Big news this week for electric car drivers. We may soon have more company on the roads if the state of California has any say. The California Air Resources Board has passed the toughest vehicle emission regulations in the U.S. CARB is mandating that automakers cut exhaust by two-thirds by dramatically increasing their production of electric and plug-in hybrids. Automakers and oil companies have sued in the past to stop similar measures but this time is different. There are already more than fifteen thousand electric and plug-in hybrids on U.S. roads.
The mandates would require about one in seven new cars and trucks sold in California each year to run on batteries, hydrogen fuel cells or other zero emission technology within the next thirteen years. That is the same amount of time that the Prius and other hybrids have been out. During that time automakers say hybrids have only captured 3 percent of the market and there is concern that it's going to be very difficult to achieve 15 percent in the same period of time with electric cars. No doubt a lot needs to happen to entice would be customers including: Rolling out a charging infrastructure, bringing down the cost of cleaner cars and helping prepare folks who want to make a transition to driving non gas or diesel cars.
The very cars that California is pushing were on display in San Jose this week at an auto symposium for journalists. I decided to take a road trip down to check them out.
Before I bought my Leaf I would never have thought of driving to San Jose as a road trip but it was the first time i headed to a place where i would not have enough charge to get home. Ironically, the venue holding the "Fourth Annual Future of Cars" conference for journalists did not have an electric car charger. I was a little nervous to make the journey when it looked like, according to one of my phone apps, the nearest chargers were either all in use or down. However, the folks at Club Auto Sport in San Jose kindly let me trickle charge (use a 110 v outlet with my Nissan charger) in their parking lot. This meant I had to stay longer than intended but it gave me a chance to test drive several cutting edge clean cars.
The Toyota Hydrogen Fuel Cell Highlander, due out in 2015, drives much like a battery powered electric car. It's smooth and quiet but the SUV is obviously much bigger with a range of 431 miles. It's good it has so much range because hydrogen fueling stations are few and far between. Hydrogen fuel cell technology has not received great endorsements from the Department of Energy but Toyota has more confidence in the technology.