California's much-altered program for electric cars will support sales projections, a review has found.
The International Council on Clean Transportation's analysis of California's zero emission vehicles (ZEV) program found that continuing sales targets through 2026 as proposed by the state would help establish a 'floor' in the event that electric vehicle production flags.
The California Air Resources Board (ARB) later this year will consider requiring automakers to have electric vehicles make up 1.5 to 4 percent of their sales between 2018 and 2021, and 5 to 8 percent between 2022 and 2025. These targets fall within the range of most analysts' sales estimates, the report finds.
"[T]he ZEV mandate can now be viewed as a "floor," establishing minimum production requirements that will maintain some level of investment and momentum even if the voluntary programs in other jurisdictions do not move forward as planned," the report says.
ARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols herself conceded last week that the program has had problems. It has been adjusted seven times since its inception in 1990, reflecting slower-than-expected EV production. "As it turned out, the model of mandating a certain number of vehicles to be sold wasn't the right mechanism for pulling the entire market, but it was very influential, without a doubt," she said at a clean-tech conference in Santa Barbara. "It helped keep investments going in companies that otherwise might have dwindled down to nothing."
California can deepen the program by starting to figure out how the vehicles' electricity use might affect greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the report says. It also cautions that any EV policy will have limited effects.
"Although the global level of support for vehicle electrification is encouraging, major obstacles must be overcome before any pure electric drive vehicle can compete with continually improving conventional power trains and achieve deployment volumes sufficient to make an environmental difference," the report says.
At least some industry members agree. Executives from General Electric Co., which launched a seven-city tour today in San Francisco to promote its EV services, acknowledged technical obstacles to widespread adoption.
GE's own fleet of conventionally fueled vehicles, for example, travels about 85 miles a day per car, on average. That's probably too close to the typical EV's 100-mile range for comfort, said Clarence Nunn, CEO of GE's capital solutions division, which leases cars and equipment to businesses.
Rebates and other incentives can only stimulate the demand side so much, he said. "What's going to change consumers' buying behaviors?" he asked. "We haven't seen that yet."
