White House Proposes 2-For-1 CAFE Credits for Zero Emissions Vehicles
Automaker Alliance Jumps On Board, EV-Makers Could Reap Huge Benefits
Let the horse-trading begin.
The Obama Administration, seeking to boost development of all-electric and plug-in hybrid-electric cars, is suggesting that automakers be given CAFE credits that would let low and zero-emission vehicles count for up to two cars when annual fleet fuel efficiency averages are calculated.
That standard would mean that an automaker seeking to meet the 35.5 MPG fleet average required by 2016 could use a single battery-electric car rated at, say, 100 miles per gasoline-gallon equivalent, to offset seven 12 MPG pickups and SUVs, as the average fuel economy of the eight vehicles - with the ZEV's rating doubled - would be 35.5 miles per gallon.
Green Cars could be worth their weight in cash if proposed national fuel-economy credit trading program takes off.
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The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents the domestic industry as well as several of the large foreign brands, has jumped on board the idea of emissions-based fuel economy credits.
"The ability to earn, bank and trade credits," Alliance spokesman Charles Territo told the Wall Street Journal, "is essential to meeting the goals of the national [CAFE] program.
A credit program that enables automakers to bank and trade excess fuel economy credits also could be a huge boon to companies such as Tesla Motors, Coda Automotive and Fisker Automotive, which have -or will have, in the case of Fisker and Coda - nothing but zero- and extremely low-emissions vehicles in their fleets.
Their business plans, in fact, call them to raise money by selling excess credits racked up under the state of California's similar ZEV credit plan to companies that don't want to develop low-emission, high-efficiency vehicles of their own and has the cash to buy their way into compliance.
We've nothing against these bank-and-trade programs, but do see one potentially large drawback if the credits are too liberal. A company that produces a relatively small number of high-credit vehicles each year could make money subsidizing a larger company's efforts to do an en-run around the fuel economy requirements.
Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, raised another issue in the Journal article - electricity generated in coal-fired plants certainly isn't a low-emission source of energy and there needs to be a way to account for that so that rechargeable electric cars don't just automatically get a zero emissions rating.
"The credit for a vehicle should be commensurate with its environmental benefit," he said, and we couldn't say any better.
- Posted by
- John O'Dell November 5, 2009, 2:28 PM
- Permalink
- Categories:
- Emissions, Fuel Economy, Plug-ins and Electric, Tax Incentives
- Technorati Tags:
- CAFE, CAFE Credits, EVs, PHEVs
I wonder if there's a plan to phase this out, or a plan to phase CAFE out, should electric vehicles become the predominant form of personal transportation.
CAFE effectively requires a balance of inefficient vehicles with efficient ones. If the most efficient ones count double, they can be balanced out by MORE inefficient ones, not less. Seems counterproductive to the Green House's agenda.