California outlines plans for 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles by 2025

Take all of the registered motor vehicles in Oregon, move them one state south and turn them all into hybrids, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles. That's pretty much what the California Governor Jerry Brown has in mind, and the state has taken 32 pages to lay that process out.

According to the state's 2012 ZEV Action Plan (available in PDF), California is looking to have 1.5 million ZEVs (zero-emissions vehicles) on its roads by 2025. Among the methods laid out, the state would subsidize utility price discounts for ZEV charging, create enough of an infrastructure to support one million ZEVs statewide by the end of the decade, and work with insurance companies to possibly reduce premiums for ZEV drivers. The state government would also have 10 percent of its light-duty vehicle purchases be ZEVs by 2015, and 25 percent by 2020.

The plans are par for the course for a state that accounts for about 12 percent of the country's approximately 250 million vehicles but about 40 percent of the country's plug-ins. In January 2012, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) came out with its proposed requirement that at least 15.4 percent of new vehicles sold by a major automaker in the state would have to either be plug-in or hydrogen powered by 2025. California has also long been at the forefront of cutting vehicle emissions through initiatives such as pushing for stricter fuel-economy standards and emissions controls.