Date:         Fri, 20 Jul 2001 16:22:51 EDT
Reply-To:     KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Subject:      CARB madness! (Friday)
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

Just got done looking at the latest copy of Car and Driver (has a test drive
of the 2001 EV by the way), and I was upset by what I read about the CARB and
the zero emission vehicle program.  If you read the article it is mainly
about the ZEV which they are calling for automakers to sell 16% of the cars
they sell in Cali. by 2003.  There is a very interesting article on GMs
participation in the program.  They were the only automaker eager to get into
this program back in 1992 when it was first conceived.  They made and sold
about a thousand of thier EV1 Saturns.  They have invested over 1 billion
dollars into the EV1 program (which works out to spending a million dollars a
car on these electrically powered cars) and now they want out.  They are
actually sueing the CARB over this.  And CARB is not backing down, it wants
all automakers to conform to this ZEV standard which in the future is looking
toward both electrical powered and hydrogen powered cars, but right now is
focused squarely on electrical powered cars.  In the article they talk about
what the automakers may be forced to do, is to actually sell the electrical
powered cars at  much lower than cost, and then raise the prices on thier
other vehicles to make up for the difference.  So people who aren't driving
electric cars are subsidizing the people who are.

Right now the technology is very poor and very expensive.  The article said
that to outfit the cars with the electric gear would cost around $25,000 a
car (this doesn't include building the car only adding the electric
components).  Your range is 75-100 miles between recharges.  Add to this the
rolling black outs in California and the 600% jump in electricity prices
there in the last couple of years, and you get cars that have no range, that
you couldn't recharge if you wanted to, and if you did recharge them, you
would be paying out the ear to do so.  All for what?  You have a zero
emissions car, sure, but aren't the electric plants working that much harder
to supply you with the charging electric you need?  Electric plants that
mostly run on coal, oil, or nuclear (last time I checked these were much more
polluting than the tailpipe of your modern fuel injected car).

From the late 70s when emissions standards were put in place until today we
have seen a reduction of emissions that is 98% in cars.  Some of the new cars
today that are hybrid gas/electric or diesel/electric are getting a 98%
decrease over today's standards.  However the CARB is ignoring these vehicles
and focusing squarely in the electric only technology which GM could not
perfect given ten years and more than a Billion dollars.  It makes you wonder
if lower emissions is really the goal or if it is something else?  Any
comments?  (he says sacastically:)

Thanks,
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
www.vanagain.com
Phone: (856)-765-1583
Fax: (856)-327-2242

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