First Name | Arthur |
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Last Name | Keller |
Email Address | zev@kellers.org |
Affiliation | |
Subject | Reinstate ZEV Mandate |
Comment | My wife and I have driven RAV4 EVs (pure electric vehicles) since 2001. About 2/3 of our overall driving has been in these vehicles. About 1/3 of our overall driving occurs in a gasoline-powered minivan, which we primarily drive when we go long distances or need to carry more passengers than the RAV4 EV can carry. If our minivan was a plug-in hybrid vehicle, then perhaps 90% of our driving would be using electricity, dramatically lowering our need for gasoline. It is clear that fuel cell technologies have not arrived. Like Charlie Brown with that football, using fuel cells in cars is a concept we've been promised for years, and will continue to be promised for years. As Felix Kramer says, electric cars and plug-in hybrid vehicles are the only vehicles that get cleaner over time, precisely because the grid gets cleaner. And we know that electric cars fueled with coal-fired electricity are still cleaner on a well-to-wheel analysis than gasoline-powered vehicles. This is especially true with the California electrical grid, which is much cleaner than the national average. About 15 million plug-in vehicles (plug-in hybrids or battery electric vehicles) could be charged overnight without adding a single power plant. So my recommendation is to change the ZEV mandate to eliminate credits for experimental fuel cells, and set a mandate for zero emission vehicles, like battery-electric vehicles with some credits given for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, like the Prius conversions or the proposed Chevy Volt. |
Attachment | |
Original File Name | |
Date and Time Comment Was Submitted | 2007-05-23 14:21:58 |
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