Oil. The one word that can sum up most of the political issues in the United States with the development of renewable energy sourced vehicles. As the United States battles out a highly expensive war in Iraq, in what is said to be Oil fuelled, their stance on erradicating the dependance on oil is weak.

With over US$450 billion being spent on the war in Iraq which is justified as a “war on terrorism”, many people see the war to keep Iraq’s oil reserves available to the United States. Imagine the amount of research and development $450 billion could advance electric vehicle technology, or even hydrogen fuel cell technology. It would eradicate the dependence on imported oil and would create a much cleaner environment.

A great example of a political interference was the California Air Resources Boards Regulations for Zero Emissions Vehicles. The Zero Emission Vehicles mandate in 1990 required that 2% of cars sold in California by 1998 would have to be ZEV’s, then 5% ov vehicles sold to be ZEV’s in 2001 and then 10% of vehicles sold to be ZEV’s by 2003.

The study will also look at the emissions created from each of these vehicles for every kilometer driven, this will show how each car damages the environment slowly.

With this new mandate, General Motors began development of the “EV1” and by 1996 the vehicles were being leased to customers. The automakers werent warming to the Zero Emission Vehicles mandate and decided to fight against the California Air Resources Board, winning and having the ZEV mandate removed. This led to all of the EV1’s to be returned to GM after the lease period, and most were eventually destroyed.

The fight against the Zero Emission Vehicles Mandate wasnt just from the automakers, the oil companies got involved as well as the George W Bush Administration. Now it is quite convenient that Dick Cheney, Andrew Card, and Condoleezza Rice, all apart of Bush’s chief administration, were heads of oil and auto companies. The push by Bush was the main reason that the California Air Resource Board reverted their ZEV mandate.