GM calls for an emissions-credit program that will cover the entire US

A Chevy Bolt EV.Chevrolet

• General Motors has proposed a National Zero Emissions Vehicle (NZEV) program.
• The program would be based on a current system of ZEV credits used by California and nine other states.
• GM, which is rolling out 20 new electric vehicles by 2023, believes an NZEV program would spur the development of more American-made electric cars and trucks.

On Friday, General Motors proposed a nationwide program for zero-emissions credits that would greatly extend the current nine-state framework and encourage automakers to introduce more electrified vehicles.

In a statement, GM said the National Zero Emissions Vehicle (NZEV) program “has the potential to place more than seven million long-range [electric vehicles] on the road by 2030, yielding a cumulative incremental reduction of 375 million tons of CO2 emissions between 2021 and 2030 over the existing ZEV program.”

At the moment, the ZEV program is limited to California and nine additional states.

What is ZEV? Read more about the program from this helpful primer published by The Union of Concerned Scientists.

GM offered the proposal as part of its comments on the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule for Model Years 2021-2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks, a process undertaken by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to review federal fuel-economy standards established under the Obama administration.

The Trump administration reopened the review process, a decision supported by the auto industry. Some environmental groups have opposed the move.

Trump vs. California vs. the auto industry

GM CEO Mary Barra and President Donald Trump.Getty Images

But carmakers have also found themselves in the awkward position of contending with a political showdown between Trump and California, which exercises a waiver from the EPA to set its own emissions standards. That prerogative goes all the way back to the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1963. And because California is such a large vehicle market, its standard is followed by numerous other states, making it something of a de facto national standard. 

The prospects of revoking the waiver has created a nightmare scenario for carmakers — one in which they would have to design and engineer vehicles to multiple standards, if California retains its own standards while elsewhere in the country, they’re rolled back.

In this context, GM’s proposal achieves two objectives.

• First, it seeks to create a nationwide emissions solution, based on the market-oriented ZEV-credit system already in place.
• Second, it supports GM’s ambitious objective of introducing 20 new electric vehicles by 2023, as well as CEO Mary Barra’s plan to push toward “zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion.”