ZEV MOU

states for zev mouDon’t you love acronyms?  ZEV MOU means “zero-emission vehicles memorandum of understanding.”  The eight states of California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont today signed an agreement to develop an action plan to collectively require 15% of all new vehicles sold in their states be either electric or hydrogen fuel-cell by 2025.  That should translate, as the rule phases in, to having 3.3 million ZEVs on their roads by that time.  California Governor Jerry Brown said:  “This is not just an agreement, but a serious and profoundly important commitment.  From coast to coast, we’re charging ahead to get millions of the world’s cleanest vehicles on our roads.”

Out of reach you say?  Well, the press release from the always cutting-edge folks at the Air Resources Board in California says we’re well on the way now.  “By 2015 nearly every major automaker will have zero emission vehicles available for sale or lease, and more than 200,000 zero-emission vehicles are expected to be on the road across the U.S.”  Don’t believe those hippies in California?  Well, the notorious treehuggers at Deutsche Bank think that EV, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles are an inexorable force at this point.  They assert that “…people tend to underestimate the tempo of change over the long-term, due to a bias towards perceiving and projecting linear rather than exponential growth/adoption functions, and frustration with the recent slow rate of progress. The dovetailing of circumstances enumerated [in a DB paper] have given the transportation electrification dynamic a helpful shove, and we now seek the tipping point that will destroy gasoline demand and mark the end of the age of oil.”  I can’t get enough of that phrase:  the end of the age of oil.  As I’ve noted, Houston, You’ve Got a Problem.

This agreement between the states, coupled with the federal government’s requirements for maximizing efficiency in cars and trucks, together mean that we’re going to save money, lower greenhouse gases and conventional air pollutants, and create jobs.

Finally, if you think that real men don’t eat quiche or drive electric vehicles, check out the White Zombie here.


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