Detroit Offers Alternative to Electric Cars : Pollution: Auto makers suggest quicker, but not total, cut in emissions. Critics see an attack on battery-power efforts.

In a foray critics described as an assault on electric vehicles, the Big Three auto makers Monday said they could build substantially cleaner-burning cars ahead of a federal timetable without having to produce zero-emission models.

The proposal is designed to dissuade Northeastern states from adopting California’s strict regulations--including a mandate that electric cars be available by 1998--as a means of meeting federal Clean Air Act standards.

“This proposal will result in vehicles that deliver even cleaner air, sooner, and at a more affordable cost to the consumer,” said Andrew Card, president of the American Automobile Manufacturers Assn., the lobbying group for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp.

Some state environmental officials, however, immediately expressed skepticism about the plan.

Thomas Jorling, commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, said it is part of a coordinated auto industry effort to block regulations requiring that electric vehicles be made available in California and 12 Northeastern states from Virginia to Maine.

“What it really represents is an attack on the electric vehicle,” he said.

The auto industry adamantly denied that. Card said the new proposal is not connected to regulatory mandates for electric vehicles. Zero-emission vehicles would be allowed, but not required, under the plan, he said.

“There are cynics that say this is an electric-vehicle strategy,” Card, a former U.S. secretary of transportation, said at a news conference. “It is not.”

The proposal comes as auto industry lobbying on environmental and safety regulations is gearing up in Washington, California and other states and amid a period of growing government-industry cooperation, at least on the federal level. For instance, the Clinton Administration and the Big Three have teamed up to develop within 10 years a car that will be three times as fuel-efficient as today’s models.

In the Northeast, meanwhile, the battle to reduce emissions is contentious. There have been nasty legislative fights involving pollution proposals and several lawsuits to block adoption of standards that would require electric vehicles.

The states must develop by November, 1994, plans outlining how they will comply with federal clean-air rules or risk losing millions of dollars in federal highway aid and other funds. Toward that end, several have adopted California’s emissions standards, which are more rigorous than the federal regulations.

The Ozone Transport Commission, a regional body representing the 12 Northeastern states and the District of Columbia, plans to petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for approval of adopting the California standards regionwide. Hearings on the proposal are scheduled for next week in Hartford, Conn.

The auto makers oppose using California’s rules in the Northeast. They say California’s air quality problem is unique and that programs designed to cut ozone-causing pollutants in California will not work as well in the Northeast.

Another concern is that the Northeastern states have not adopted California’s requirement of reformulated gasoline. Without the more expensive reformulated fuels, the benefit from following California’s emissions rules would be less, the auto makers say.

On Monday, the auto makers struck a more conciliatory pose. Card said the industry proposal would put to rest years of confrontation and litigation.

“It’s time to get on with cleaning the nation’s air,” he said.

Richard Klimisch, vice president of the auto group’s engineering affairs division, said the industry proposal would result in a 70% reduction in emissions of pollutants that cause ozone. That reduction, he said, could be accomplished by 2001--three years sooner than under current federal rules.

Industry officials said they have no estimate of what it would cost to develop the cleaner-burning vehicles. They were also vague as to what technology would be used. Klimisch said it would be “fairly conventional technology,” such as multiple and preheated catalysts and computerized fuel-control systems.

The technology is certain to be available sooner than key electric-vehicle technology, notably an affordable battery with sufficient range.