California Hybrid Cars

California hybrid cars laws and initiatives have to do with the states emission standards and ways to use the roads, via car pool lanes, for example.

California is widely known as the state with the most ambitions to have hybrid and other alternative fuel cars on their roads en masse.

One of the most influential of the state's regulatory bodies in relation to hybrid cars is the California Air Resources Board, which has a website at www.arb.ca.gov.

Among the areas under the Boards authority:

The ARB is authorized to adopt standards, rules and regulations to achieve the maximum degree of emission reduction possible from vehicular and other mobile sources in order to accomplish the attainment of the state ambient air quality standards at the earliest practicable date.

These standards may or may not favor fuel efficient cars, but, however, the general tendency has been in California towards more beneficial regulations for fuel efficient cars.

Within this mandate, the Board has also allowed certain types of hybrid cars to use carpool lanes in the state, as described at

www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/carpool/carpool.htm

The Californian state has been very active in all areas promoting reductions in greenhouse emissions from motor vehicles and improving the mileage standards of all the cars in their roads.

Most of the framework in this regard was done through a legislature bill that was signed into state law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, that promises to reduce California's greenhouse emissions by 25 percent by the year 2020.


From California hybrid cars page to Hybrid Cars Guide index