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Who's forcing Marchionne and all the other major automakers to sell mostly money-losing electric vehicles? More than any other person, it's Mary Nichols. She's run the California Air Resources Board since 2007, championing the state's zero-emission-vehicle quotas and backing President Barack Obama's national mandate to double average fuel economy to 55 miles per gallon by 2025. She was chairman of the state air regulator once before, a generation ago, and cleaning up the famously smoggy Los Angeles skies is just one accomplishment in a four-decade career.
Nichols really does intend to force automakers to eventually sell nothing but electrics. In an interview in June at her agency's heavy-duty-truck laboratory in downtown Los Angeles, it becomes clear that Nichols, at age 70, is pushing regulations today that could by midcentury all but banish the internal combustion engine from California's famous highways. "If we're going to get our transportation system off petroleum," she says, "we've got to get people used to a zero-emissions world, not just a little-bit-better version of the world they have now."
We've seen campaigns to defend smoking and not wearing seatbelts and not getting vaccinated. Is this like that, or is there more to it?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 03 2015, @08:17PM
I'm guessing she'd likely approve of that as well. And probably also high-quality passenger rail so that fewer people need to drive in the first place.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 03 2015, @09:36PM
Solar better come first, because the best estimates are that if the auto fleet were converted to electric tomorrow we would need easily twice the grid capacity that we have today.
Most places are already trying to tax households with car chargers built in. Of course none of that money will go to grid development, it will simply be sucked away by government.
I doubt they will pour that tax money back into roads either. They will add miles drive taxes to handle that. That of course means monitoring.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @11:33PM
For 30k per household, California could, TODAY, all but eliminate power plants.
Figure in a couple grand extra for 1KW wind generators to supplement the solar on low output days and you can have 24/7 power production with battery backing (unlike those tesla packs 10ish KWh of lead acids are only 2-3k, which provides 10KW output from the panels during daylight, while charging and up to equivalent output during nighttime for climate control or your pot farm.)
At current prices it is not 'grid competitive', being around 0.18/KWh figuring in battery replacements and a 30 year life, but it is an up-front purchase with known future output and limited maintenence requirements.
If everybody were to do this, not only could they have 'free' charged cars every morning, but also pre-paid electrical for their entire household for essentially the rest of their life.
Think about the possitibilities, especially if another price hike were to happen.