The package continues California’s leadership role in developing innovative and ground breaking standards for vehicles. It is designed to clean the air, fight climate change, and deliver savings to consumers and drive job development in California. As a result of the new rules, vehicles sold in 2025 will cut fuel costs at the pump by at least 40% along with a 50% reduction in the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Mary D. Nichols, ARB chairman, commented: ‘California once again leads the nation in setting the toughest standards that will deliver the cleanest vehicles. This package assures the development of environmentally superior cars that will continue to deliver the performance, utility, and safety vehicle owners have come to expect.”

The Advanced Clean Cars program combines the control of smog- and soot causing pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions into a single coordinated package of requirements for model years 2015 through 2025.  The package also includes a zero-emission vehicle mandate as the focused technology-forcing element, requiring manufacturers to produce increasing numbers of zero-emission vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in the 2018-2025 model years.

“California’s groundbreaking requirement for steadily increasing numbers of zero-emission vehicles provides the underpinning we need for a rapid shift to cars that reduce our dependence on petroleum and toward cheaper and cleaner alternative domestic fuels like electricity and hydrogen.”

The Advanced Clean Cars package of regulations is designed to deliver:  

• A 47% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, compared to today’s levels;
• A further 75% reduction in smog-forming emissions by 2025;
• One in seven new cars sold in 2025 (15.4%) be a zero-emission or plug-in hybrid vehicle;
• A total of 1.4m zero-emission and plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road in California by 2025;
• A reduction of 40m tons of greenhouse gases in 2025, the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road; and,
• A savings of $5bn in operating costs in 2025 for California drivers. This will rise to $10bn in 2030 when more advanced cars are on the road.