On Thursday, March 27, the California Air Resources Board voted to lower the required quantity of emission-free vehicles, in particular all-electric and fuel-cell cars, to be sold in the state over a three-year period beginning in 2012 by 70 percent. The estimated cost to car makers to meet the goal over the stated period is $1 billion annually.

The Board's decision has the effect of upping the ante on sales of plug-in hybrids over the same timespan, bolstering the potential for research dollars in the technology that has, until now, been more an oddity than a day-to-day reality.

A representative for General Motors, David Barthmuss, was quoted in The New York Times as saying that the attendees at the meeting "are still scratching our heads" over the decision, adding, however, that both the Chevrolet Volt and the Saturn Vue would likely be sold in large numbers in the state in response to the Board's action. The Volt uses gasoline only as a means to power the vehicle's battery and the Saturn Vue is a full plug-in hybrid.

In the same article, Sheila Lynch, executive director of the non-profit Northeast Advanced Vehicle Consortium lauded California's role in pushing automakers to make better decisions over the past 20 years. She said that due to the failure of the first electric vehicles to win wide acceptance may have caused the board's decision to tread lightly in pushing new technologies.