CARB to weaken ZEV?

[Brent]

I watched a good part of the webcast. Chris Paine was there with his cameras, and he gave some brief words. Ze'ev Drori spoke too, although his intelligent comments might have been masked by his accent and delivery. The car companies had predictable positions, but there is some sense of resignation to the idea that they will have to create alternative fuel cars no matter what. Mercedes said they've put $1 billion into fuel cells and are dismayed at the idea that a BEV requirement would make this spending go to waste. One former water worker had an interesting take on hydrogen production: it requires relatively clean water to make hydrogen, and purifying such water is fairly energy intensive in itself.

[tonybelding]

CARB is really powerless. They can "mandate" electric cars, along with the threat that car makers who don't comply won't be allowed to sell cars in the state. The reality -- and the car makers have figured this out too -- is that California would never cut them off. Certainly they wouldn't cut off any of the big companies like Ford, GM, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, Nissan.

When these companies come to CARB and say "we cant' do it", then CARB basically has no option other than to relax the requirements. And because the car makers don't want to be regulated or forced to do anything, they'll always say "we can't do it". It's in their interest to say that, whether it's true or not.

The CARB proceedings have turned into a circus sideshow. It has become irrelevant. The things that are happening to advance electric cars (and all their variants) are happening elsewhere, they aren't going to come out of CARB.

[domenick]

So, do the big companies have to build these 7500 cars? I think Tesla and Aptera can handle that piddling amount.

[TEG]

Mercedes said they've put $1 billion into fuel cells and are dismayed at the idea that a BEV requirement would make this spending go to waste.

Just because you spent a lot of money on something doesn't make it a good idea. Fuel cells were originally developed for the space program at large taxpayer cost. There is pressure to commercialize them so that the government can say it was money well spent. So they put pressure on big business to spend more to try to bring the costs down and show that more space project technology trickled down to the consumer.

Fuel cells were a good idea for the space program because you already had hydrogen (as fuel) and oxygen (to breathe) around, and having (potable) water as a byproduct was a great thing to have in space. As a fuel for cars? Doesn't seem to work so well.

[vfx]

Entire activest CARB Press Conference out front. 30 minutes

http://www.stefanoparis.com/piaev/WhyWeNeedPlugIns/2008.03.26PIArallyCARB/2008.03.26PIArallyCARB.html