CARB Wants Only Zero-Emission Vehicles by 2030

The state of California wants all new vehicles sold in 2030 to emit zero emissions.

Heading the California Air Resources Board (CARB) since 2007 is Mary Nichols, who intends to push regulations that would essentially eliminate the sale of new cars with traditional combustion engines in the next few decades. Currently, the state requires that 2.7 percent of new cars sold this year be zero-emission vehicles, a mandate that will continue to increase annually starting in 2018. CARB has a goal that 22 percent of new car sales be zero-emission vehicles by 2025, but Nichols wants to push that even further, making all new vehicles sold be zero- or almost zero-emission vehicles by 2030.

SEE ALSO: California to Force Small Automakers to Make Plug-in Hybrids

In the grand scheme of things, California wants the entire road filled with only zero-emission vehicles by 2050. What Nichols has planned may sound over ambitious, but Governor Jerry Brown has also set lofty goals to reduce California greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. Brown is also calling for a 50-percent reduction of transportation petroleum use by 2030.

Automakers haven’t been very fond of the policy changes and having to build and sell mandatory electric vehicles just to meet state regulations. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne has notoriously gone on the record hoping that no one purchases the Fiat 500e, which causes the automaker to lose $14,000 with each one sold.

[Source: Bloomberg]

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