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Presumably CARB had a reason for favoring fuel cell technology over electric. Taking their specifications for the top level ZEV credits as an indication of the problems with first generation electric vehicles they thought fuel cell tech would solve; the important thing was to obtain the enhanced performance. It’s ironic that fast charge capability is less important for BEV’s because they will be mostly recharged overnight using cheap power. It turns out that there’s sufficient idle generation and transmission capacity to convert 84% of the US vehicle fleet to battery power recharged at home.

Obviously, since Tesla’s batteries take hours to charge, it’s in their interest to support better credits for less capable electric vehicles at the expense of the Phoenix to level the playing field. The problem is that the fast charge capability is more than a loophole – it’s a solution.

CARB staffers think that Li-ion batteries are too expensive (as if fuel cell and hydrogen supply costs would scale lower than batteries and the existing electric power infrastructure). In fact, Dr. Gotcher at AltairNano testified that the Phoenix batteries can be manufactured on the same basic production line used for commodity Li-ion batteries – all that’s needed is sufficient demand to justify the investment.

But at the current price, because the maintenance footprint of BEV's is 25% of ICE vehicles, in addition to the fuel and maintenance advantages, fleet operators get a huge capital saving because it takes many fewer total vehicles to keep the required number in service. And individuals operating pick-ups getting less than 20mpg who drive more than 60 miles per day will have lower cost of ownership with a Phoenix SUT as well.

This is a niche worth supporting - particularly if it provides the bootstrap that enables battery makers to scale production to the next level where lower costs will make BEV’s more generally affordable. CARB needs to do better than Lucy when she’s holding the football for Charley Brown and not jerk the Level 3 specification out of the way just when Phoenix is ready to go into production.

Automakers' hydrogen bluff has been called: if they could sell fuel cell vehicles for under $250,000, the H2 to fuel them would still cost at least $10 per gallon-equivalent.
A decade late (and now under consumer pressure,) automakers, led by Mitsubishi and Subaru, are beginning to make battery electric vehicles for sale.