October 24th, 2014 by Christopher DeMorroÂ
September 30th marked the end of the year as far as the California Air Resource Board is concerned, and the government regulator released its annual list of the top buyers and sellers of Zero Emissions Vehicle credits. While Nissan and Tesla topping the list shouldn’t surprise anybody, Fiat placing in third is a bit of an eyebrow raiser.
So wait, what’s a ZEV credit? California forces automakers (based on their sales) to sell a certain number of zero emissions vehicles in order to generate credits; the more ZEVs you sell, the more credits you earn. Companies with a positive credit balance can sell them to other manufacturers who don’t meet the set standard at an undisclosed rate.
The ZEV credit system has helped Tesla turn a profit in the past, but this year Green Car Congress reports that Nissan sold the most ZEV credits, transferring a total of 663.6 credits to other automakers; last year Nissan earned just 25 ZEV credits to sell. Tesla came in a close second with 650.195 credits earned by the all-electric automaker, almost exactly half of what it earned last year. And in a surprising third place is Fiat, which generated some 252 credits through sales of their sole plug-in car, the Fiat 500E. Maybe Marchionne can stop crying about EVs now?
Of course its not all sunshine in the Golden State, as some automakers have to shell out big bucks to meet their ZEV credit requirements. Mercedes-Benz had to purchase 663.5 credits, and Honda had to shell out for 542.5 credits, while Chrysler had to scoop up 237.8 credits, all but wiping out the credits earned by sister company Fiat. Perhaps that plug-in hybrid minivan can change all that?
The most drastic change though came in GM, which went from buying over 876 ZEV credits last year to needing to buy just 4.4 this year. That’s a HUGE turnaround, and can be attributed to steady Chevy Volt sales, as well as the Chevy Spark EV (the Cadillac ELR may have helped too, but not that much).
Eventually the goal is to have all the major automakers earning their own ZEV credits, and California is well on its way with over 100,000 plug-in cars on its roads already.
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