California pulling plug on electric car requirement

The proposal, which faces a board vote at the end of the month, is yet another weakening of the nation's toughest requirement for alternative-fuel cars after vigorous opposition from Detroit.

"They've fought batteries pretty much tooth and nail from the beginning," said Jerry Martin, board spokesman.

Environmentalists said the revised report, which sets a new timetable for introducing clean cars and reduces the quota of pollution-free vehicles, was a disappointment. There was no immediate comment from auto manufacturers.

A regulation passed in 1990 made history by requiring that 10 percent of all new cars sold in the state this year produce no tailpipe emissions. But that standard has been gradually eroded by judges and the ARB, which is poised to reshape the so-called zero-emission vehicles, or ZEV, requirements a fourth time.

Auto manufacturers won a preliminary injunction in Fresno federal court last summer preventing the regulation from taking effect and requiring the board to review its regulations.

While the state has appealed that ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it rewrote its ZEV rule.

The ARB staff report reflects the reality that battery-powered cars -- the only nonpolluting vehicles on the market -- failed to fulfill their promise. Of the few thousand electric cars on California roads, most are expensive and travel fewer than 100 miles between lengthy charges.

Environmentalists hope to at least hold the board to mandating that a certain number of pollution-free vehicles are required by 2009.

SACRAMENTO -- The California Air Resources Board proposed new changes Wednesday to its rule requiring automakers to produce zero emission vehicles. When first passed in 1990, the rule required that 10 percent of vehicles this year would be nonpolluting, but that regulation has been steadily eroded.

On March 27, the board will consider revising the rule to require automakers to produce more hybrid gasoline-electric cars, more low-emission gas vehicles and begin producing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Here's a look at proposed requirements:

l 250 fuel cell vehicles by 2008.

l 22,000 hybrids by 2005; 33,000 by 2006; 56,000 by 2007; 83,000 by 2008; 117,500 by 2009.

l 2 million of low-emission gas vehicles by 2009; 3.4 million by 2012.

l A panel of experts will review the progress of fuel cell and battery technology by 2008.

Sources: California Air Resources Board<