Auto Makers Seek Delay of Electric Car Mandate : Air quality: Officials say technology isn’t ready. But critics say firms want excuse to do nothing.
In a daylong assault, auto manufacturers from around the world urged the state Air Resources Board on Thursday to delay California’s revolutionary mandate to mass-produce electric cars and instead conduct another review in six months to a year.
The state’s mandate, adopted in 1990, requires that 2% of the cars sold in California by major manufacturers--about 25,000 cars--be emissions-free beginning in 1998. The requirement increases to 5% by 2001 and 10% by 2003.
Meeting in Los Angeles, the board is expected to make the pivotal decision today of whether technology has advanced enough to meet the mandate. The decision will be critical to the auto industry, utilities and other industries, which must decide how quickly to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to produce the cars.
After failing to persuade Gov. Pete Wilson to endorse a weakening of the requirements, auto manufacturers focused on a new tactic: They asked that the board review its mandate again within a year instead of waiting until 1996 as planned. The industry believes 1996 is too long to wait for another review because production plants would have to be operating by then.
Much of Thursday’s testimony by auto executives echoed the words of John Williams, a General Motors official who heads a Big Three electric-battery consortium: “I love electric vehicles. I just don’t like mandates.”
Yoshitomo Shito, general manager of the Japanese Automotive Manufacturing Assn. in Tokyo, said manufacturers there are working on advanced electric car batteries but they will not be ready for 1998 model cars. The existing batteries, he said, “are not viable marketable products.”
Robert Stempel, former chairman of General Motors, told the board he does not support the mandate even though it would generate business for Ovonic Battery Co., which he works with on behalf of GM.
“What I’m really concerned about is locking in a technology,” Stempel said, adding that “practical electric vehicles are within our reach” but not yet ready.
Many auto manufacturers said that if they rush to produce cars that are not satisfactory to the public, it would poison the market.
The board’s staff, however, insists that practical electric cars can be available by 1998 and that the companies are reluctant because it will take a sizable investment.
Supporters of the mandate said the auto industry’s push for more reviews is a delaying tactic and would stifle investment in electric vehicles, which they say is a key to revitalization of California’s economy.
“If you did this every six months, it would literally become the excuse to do nothing,” said Michael Gage, president of Calstart, a consortium of companies and public agencies promoting advanced transportation.
Virtually every environmental group, some business groups and electric utilities support the mandate.
