Can't convince GM: EV Demand very high in California
September 5, 2000
Californians Show Potential Demand
For Electric Cars at the Right Price
By JEFFREY BALL
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
As California environmental regulators prepare this week to decide whether to
water down a requirement that auto makers start selling thousands of electric
vehicles there in 2003, a new study predicts strong consumer demand for the
environmentally friendly cars.
The poll, conducted in July and designed and funded by California environmental
groups, concludes consumers in the state would buy between 151,200 and 226,800
electric vehicles annually if they were "available at reasonable prices." That market
would amount to between 12% and 18% of all new cars and light trucks sold each
year in the state.
The survey's organizers say the poll should persuade the California Air Resources
Board that there is more than enough consumer demand to keep its current
zero-emission-vehicle requirement in place, despite the opposition of the auto
industry. The board will hold a public meeting Thursday to consider whether to
stick with its requirement that, by 2003, 10% of all cars and light trucks sold or leased
in the state by big manufacturers emit no pollution. That mandate would translate
into about 22,000 battery-powered vehicles each year, plus, through a system of
partial credits, additional high-tech cars and trucks that emit only small amounts of
pollution.
The poll is likely to carry weight with the California board, said Jerry Martin, a
board spokesman. "No one else has done this type of analysis," he said, speculating
that the auto industry may have avoided doing such a study itself because it was
"afraid of what the answer would be."
Auto makers so far have put only about 2,300 of the so-called zero-emission vehicles
on the road in California, all of them during the past four years, and have been
arguing that the 10% mandate should be withdrawn because there isn't a market in
the state for anywhere near 22,000 electric vehicles a year. They dismissed the poll as
wishful thinking. "That's a nice theoretical study, but we have actual experience in
trying to [lease] these vehicles," said Samuel Leonard, director of mobile emissions
and fuel economy for General Motors Corp., which has stopped building its EV1
electric car because of tepid consumer demand.
Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com |
