CARB chair calls hydrogen/EV infighting "madness"

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While the California Air Resources Board has certainly played a huge role in putting cleaner vehicles on the road over the years, some plug-in vehicle advocates have a bone to pick with Chairman Mary Nichols. During the recent UC Berkeley Energy Symposium, Nichols said she had a problem with plug-in proponents as well. Well, not just with them, but with advocates who push one type of technology and have no room in their green motoring vision for another. Specifically, Nichols said that:

"There is one thing that has really frustrated me in the last couple of years...it has been the ideological, I would almost say theological, debate between the people who think that hydrogen fuel cells are the answer and the people who think that only battery electric vehicles are the answer. Each of them do their best to trash the credibility, viability and good faith of the other side. ... From the point of view of a regulator, this is madness."

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/02/28/carb-chair-calls-all-this-hydrogen-battery-fighting-madness/

The comments following the article sum up the controversy nicely:

I am surprised and frustrated that Mary Nichols' would dare to state that strong advocacy of either hydrogen fuel-cell or battery electric vehicles is "madness."

My surprise is because it sounds like she is now "technology neutral," and thus does not favor one solution over another. My frustration is because her record reveals just the opposite.

Is it not true that CARB's mandate gives Type IV (5 credits) ONLY to fuel-cell vehicles?

Is it not true that CARBs' mandate gives Type III (4 credits) to fuel-cell vehicles with a range of at least 100-200 miles, yet only to battery electric vehicles if they have a range of over 200 miles?

Is it not true that battery electric vehicles with the same range as the Type III fuel-cell vehicles above only qualify for Type II (3 credits)?

Is it not true that Nichols' right-hand man on CARB, Dan Sperling, is the co-director of UC Davis's "Hydrogen Pathways Program" --which receives funding from ConocoPhillips, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, British Petroleum?

Well, CARB didn't specifically limit the "type IV" credit only to H2 FC cars, they just wrote the rules so it would only apply to H2FC vehicles, such as requiring a "10 minute or less refill time".

But along comes "10 minute charge" batteries from companies like Altairnano and Toshiba, and Aerovironments successfully demonstrated a "10 minute or less" EV charger using those high performance batteries. Now that battery EVs could qualify for those "type IV" credits, the H2 promoters are in a panic. The plug-in revolution is coming, and it threatens to totally overwhelm the market and render H2 cars obsolete even before they can come to market.

Of course, those whose livelyhood depend on the hydrogen hype reacted badly, who could blame them? But what is baffling is why some continue to push H2, though there is no obvious motive for them to do so.

Apparently to a Governor "Hydrogen Hummer" Schwarzenegger appointee, this is being "neutral". :eyes:

[Confusious]

1. Apparently, the fellow didn't hear the quote right

"There is one thing that has really frustrated me in the last couple of years...it has been the ideological, I would almost say theological, debate between the people who think that hydrogen fuel cells are the answer and the people who think that only battery electric vehicles are the answer. Each of them do their best to trash the credibility, viability and good faith of the other side. ... From the point of view of a regulator, this is madness."

I am surprised and frustrated that Mary Nichols' would dare to state that strong advocacy of either hydrogen fuel-cell or battery electric vehicles is "madness."

She's saying that trashing the "credibility, viability and good faith of the other side" is madness. They are both trying to accomplish the same thing, get rid of the gas machines.

It's kind of like the difference between insanity and genius. Go to far one way, and you go off the deep end. This guy has. He goes into a long diatribe about how shes "not neutral", when that wasn't the point of what she said.

I'm not commenting on anything else.

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2. Not much science to support the viability of hydrogen

so trashing the dedication of immense resources to what many view as a dead end is fair game.

Especially in light of the fact there is a conflict of interest involved.