Gadgetory

whenever you find the word compliance usually suggest someone is doing something they didn't want to do because someone else made them do it in this case the someone who did the telling was the state of California which in 2012 told all the large and intermediate sized car makers in the state that a certain percentage of their annual sales had to be zero emissions vehicles that means battery electric cars or the even more rare hydrogen fuel cell vehicles all of a sudden oddities like electric Fiats and smart fortwo news and Honda fits and rav4s cropped up car makers that failed to sell the minimum percentage of zero emissions vehicles and this is figured out by a formula far too complex to relate here would then be subject to penalties that they can satisfy by buying expensive zero emissions credits from companies that do sell more than their share of zero emissions vehicles for example Tesla has made millions of dollars the last couple years selling credits because all they makers do emissions vehicles and they can sell them to car companies that make gas engine cars and not enough that don't spew not to say all zero emissions cars are compliance concessions the all-electric Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S are bonafide sellers but those two cars make up some 70% of the US evey market leading the rest of the list to be painted with the compliance car brush here's where it gets tricky plug-in hybrids they use both emitting gas and zero emissions electricity they can run some all are virtually none of their miles zero emissions depending on the owner uses the car not depending on the technology the automaker built in so it's not in the car makers control now recently those auto makers in California gone to the state and said hey give us a much bigger credit toward zero emissions when we sell a plug-in hybrid because they're using studies now that show frequently when plug-in hybrids are used in the real world they are in a zero emissions state that is closer to that of pure EVs and fuel cells more car tech demystify right now at CNET on cars comm click on car tech 101