SAN FRANCISCO – Seeking to influence other states and Washington, California air regulators passed sweeping auto emission standards Friday that include a mandate to have 1.4 million electric and hybrid vehicles on state roads by 2025.

The California Air Resources Board unanimously approved the new rules that require that one in seven of the new cars sold in the state in 2025 be an electric or other zero-emission vehicle. The plan also mandates a 75 percent reduction in smog-forming pollutants by 2025, and a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from today’s standards.

Automakers worked with the board and federal regulators on the greenhouse gas mandates in an effort to create one national standard for those pollutants.

“Today’s vote represents a new chapter for clean cars in California and in the nation as a whole,” said Mary Nichols, the board’s chairman. “Californians have always loved their cars. We buy a lot of them and drive them. Now we will have cleaner and more efficient cars to love.”

California’s auto emissions standards are influential and often more strict than federal rules. The state began passing regulations for cleaner cars in the 1960s to help ease some of the world’s worst smog, and has since helped spur the auto industry’s innovations in emissions-control technology.

Currently 14 other states — including New York, Washington and Massachusetts — have adopted California’s smog emissions rules as their own.

California also previously set zero-emissions vehicle mandates, which 10 other states also adopted.

Companies including Ford Motor Corp., Chrysler Group LLC, General Motors Co., Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and others submitted testimony Thursday supportive of the new standards.

Trade groups representing auto dealers worried that the new regulations would increase the costs of vehicles for consumers and stifle the industry’s growth. The California New Car Dealers Association and other industry groups representing those who sell cars said the board is overestimating consumer demand for electric vehicles and other so-called zero-emission vehicles.

The board’s research staff disputes the argument from dealers that the mandates for new technology will increase costs for cars. They point to steady increases in hybrid and other sales and argue that fuel cost savings will make up for any vehicle price increase.

One of the nation’s foremost consumer groups, the Consumers’ Union, the policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports, supported the changes.

 

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