until the energy crisis abates.

The auto makers have received backing from some lawmakers representing heavily minority areas, who have charged that the smog-free cars would result in dirtier air for low-income communities.

"These cars are very expensive and the communities with the largest air quality problems have the least ability to purchase them," state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar), said in an interview.

Rather than a full-scale mandate to build thousands of electric cars, the auto industry wants the state to set up a three-year pilot program in Los Angeles to determine if the cars catch on with consumers. Car company representatives call that a "fair market test." Air quality officials have rejected the idea, saying it is "designed for failure."

On the other side, virtually every major environmental group in the state is demanding that California hold fast to its commitment to pursue the cleanest available cars. Officials in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts, too, are counting on the air board to stand firm because, under the Clean Air Act, they can require car makers to make zero-emission vehicles only if California does so.

In December, the air board's staff recommended that the zero-emission requirement be scaled back to as few as 4,700 electric cars available for sale annually. That would be only a fraction of the 22,000 cars the agency's governing board sought when it last considered the matter in September.

But many members of the air board seem resolved to reject the staff's plan and, instead, to require that more electric cars take to the road, beginning in 2003.

Cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles account for nearly 70% of the smog in the Los Angeles region. The state has a variety of incentives for building ever-cleaner cars, including programs to boost vehicles powered by natural gas-fired engines, by fuel cells or by hybrid gasoline-electric engines that hold promise for long-term commercial success.

But batteries are the only practical technology available to eliminate tailpipe exhaust entirely. Environmentalists have long argued in favor of fully electric vehicles, hoping that, if the state requires them, companies will find a way to build them more cheaply.

Advocates of battery-powered cars are urging the air board to mandate at least 10,000 such vehicles annually in the early years of the program. They say that anything less could imperil the fledgling program and chill research investments.

"If the program is too small, auto makers and the parts suppliers won't have an incentive to invest in production, and the program won't be sustainable," said Cecile Martin, executive director of the California Electric Transportation Coalition.

By contrast, auto makers and battery experts say limited range and high costs hamper electric cars. Models that have been produced so far cost about $22,000 more than cars that burn gasoline and do not have as much range.

About 2,300 battery-powered cars are in use in California. People drive them as part of their daily commutes or use them for weekend trips and then plug them into power outlets at home. It typically takes several hours to recharge a car and the vehicles require about the same amount of electricity as a single-family home uses in one day, officials say.

Ben Knight, vice president of research and development at Honda, said a survey of dealers and electric car users by his company shows that most consumers will not want the cars unless they cost half as much, go twice as far and take less time to recharge. He said Honda, which ceased production of the EV Plus, was able to lease only 122 of the cars to consumers between 1997 and 1999, far fewer than originally planned.

"The cars are not viable," said Dana of the manufacturers' alliance. "We don't see any way to get the costs down, get the recharge time down. These cars are losers."