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DETROIT (AP) – General Motors has announced it will ask the federal government for a national fuel consumption standard, requiring a percentage of automaker sales to be zero-emission vehicles.
Mark Reuss, GM's executive vice president of product development, said the company would suggest that a certain percentage of sales nationwide be made up of vehicles running on electricity or hydrogen fuel cells.
"A national zero emission program will determine the scale and infrastructure investments needed to enable the United States to lead the way toward a zero emission future," Reuss said.
GM, the country's largest automaker, said Friday its request in a Trump administration proposal to lower the fuel and fuel consumption standards of the Obama era, freezing them to 2020 levels instead to harden them gradually.
California Governor Jerry Brown, whose state was one of the many opponents of mileage reduction, raised objections to the Trump plan, ahead of Interstate 5 in Sacramento on Friday to champion the cause of cleaner cars and condemn the proposal of the administration.
"Stupidly, it forces energy-guzzlers to replace zero-emission clean vehicles," Brown told reporters as truck and passenger traffic swept past. "Bad way to do it, Donald. Scramble with that. Wrong."
Under a regulation developed by the Environmental Protection Agency at the end of the Obama administration, the fleet of new vehicles is expected to reach 36 km / gallon (15 km / liter) from the US. here 2025, or 10 km / gallon (4 km / liter) more than the current requirement.
But the Trump Administration's preferred plan is to freeze the standards starting in 2021. Officials said that foregoing the more stringent fuel economy requirements would make vehicles more affordable, allowing consumers to have safer cars more quickly.
GM said Thursday that it did not support the freeze, but wanted some flexibility to handle the shift from car consumers to less efficient SUVs and trucks.
Its proposed requirement would be based on current standards now required in California and nine other states. Under these rules, GM must sell at least 2,200 all-electric vehicles in California this year, or about 1.1 percent of the approximately 200,000 cars, trucks and SUVs normally sold each year in that state.
California sets requirements based on a complex formula that takes into account the total number of vehicles sold by a builder and gives credits for sales of all-electric vehicles and partial credits for hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles rechargeable. Credits can be banked or sold to other automakers who need it.
GM's proposal would impose lower emission vehicle requirements than California, but would extend them to the entire country. Needs would increase gradually until 2025.
Reuss said GM's proposal was a starting point for discussions on a set of national standards for fuel-efficient and zero-emission vehicles.
"We really want a set of national standards," he said. "Multi-standard engineering is very expensive and frankly useless."
The federal and California gasoline consumption standards have been the same since 2010. But if the administration of President Donald Trump ended up easing the requirements, it could create two standards, one for California and the states that would follow, and another for the rest of the country.
California, whose sole authority to establish its own vehicle emission standards would be canceled under the administration's proposal, submitted more than 400 pages of analyzes rejecting the plan and the research that underpinned it. .
California argues that freeze emission standards for six model years would exacerbate climate change, curb research on cleaner technologies and lead to increased gasoline spending. It also indicates that the plan is endangering the US auto industry by allowing other countries to take the lead in developing affordable electric vehicles and batteries.
"I think a lot of automakers know that they have to build clean, electric or hydrogen cars," Brown said at Friday's interstate news conference. "Otherwise, they will work for Chinese companies."
In addition, 21 attorneys general and five cities signed a letter stating that the proposal of the administration was illegal.
Trump could challenge California's power to set its own standards, set out in the Clean Air Act, which could be a long legal battle as California is committed to defending its quest for pollution reduction.
EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler has said he wants a nation-wide standard for mileage. Mr. Wheeler "is committed to working seriously with the states and stakeholders to find a solution as and when comments on the new proposal are taken into account," said spokesman the agency, James Hewitt.
Environmental groups are always likely to oppose any change in standards. Daniel Becker of the Environmental Climate Group, Safe Climate Campaign, said automakers like GM wanted the federal government to set standards rather than California because it's easier to push for loopholes in Washington.
"Automakers want to be able to make a small number of electric vehicles and a lot of SUVs and other energy-consuming trucks instead of complying with existing mileage and emission rules," said Becker.
The deadline for written comments on Trump 's administration plan was due on Friday, with a final decision expected in March.
GM, which offers the fully electric Chevrolet Bolt with a range of 238 km and the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, has invested millions of dollars to develop battery technology. Additional sales of electric vehicles in the country would help improve its bottom line. The company has promised to introduce 20 new 100% electric vehicles in the world by 2023.
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Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington, DC, and Jonathan J. Cooper in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.
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