For over half a century, California has been at the forefront of efforts to reduce pollution from vehicles. This long struggle to get cleaner air in California is one of necessity; pollution from California’s millions of cars and trucks, combined with its unique climate and geography have led to the state having consistently the worst air pollution in the nation. In the more than 50-year history of the Clean Air Act, California has yet to fully meet EPA’s national air quality standards for all pollutants.
The pollution from refueling and driving gasoline-powered passenger cars, trucks, and SUVs harms public health, primarily from the formation of fine particulate matter. This pollution causes lung diseases such as asthma, is linked to low birth weight, and kills people with cardiovascular diseases like stroke and heart attacks. And of course, burning gasoline produces carbon dioxide, leading to further damage from climate change such as excessive heat and increased severe wildfires.
These damages are an unavoidable consequence of using and burning gasoline. More-efficient gasoline vehicles are better than less-efficient ones for climate emissions, but given the magnitude of reductions needed, there simply is no way to protect our health and our climate by simply making better gasoline cars. For this reason, California needs to move from gasoline and diesel to electricity to power the vehicles on the state’s roads.
California first set rules for automakers to make zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) in 1990. Since then, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has set targets to require an increasing fraction of ZEVs. In 2012, CARB set rules that require about 6 percent of model year 2025 vehicles to be battery-electric or fuel cell vehicles. In 2022, CARB adopted the Advanced Clean Car II (ACC II) rules for model year 2026 through 2035 vehicles that go further and require at least 80% fully-electric ZEV sales by 2035. These rules were developed over a 2-year period, with extensive study for feasibility and ample opportunities for input from all automakers.
Toyota takes its polluter agenda to Congress
Toyota has joined fossil fuel companies in asking the US Senate to take the unprecedented action of preventing California from taking necessary steps to slow climate change and protect its residents from air pollution that is making people sick and shortening lives. It may come as a surprise to Toyota customers that the company responsible for the Prius is actively working to undermine environmental standards for vehicles. But Toyota isn’t trying to hide.
Toyota went so far as to ask its own employees to lobby the Senate to kill the Advanced Clean Cars II program through the Congressional Review Act (CRA), an action that Governor Newsom rightly calls out as illegal. Toyota is also actively supporting legislation by Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno to take away California’s authority to reduce emissions and Toyota Motor North America’s chief operating officer penned an opinion article that asked the Trump administration to rollback EPA vehicle regulations, halt California’s ACCII program, and end federal EV incentives. And this is not new, as Toyota has been the top financer of climate deniers in Congress and lobbied against Biden administration efforts to reduce tailpipe pollution.
Toyota has chosen not to develop and offer ZEVs in volume
All automakers have had decades of notice that California was moving in this direction, and many are making great strides in offering compelling ZEV options in increasingly large numbers. For example, Hyundai hit 30% EV sales in California in 2024 with 6 models available. And all US, Korean, and European automakers were above 15% EV sales last year.
However, Japanese automakers have lagged significantly behind, and Toyota in particular has been vocal that they are uninterested in making ZEVs available in California. As the top seller of vehicles in California and one of the largest automakers in the world, Toyota has the capacity to be a leader and the market power to accelerate a transition to cleaner vehicles but has instead actively lobbied against it, both in the US and elsewhere.
Toyota has invested in hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, a ZEV option that was promising decades ago, but is now clearly the wrong option for most passenger vehicles. But this focus on hydrogen is not an excuse for ignoring the last decade of improvements in plug-in electric vehicles. Other companies (like Hyundai) have developed and sold fuel cell cars in California while still being able to also develop and sell multiple battery electric vehicle models.
Toyota needs to go “Beyond Zero” effort on all-electric vehicles
While Toyota has fallen far behind on electric cars, they have stormed ahead with green marketing. Toyota is promoting a “Beyond Zero” campaign while falling behind nearly every other automaker on Zero Emission Vehicles. Splashy Olympics ads won’t help athletes at the Los Angeles games breathe easier. And while the hybrid Prius was a step forward for efficiency (and the iconic “green” car), that was 25 years ago.
Hybrids like the Prius are more efficient and therefore are better than gas guzzlers, but they just can’t deliver pollution reductions needed. Like cutting back on smoking from 2 packs a day to one, it is good start, but what’s needed to address climate change damage and exposure to air pollution is a transition away from burning fossil fuels altogether.
Clean car rules may be erased, but air pollution and climate change will stay
Other auto companies have made significant investments in electric vehicles that have led to more clean vehicle choices for buyers in California and are well on their way to meeting their regulatory requirements. It’s unfair to set the bar lower and reward bad actors. If this effort by Toyota is successful, they may get some short-term profits, but we all suffer the impacts of greater auto pollution and climate damage.
And if California’s vehicle regulations are removed, it will exacerbate already difficult problems. California still needs to meet federal air quality standards and still has state targets to reduce climate-changing emissions. Where then will emissions reductions come from if California can’t make progress on vehicle emissions? Will we have to forgo the comparably easy solution of moving from gasoline to electricity for transportation to the much harder problem of reducing emissions from sectors like agriculture or industrial sources?
While Toyota can push Congress to roll back tailpipe pollution standards, Congress can’t decree the end of exposure to smog or stop damage from climate change with a CRA action. The burdens of tailpipe pollution will still be with us; we will just be barred from using one of the most promising solutions.