May 29, eight states - California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont - unveiled the Multi-State ZEV Action Plan, a bi-coastal collaborative with the goal of making zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) a sustainable reality.
"Today, we're putting a foot to the pedal to get more green cars on the road," said California governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. in a press release on Thursday.
The plan, which aims to develop infrastructure, coordinated codes, policies and standards to create a market prepared for 3.3 million ZEVs by 2025, rests on 11 Key Actions:
- Promote the availability and marketing of ZEVs
- Encourage private fleets such as taxi services
- Acquire and use ZEVs
- Promote planning and investment in ZEV infrastructure
- Increase the number of ZEVs used in government and city official fleets
- Remove barriers to installing charging stations
- Provide clear and uniform signage for charging stations
- Track progress toward the 3.3 million vehicle goal
- Promote workplace charging, to provide incentives for ZEV purchase
- Remove barriers to selling electricity as vehicle fuel and to develop
- Create access and compatibility for charging networks.
Like everyone having the same smartphone and on the same network plan, the Multi-State ZEV Action Plan seeks to align infrastructure, policy and access to streamline and promote the integration of ZEVs into our daily driving lives.
"Implementation of the action plan will support the arrival of more than 3 million zero-emission vehicles in our states by 2025 and serve as a roadmap for a healthier, more sustainable transportation sector on both coasts," said Maryland governor Martin O'Malley in last week's press release.
Today, however, while there are about two dozen electric or hybrid car models on the market, zero emission cars are not nearly as popular.
"The auto industry's push into EVs has fallen short of expectations," Morgan Stanley's Adam Jones wrote in a recent research memo, "EVs are Dead, Long Live TSLA!" Jones predicts that reaching a 1 percent market penetration of ZEVs by 2020 would be "respectable" - analysts originally predicted that zero emission cars would make up 10 percent of the market by 2020.
But with increased accessibility to charging stations, ZEV-friendly infrastructure, policy and auto repair, the market could very well take skeptics, even professionals like Jones, by surprise.
"The multi-state ZEV group now has an action plan to guide us through development and deployment of zero emission vehicle infrastructure on both coasts," said Vermont governor Peter Shumlin in a press release.
If you build it, they just might come.