Quick Facts on California’s Clean Car Standards

Low Emission Vehicle standards for passenger cars and trucks

What are California’s Clean Car Standards?

  • In 2010, California officials are planning to strengthen state standards that ensure consumers have cleaner choices for cars and trucks.  California’s Low Emission Vehicle standards will set new goals for reduced smog-forming and heat-trapping emissions from vehicles sold in California starting in 2017. 
  • New models relying on hybrid electric technology, high-strength lightweight materials, and advanced pollution controls will be more fuel efficient and less polluting.


Why do we need Clean Car standards?

  • Transportation pollution hurts Californians.  It’s the number one source of the state’s heat-trapping emissions that cause global warming. It contributes to California’s worst-in-the-nation air quality. Over 90 percent of Californians breathe unhealthy air at times.
  • Cleaner cars will make us less dependent on oil, save drivers money at the pump, make our air healthier, and reduce the heat-trapping emissions that cause global warming.


What have the standards achieved?

  • California started protecting the health of state residents with air quality requirements for cars and trucks over forty years ago. California first adopted low emission vehicle standards in 1990 in order to address the pressing need to clean up the unhealthy air. In 2004, California developed the nation’s first ever standards for reducing heat trapping emissions from new cars. 
  • The global warming standards, applying to model years 2009 through 2016, cut heat trapping emissions 30 percent compared to new vehicles in 2002 when fully implemented. 13 other states followed California’s lead, comprising about one-third of new car sales. The auto industry fought these standards in the court, losing every case. 


Is California’s leadership bringing about federal action?

  • In 2009, President Obama announced that the federal government would support California’s right to set vehicle standards for heat trapping emissions, and that the federal government would set national standards modeled after California.
  • This new federal action, to be finalized in March, 2010, will set the first national tailpipe heat-trapping emissions standard for vehicles at an average of about 250 grams per mile.


Why do we need clean car standards for beyond 2016?

  • California officials are developing regulations for the second stage of the state’s clean car standards for model years 2017 to 2025.
  • These standards are vital to ensure that the progress toward cleaner cars made on the state and federal level through 2016 do not stagnate in the way that federal fuel economy standards did from the 1970s until 2005. Without this progress, California, cannot meet its climate goals of reduce heat-trapping emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020.


How will the Union of Concerned Scientists be engaged?

  • UCS experts in advanced vehicle technologies will be honest brokers in assessing the technology, separating hype from reality.
     
Last Revised: 02/11/10