Whither CARB?

The California Air Resources Board, one of the culprits identified in Who Killed the Electric Car?, was originally charged with reducing pollution. Now it's actions are meant to help reduce carbon emissions and petroleum usage, as well. The electric cars produced to meet the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate uniquely contribute on all three counts.

Of the transportation fuel options before us, only electricity can provide both near term mitigation of the many problems wrought by petroleum and the internal combustion engine, and a path to a truly zero-carbon, zero-emission, zero-petroleum future.

Gov. Schwarzenegger and CARB have a unique opportunity.

Proclaim the success of the ZEV mandate. Highlight the synergy of California's Solar Initiative and plug-in cars. Showcase the Toyota RAV4 EVs and RangerEVs still providing many more zero emission miles than all the hydrogen fuel cell cars touted by the car makers. Build on the success of nearly 10,000 battery electric vehicles, not the failure of a diminished ZEV fleet, an automaker-inspired failure of less than 100 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, now pleading for an extension on the minimal target they presumed they could attain.

Tens of thousands of battery electric cars could be on the road for the same expense in shorter time and everyone knows the market exists already for plug-in cars. The carmakers never fulfilled the demand they themselves unwillingly and unwittingly inspired in Californians. They are waiting to be forced to do the right thing. Their own ZEV-mandated product proved they could do it. They can do it again.