The California Air Resources Board (ARB) is considering amendments to the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) regulation that would relax the requirements for Intermediate Volume Manufacturers (IVMs) by giving them additional time and allowing them to pool compliance obligations in the 10 ZEV states.

As defined by ARB, an IVM is any manufacturer with California sales between 4,501 and 20,000 light- and medium-duty vehicles per year, beginning with the 2018 model year. IVMs include Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Volvo.

Those with a taste for alphabet soup may wish to parse the details of the proposed changes, which have to do with the relative numbers of ZEVs, PZEVs and TZEVs that IVMs will have to produce. We’ll just sum it up by saying that ARB’s idea is to make the regulations fairer for the IVMs, which do not have the same financial resources to devote to R&D and marketing that the large automakers do.

The new deal doesn’t seem to amount to any major watering-down of ARB’s emissions requirements. The agency calculates that the proposed modifications will reduce California ZEV deliveries by less than two percent in the 2018 through 2025 timeframe, and will not result in any net loss in emissions reductions.

Source: ARB via Green Car Congress
Image: Nicolas Raymond/Flickr