Sunday, December 21, 1997

States deserve right to test 'cleaner' cars

To the chagrin of environmental utopians who happily envision the day when Americans glide to and from work on solar-powered bicycles, the internal combustion engine keeps getting lighter, less polluting and more efficient.

Now GM and Ford say they can produce a "super clean" gasoline-burning engine that will eliminate 99 percent of smog-causing emissions. The clean-burning engines are made possible by improvements in catalytic converters and computerized engine controls.

Because the automakers want to ensure a large enough market to make production of the cars worthwhile, they are asking the 12 Northeastern states to pledge not to adopt California's zero-emission standard.

Those states are under the gun to clean up their air, but the Environmental Protection Agency says it's OK for the states to work out a deal. The states should do so; it's a good compromise. Even then, an enormous amount of money is being spent to attack the minuscule amount of pollution remaining in a modern car engine.

The problem with the zero-emission standard is that it means electric cars. And despite heroic efforts by regulators to mandate electric cars into existence, as yet there is no such vehicle as an affordable, practical electric car. The battery technology just isn't there.

GM has an electric car of limited range and capacity, the EV-1, which it is leasing for $400 to $500 a month, the lease rate of a luxury car, and even then the automaker is subsidizing the lease. Toyota is selling a hybrid, the Prius, that runs on both gasoline and electricity, and plans to sell it in the U.S. in 2001. The Prius sells for $17,200 but costs Toyota $39,000, an amount that will buy two Buicks.

Somebody is going to have to pay for this wishful thinking, and that somebody is the American car-buying public, which will go about its business and ignore the question of emissions controls until it is stuck with the bill in terms of dollars and inconvenience. And then it will overreact against pollution controls generally. California especially should know that. Its voters have spoken decisively through ballot initiatives on tax limitations and affirmative action in backlash to governmental overreaching.