PERSPECTIVES ON ELECTRIC CARS : . . . No, Detroit Is the Problem : California is primed for major EV development, but auto makers offer only a trade-down on clean air rules.
The emerging electric-vehicle industry in California is ready to form a partnership with Detroit to design and manufacture electric cars for the zero-polluting market.
Recently, the California Air Resources Board refuted the Detroit auto makers’ contention that the electric-vehicle technology would not be ready for consumers by 1998, when the state will require that a portion of car sales be pollution-free vehicles. Four different electric-battery technologies available today could provide a range of at least 80 miles or more between rechargings to accommodate 85% of the state’s commuters, according to the board.
The California Council on Science and Technology estimates that the worldwide demand for EVs will reach nearly 2 million by 2007, with annual sales exceeding $25 billion. By the year 2005, hundreds of thousands of Americans could be employed in the industry.
What is Detroit’s reaction? They are calling for overturning rules requiring sales of zero-emission vehicles. This retreat would come while California’s aerospace electronics and design industries are poised to help lead automobile manufacturing into a new era.
The most practical technology now available to achieve zero emissions is the EV that has no tailpipe emissions and can reduce major ozone-creating pollution emissions by 97% compared with gasoline-powered vehicles.
Already, Calstart, California’s advanced transportation consortium based in Burbank, has produced a “showcase electric vehicle” to demonstrate the high technologies integral to the development of the electric car, while demonstrating how defense companies can convert their military work to civilian uses. A cooling system once used for an infrared missile sensor has become a thermoelectric heating/cooling seat for EVs. Military-tank systems have become hybrid EV power systems. The power-control electronics in F-14s can be found in the controllers for EV drive systems.
This year, the nation’s first electric-powered school buses will roll out in Santa Barbara. If only 25% of new school buses were electric, we could generate $455 million in revenues, with retrofit sales totaling another $520 million. As many as 26,000 jobs could be created and the air would be cleaner.
Southern California is the world’s largest center of automobile design. We have plastics-molding firms, foundries, machine shops, tool-and-die manufacturing and electronic-components producers. About 450 businesses, mostly small shops, are poised to develop and manufacture electric-vehicle technology. GM’s prototype electric car, the Impact, was designed here.
The state’s strengths in engineering, high-technology research and production; extensive entrepreneurial activity; world-class universities; an employment base of skilled laborers, and advanced aeronautics and electronics industries position us perfectly for a major share of new EV jobs.
Instead of seizing this opportunity, the auto makers have promised new low-emission vehicles sometime early next century in return for relaxing clean-air rules so they won’t be required to market electric vehicles.
President Clinton has pledged to support California’s zero-emission standard. That plan says that by 1998, 2% of all major automobile sales in the state must be zero-emission.
The California standard, which means that in less than five years, about 40,000 EVs must be sold in California, increasing to 200,000 after the year 2000, is the catalyst driving the electric-car industry. California could be the single largest market for EVs well into the 21st Century.
But not the only one. In February, representatives of Connecticut, New York, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia voted to adopt low-emission vehicle programs, including the possible adoption of zero-emission vehicle mandates.
We face the technological equivalent of the race to the moon. This time, it is the race to build the clean car. The winner has a global market at its feet. An editor for the Japan Automotive News has said that Japanese manufacturers will meet the standard to sell cars in California. Let’s not lose this market.
Nationwide, almost 45 million people still live in counties exceeding the smog standard. Children in the Los Angeles air basin suffer a 15% reduction in lung function by age 12 because of exposure to smog. Their best hope is cleaner cars in a few years--not a decade. In their hope lies a tremendous economic opportunity.
