We gather six government-complaint electric appliances for
the quietest, slowest comparo ever.
The makers of the cars you see here were dragged kicking,
screaming, and, in some cases, litigating into eligibility for this test. If truth
were ever told, then these automakers would undoubtedly say that they’d rather
not be here at all, thank you very much; that all of their accumulated business
acumen and experience rages against the absurdity of a $37,000 Ford Focus with
a 64-mile driving range.
Yet, here they are, with six compacts at similarly loony
prices, and utility that amounts to, as senior online editor Ron Sessions says,
“cars with one-gallon gas tanks that take five hours to fill.” Why do they even
exist? Because government simply will not get off the industry’s back.
Honda currently
sells about 225,000 cars per year in California
It started with a 1990 California mandate for automakers to
sell electric vehicles there. Since then, the mandate has morphed – shocked
into amendment by the realities of the marketplace, by the unpredictable march
of technology, by a couple of lawsuits, and by furious negotiation. The mandate
has spread, with seven Northeast states plus Oregon and Maryland also adopting
California’s zero-emission-vehicle (ZEV) requirements.
The executive summary is that high-volume automakers must
make ZEVs a growing percentage of their annual sales. Here’s a highly
simplified example: Honda currently sells about 225,000 cars per year in
California. In 2015, it has to sell 2250 EVs to meet the mandate. Assuming
Honda’s annual sales volume stays the same, it would have to sell same, it
would have to sell Just in California. Add in the seven Northeast states
currently signed on, which account for 40 percent of Honda’s total sales
volume, and you’re looking at 80,000 Honda EV sales per year by 2025.
However, one thing you should know is that since lawsuits in
2002 by GM and other players, California has considerably altered the rule,
expanding the definition of ZEVs and creating an elaborate system of vehicle
rankings and carbon credits (Tesla does a good business selling its abundance
of credits to other companies), which permits automakers to fulfill their ZEV
requirement using a variety of means.
The executive summary
is that high-volume automakers must make ZEVs a growing percentage of their
annual sales
At the bottom and earning the fewest credits, or the
“bronze” cars under California’s code, are extremely clean but conventionally
powered gasoline cars. The “silver” and “silver-plus” vehicles are mostly
hybrids and plug-in hybrids, while “gold” is bestowed on vehicles emitting
absolutely zero tailpipe emissions, such as fuel-cell cars and the pure
electrics you see here.
The fact is that automakers won’t see much gold from the
golds, especially since most of these cars are available at heavily subsidized
lease rates. And research shows more electric miles are being rolled up, car to
car, by owners of plug-in hybrids than by pure EVs, which is not altering the
industry’s current grim reality. Backed against a wall – though still pushing
for changes – carmakers have begun rolling the assembly lines.
The result is our assortment of six small cars whose prices,
only two of which begin under $30,000 before federal and state tax incentives,
seem comical. And we haven’t even mentioned our logistical gymnastics to keep
them charged.
We staged the test in wintery-cold Lancaster, California, in
the high Mojave Desert. The location was selected not for its scenery, climate,
cuisine, or thriving hipster tech scene, but because it was close enough to our
testing venue at the remote Hyundai proving grounds to be reached on a charge.
We assembled only the most affordable electrics, excluding Tesla because its
one vehicle is way expensive, and the Model S’s huge battery would have given
it an unfair advantage. We asked Mitsubishi for an example of its electric car,
the i-MiEV, but the company hadn’t yet received any updated-for-2014 models.
The government-mandated green initiative is here to stay,
which is why we broke out the test gear. For better or worse, this collection
of high-tech golds is the industry’s newest niche. We could only drive them
about 100 miles over two days with-out risking a long walk, which gave us a lot
of time to think. Here are the conclusions.
