Governors from eight states including California, Connecticut and Maryland have formed a coalition that aims to get 3.3 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025.
Governors in the eight-state coalition, which also includes Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, signed a cooperative agreement pledging to include zero-emission vehicles in their public fleets, establish incentives to promote these vehicles, develop common standards for roadway signs and charging networks, and standardize building codes to make it easier to construct new charging stations.
ZEVs will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality and public health and save consumers money, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) says.
The eight-state coalition, which collectively represents more 23 percent of the US car market, will develop an action plan over the next six months. Zero-emission vehicles include battery-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles.
The signatory states are taking additional steps to increase awareness — and ultimately the use — of ZEVs. For instance, Connecticut has launched a grant program to speed construction of 200 publicly available EV charging stations by 2014. The collaboration builds on New York’s Charge NY initiative, which is creating a statewide network of 3,000 charging stations by 2018.
US electric car sales more than tripled from about 17,000 in 2011 to about 52,000 in 2012, CARB says. Motorists bought more than 40,000 plug-in cars in the first and second quarters of 2013, CARB says.
There are already more than 6,700 charging stations open to the public in the signatory states, according to CARB. By 2015, nearly every major automakers will sell a zero-emission vehicle.
An IDTechEx report released in September projects commercial and industrial electric vehicle sales will top $30 billion this year, compared with $28 billion for consumer EVs, but by 2023 that gap will widen to $154 billion for commercial EVs and $119 billion for electric and hybrid cars.
Photo Credit: Ford