Ford C Max Energi PHEV
Residents of Los Angeles neighborhoods with low-income will get the opportunity to enjoy the full benefits offered by hybrid and electric cars. This is following the launch of a car-sharing program that is funded by a state grant worth 1.6 million dollars. This was announced about two weeks ago. This grant, which was given to Los Angeles city, is set to fund the program for three years and within this time, residents of south, east and central neighborhoods of LA will get to share 100 hybrid and electric vehicles. The neighborhoods will also see the installation and maintenance of charging stations and the main goal will be to serve about seven thousand car-sharers.
The funding was announced by Pro Tempore Kevin De Leon, the Senate President who authored the project, in collaboration with advocacy organizations’ representatives and city officials in MacArthur. Launching of part of the program will be done in the same venue. The senate president emphasized the need to fight climate change and smog so that the residents’ kids could inhale clean air and this necessitates coming up with transportation forms that do not depend on contaminant fossil fuels. He further added that the pilot program for the electric car-sharing project was an indication of what was to come in the future. It is a representation of a form of change in behavior, infrastructure and policy, which is greatly needed.
The revenue obtained from the efforts of the state is the driving force of the car-sharing project. Reducing air pollution via cap-and–trade is under Assembly bill AB32, whereby companies like oil refineries obtain allowances or permits to delay the need to minimize the emission of greenhouse gasses. Dwindling supplies leads to a rise in the cost of the mentioned permits, making pollution less cost-effective with time. De Leon also authored another bill, Senate bill SB 535, directing 25% of cap-and-trade revenues to programs s to help in cleaning the air in areas that have higher levels of poverty and higher pollution levels. About 969 million dollars revenue had been brought by the state as per the end of last year. The revenue in question was from auctions of cap-and-trade. By mid next year, this revenue has been projected to increase to about 5.5 billion dollars. The electric vehicle-sharing project is just a tip of the iceberg, considering the fact that numerous plans are underway to enable low and average-income families in California to gain access to not only electric cars, but also clean-emission cars.