Future for Electric Cars
Re “Electric Cars--the Big Retreat,” editorial, Feb. 21:
Your editorial lamenting the California Air Resources Board’s decision to revise its electric car mandate was wrong in saying this signaled a “big retreat” from the state’s commitment to cleaner air.
Rather, it was a journey back to reality. The “formidable technological problems and marketplace uncertainties” associated with electric cars you admitted to are real. For months, auto makers and dealers have been warning that the mandate would fail because current electric car technology is premature, and that if electric cars were rushed to market, it would seriously weaken their potential as a long-term clean-air solution. After spending months interviewing engineers, auto makers and independent battery specialists, the board rightly concluded that electric cars aren’t ready for mass marketing.
Auto makers have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in electric car research and development and they are not about to walk away from this investment. When they are confident they can produce a product that people will use, you can be sure they will introduce electric cars in California on a grand scale. Two weeks after the mandate was lifted, General Motors announced plans to begin marketing electric cars here.
Electric cars will come to California sooner than you think. Thanks to the board’s decision, when they do arrive, they’ll be a product people will want to buy.
WILLIAM CAMPBELL
President
California Manufacturers Assn.
Sacramento
* Your editorial rightly valued the 2% zero-emission mandate as having “signaled an abiding commitment on the part of the car makers, the state and others to what could eventually be viable technology promising major smog reductions.” You also expressed concern about the future of the electric vehicle industry in California, research and development efforts, and about Calstart, the state public/private consortium developing advanced transportation technologies industry in the state.
Please let me try to relieve your concerns. Those of us close to this industry realize its growth is accelerating. Just review what happened an January: General Motors announced it will sell the EV-1 later this year; 10 utilities agreed to purchase 900 electric S-10 pickup trucks by January 1997; Southern California Edison spun off a wholly owned, unregulated business unit, Edison EV, to install charging stations and announced it is expected to be a $100-million annual business in five years; and Toyota announced it is testing several electric RAV4s in California.
Without the mandate between 1990 and early 1996, the industry clearly would not have made the enormous gains it has to date. However, genuine actions in the marketplace may well prove to be a more effective accelerator of this industry into the future. Calstart continues to grow, from 40 organization in 1992 to over 185 today, many joining since the air board sent a clear signal that it was going to pull back from the mandate in mid-December.
MICHAEL J. GAGE
President, Calstart
Burbank
* Your editorial might more accurately have commended “a wise delay.” This pause for sober technology assessment and market evaluation can also permit consideration of a more attractive alternative: the hybrid electric vehicle now under development.
In the hybrid system a smaller (and less expensive) battery is kept charged by a small gas turbine burning a chemical fuel, which also provides enough power for most vehicle operations, with the battery drawn upon only for acceleration and hill climbing. Such a vehicle could have the range of a conventional automobile and not require a costly logistic system of recharging stations.
Gas turbines can burn a wide variety of low-emission fuels (my favorite is methanol, now utilized by some MTA “clean exhaust” buses) and can be supplied by a wide variety of domestic producers.
LEON GREEN JR.
Los Angeles
