Nothing. No engine rumble. No emissions. Just the sound of the wind and wheels on the road. This is what the California Air Resources Board (CARB) envisioned for California with their Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) Program—a future of vehicles powered by electricity. While CARB has changed the regulation over the years, they have succeeded in advancing clean vehicle technology, such as hydrogen fuel cells, advanced batteries, and high power electric motors. The millions of hybrid and other clean vehicles on the road today exist, in part, as a result of California’s ZEV regulation. 

A new UCS analysis (PDF) shows that pure-ZEVs are crucial to meeting the state’s long-term goal of reducing global warming emissions by 80% in 2050. The study demonstrates that to meet California’s global warming targets, California needs to have 379,000 “pure” zero emission vehicles on the road in 12 years. The UCS study also shows that placing more vehicles on the road today will help us achieve these targets. Read the document here. (PDF)

In March 2008, CARB approved several major changes to the ZEV program. First, they reduced the minimum number of “pure” ZEV that all six auto makers must produce between 2014 and 2017 from 25,000 to 7,500. The auto manufacturers must make up this reduction by producing 58,000 "Enhanced Partial Zero Emission Vehicles"—typically plug-in hybrid vehicles. Furthermore, CARB agreed to overhaul the entire ZEV program by the end of 2009 with changes that will take place in 2015 and after. Finally, CARB agreed to make ZEV program information open to the public and committed to review UCS analysis on loopholes in the program. 

What do all these changes mean?  While the decrease in the number of pure-ZEVs hampers California's progress toward its long term global warming emission reduction goals, the modifications do provide incentives for more plug-in hybrid vehicles and will make the entire ZEV program more transparent.  However, the future of California and the ZEV program will depend on whether CARB’s promised overhaul of the ZEV mandate places enough zero emissions vehicles on the road soon enough to meet our global warming goals. UCS will continue working to ensure policies that encourage the development of clean advanced technology for vehicles.