Lori Abbott/Special to the Sun

 The California Air Resources Board is meeting in Los Angeles today and Friday to consider significant changes to the state’s zero emission vehicle program (ZEV). The new standards would put California on track to have 87 percent of passenger cars powered by batteries or fuel cells by the year 2050.

Simon Mui, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, says the new standards will help make California a leader in electric-drive technologies and give more choices to consumers. “Buyers are looking for cleaner, more fuel-efficient vehicles. The standards will spur the market to provide more choices, and they’ll attract companies and investments into the state to develop these technologies.”

Mui says if the board adopts the new standards, the state would cut gasoline consumption by new vehicles nearly in half by 2025, result in about 1.5 million additional plug-in vehicles, and save new car owners an average $4,000 in fuel costs over the lifetime of a vehicle. Some automakers criticize the state’s ZEV mandate as too costly and strict.

One of the companies investing in California’s clean energy future is Palo Alto-based Nanosys, which is pioneering technologies to improve battery performance. Nanosys Vice President of Corporate Development Vijendra “VJ” Sahi says the ZEV program is critical for getting electric vehicles on the market and for companies like Nanosys that are looking to raise financing so they can expand.

“Having this kind of guaranteed floor within the market is really important in terms of being able to raise capital and then by raising that capital come down in the price structure that allows much more adoption of electric vehicles in the United States.”

A recent study by the independent research group Next 10 found that the state’s electric vehicle industry grew 142 percent since 1995, and that in 2010 more than 60 percent of global venture capital investment in electric vehicles took place in California.

More information is available from the California Air Resources Board at www.arb.ca.gov and from Next 10 at http://next10.org/next10/pdf/EV_keyfindings_final.pdf.