State Moves to Speed Switch to Cleaner Cars : Smog: The Air Resources Board endorses a plan to wean drivers from gasoline-powered vehicles.
In a major effort to accelerate the shift to cars powered by cleaner fuels, the state Air Resources Board on Thursday endorsed the broad outlines of a plan to wean California motorists of conventional gasoline-powered cars by as early as 1997.
The proposed requirements, which go far beyond the already tough 1994 tailpipe emission limits adopted last June for conventional gasoline-powered cars, would have major implications for auto makers and oil companies, as well as for consumers. The new regulations almost certainly would require use of alternative fuels such as methanol, compressed natural gas and electricity. New emission control technologies would also be required.
The requirements, if approved by the board next September, would set the course of California’s vehicle emissions controls into the 21st Century.
Without a new generation of motor vehicles, the board said that the four-county South Coast Air Basin will not be able to achieve its 20-year goal of meeting federal clean air standards.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District earlier this year adopted a sweeping clean-air strategy that touches nearly all aspects of Southern Californians’ lives, from driving habits to back-yard barbecuing.
James M. Lents, AQMD executive officer, applauded the board’s 7-0 vote directing its staff to proceed with the clean-fuel proposal.
“We’re now more than ever allies in the war on smog,” Lents said.
Beginning in 1997, one out of every four cars sold in the state would have to emit 70% less of smog-forming hydrocarbons than required by the 1994 standard, under the ARB staff proposal. By 1998, half of all cars sold would be required to meet the tougher standard.
In effect, there would be two tailpipe standards--one for conventional gasoline cars based on the 1994 standard, and another for so-called “low-emission cars,” which the state would require to be sold in California.
The standard for low-emission cars limits hydrocarbon emissions to 0.075 grams per mile. The standard for conventional gasoline-powered vehicles limits emissions to 0.25 grams per mile. Federal standards now set hydrocarbon limits at 0.41 grams per mile.
As time passed, the market share of low-emission cars would grow from less than 10% in 1994 to 100% of new cars sold in the year 2000.
By 2010, the ARB staff estimated that two-thirds of gasoline use in California would be displaced by the cleaner fuels. Heavy-duty trucks and off-road vehicles, among others, would continue to use conventional gasoline.
“This is the first time we’ve started to wean people away from gasoline and cars as we know them,” Air Resources Board spokesman Bill Sessa said Thursday.
Added board executive officer James Boyd: “This is a very, very significant milestone along the path to clean air.”
Oil companies would be required to sell alternative fuels at their service stations as a condition for continuing to sell gasoline in the state. Automobile makers would be required to make the lower-emission vehicles in order to meet the tougher standard.
Auto makers and the oil industry two months ago launched a joint research and testing program looking at advanced vehicles and fuels. On Thursday, industry representatives cautioned that the ARB staff’s proposed timetable was unrealistically fast and may not be technologically feasible.
Joe Calhoun, assistant director for automotive emissions controls at General Motors, said: “GM does not believe that the standards . . . are feasible in the time frame proposed.”
He added that trying to meet the standards would result in significant cost increases.
Still, the Western States Petroleum Assn. and Arco both applauded the ARB’s general strategy, although they expressed concern about details.
Asked if it could be done, Douglas Henderson, executive director of the association, said: “We think so.
“It’s a watershed event. The impacts on our industry are huge and will determine all the work done by petroleum producers and refiners for years,” Henderson said in an interview.
Henderson predicted that whatever California does will have national and even global impact. He noted that northeastern states have already copied California’s existing tailpipe emission standards rather than settle for weaker federal standards.
Dan Townsend, manager of operations support for Arco Products Co., said the ARB staff’s general approach was “conceptually sound and holds promise for success.” But he urged the board to remember that a complex program “depends critically upon its details for the promise to become reality.”
As envisioned by the staff, there would be three categories of progressively cleaner cars--transitional low-emission vehicles, low-emission vehicles and ultra-low-emission vehicles.
But even the transitional low-emission vehicles would spew out only half as much smog-forming hydrocarbons as the the cleanest new cars on the road in 1994. The low-emission vehicles would be 40% cleaner still, and the ultra-low-emission vehicles would cut hydrocarbon emissions half-again as much as the second category.
According to the ARB, for the first generation of cleaner cars--transitional low-emission vehicles--significant modifications to current engine design and control technologies would not be required.
Indeed, the staff noted that the Nissan Sentra already meets the hydrocarbon standard that takes effect in 1994.
But the second generation of low-emission vehicles, or LEVs, would require advances in pollution-control technologies. Gasoline engines might be able to comply with the standard if, for example, electrically heated catalytic converters work as the staff said early tests show.
But substitute fuels, such as methanol and compressed natural gas, could meet the standard without the electrically heated catalytic converters.
The third generation of “ultra-low-emission vehicles” would most likely have to be powered by electricity, although the staff as a matter of policy has not ruled out the use of any fuel so long as it can meet the tough standards.
Under a proposed timetable, the first generation cars would have to be available as soon as 1994. Between then and 1996, up to 10% of all cars sold in the state would have to be a transitional low-emission vehicle.
Beginning in 1997, one out of every four cars sold in the state would have to be a second generation or low-emission vehicles. The following year, half of all cars sold would have to be a low-emission vehicle. The LEVs’ market share would rise to 98% in the year 2000. After that, the share would gradually diminish as the third generation vehicle took up the slack.
“This is a very tough challenge,” ARB Chairwoman Jananne Sharpless said. She noted that three U.S. automobile manufacturers and 14 oil companies have embarked on a joint research and development program.
“We’re trying to build on what we see going on with your industry. This is a test to see if we can integrate clean fuel and automotive technology,” she said.
Meanwhile, in its push to clean up the South Coast Basin, the AQMD next year will consider a rule requiring operators of fleets of more than 15 vehicles to begin purchasing alternative, cleaner-fueled vehicles. By the year 2000, the AQMD said half of all vehicles in such fleets should run on cleaner fuels.
The AQMD’s goal is that by the year 2000, 40% of all cars, 70% of all trucks and 100% of buses must run on cleaner fuels.
BACKGROUND
The four-county South Coast Air Basin has the worst air quality in the nation. Earlier this year, the regional South Coast Air Quality Management District adopted a 20-year plan to bring Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties into compliance with federal clean air standards. The AQMD has authority over stationary sources of pollution, such as factories. Working with the AQMD has been the state Air Resources Board, which has jurisdiction over motor vehicle emissions. Over the years, the ARB has imposed increasingly strict limits on tailpipe emissions. It has required oil companies to remove lead from gasoline, required auto makers to install catalytic converters and on-board diagnostic computers to monitor emissions. But those steps have involved making existing, conventionally powered gasoline vehicles cleaner.
