CARB gives Chevy Volt ULEV II status, misses SULEV II by a hair

Jonathon Ramsey — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:29:00 EST

Filed under: Hybrid, Sedan, Government/Legal, Chevrolet, Electric

The California Air Resources Board has given a green rating to the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, the grade atop the page being ULEV (Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle). That's below the SULEV and PZEV ratings of cars you might not expect to beat the Volt, such as the four-cylinder Honda Accord and Volkswagen Golf GTI 2.0T and Jetta TDI. Also on the list as being cleaner than the Volt are the Toyota Prius, Honda Insight and Honda CR-Z. Click past the break for some interesting comparative charts.

The issue is that CARB performs its testing with the engine running - it has no electric-power-only test. When the Volt's engine runs, it emits 1.3 g/km, which puts it 0.3 grams beyond the allowance for a SULEV vehicle. What's more, since it can't get the PZEV (Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle) rating of the Prius and Leaf, it can't get carpool lane stickers in California. One of the biggest boons of buying a green car, at least in California, is the extra time you get to enjoy your life because you can use the carpool lane and don't need to haul around Frank and Bob from sales in order to to it.

Will any of this affect the Volt's reception? In most places, wherever a sticker can't get you in the VIP line, probably not. And it doesn't affect what the Volt can do. This is really a reflection of the Volt paying the price for an outdated testing regime and an engine connected to the wheels in a three-mile-per-hour speed band. But in the green space where everyone is counting every feather in every cap, we imagine General Motors is ruing having missed out on this particular one. Perhaps the tagline "More car than electric" is here proved a little too true...

Gallery: 2011 Chevrolet Volt

[Source: Inside Line]

Continue reading CARB gives Chevy Volt ULEV II status, misses SULEV II by a hair

CARB gives Chevy Volt ULEV II status, misses SULEV II by a hair originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CARB backs off a bit on ZEV Mandate, orders 66k PHEVs sold by 2014

John Neff — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:33:00 EST

Filed under: Hybrid, Government/Legal, Green

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted last week to revise its ZEV (zero-emissions vehicle) Mandate that was first adopted in 1990 and has since been changed five times now. The newest revisions ease up on automakers, now calling for 7,500 zero-emission vehicles to be sold in California between 2012 and 2014, down from 25,000 that were called for in the last revision made in 2003. A zero-emissions vehicle includes a pure electric vehicle or one powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, though CARB also ruled that the its ZEV Mandate could be partially met with a new category of vehicles it calls Enhanced Advanced Technology Partial-Zero Emissions Vehicle, or Enhanced AT PZEV. These include plug-in hybrids like the Chevy Volt or vehicles with internal combustion engines that run on hydrogen like the BMW Hydrogen 7.

In addition to reducing the number of ZEVs that must be sold between 2012 and 2014, CARB also demanded that automakers sell at least 66,000 plug-in hybrids during the same time period. Ford is working on a plug-in hybrid Escape and GM a plug-in hybrid Saturn VUE, while Toyota is also developing a plug-in version of its popular Prius. While this goal seems somewhat realistic to us depending on how willing consumers will be to swallow the premium price of a plug-in hybrid, achieving 7,500 ZEVs sold in less than five years could be a stretch considering that not one of the major automakers is working on a pure EV to sell in the U.S. and there just isn't a strong enough infrastructure for delivering hydrogen to that many Californians at the moment. Nevertheless, 7,500 sold is easier to achieve than 25,000. These recent revisions indicate to some that CARB is slowly being neutered of its power as the feds work to regain control of setting the nation's energy policy. One set of standards for every state is what the automakers want, and for better or worse they may have it soon.

[Source: CARB, AutoblogGreen, Automotive News - sub. req'd]

CARB backs off a bit on ZEV Mandate, orders 66k PHEVs sold by 2014 originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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