Will Electric Car Mandate Hurt State? : Autos: A study says introducing the vehicles may make California’s economy and air worse. Proponents hotly disagree.

California’s mandate that auto makers begin selling electric cars by 1998 could hurt the auto industry, depress state economic growth and make air pollution worse, not better, according to a report to be released today by the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation.

“The future of the EV [electric vehicle] market, whatever it might be, should be left to the private sector, and the role of the government should be minimal,” the report concludes.

Sponsored by the Libertarian think tank, the report was written by Peter Gordon, an associate dean of the USC School of Urban and Regional Planning, and Harry W. Richardson, professor of economics and planning at the university.

Citing previous studies and auto industry estimates, the study found that the state mandate could cost a family of four as much as $1,030 annually in higher energy costs, increased taxes for electric car subsidies and higher prices for conventional cars, which the authors conclude will have to be priced higher to help offset losses incurred on electric vehicles.

Proponents of the cars, including environmentalists and the fledgling alternative-vehicle industry, disputed the study.

“Their cost estimates are based on very highly inflated cost estimates supplied to them by auto and oil companies,” said Roland Hwang, an engineer and senior analyst with the San Francisco office of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “ . . . It’s a house of cards. Once you take away the high cost estimates for electric vehicles, everything falls apart.”

Hwang cited research that costs for electric and gasoline cars over the lives of the vehicles will be roughly equal.

Indeed, one recent study cited in the Reason Foundation report, “Near-Term Electric Vehicle Costs”--commissioned by EV proponent Northeast Alternative Vehicle Consortium and written by Tufts University researchers-- concluded that the cost of producing electric cars will probably fall up to 45% over the next four years. By then, the total cost to buy and operate an electric car will be about the same as for a conventional gasoline car of the same size.

“It comes down to what you want to give the most credence to,” said Kenneth P. Green, Reason Foundation senior policy analyst, who edited the new study.

“The Tufts study gives a lot of credence to people involved in the industry of building electric vehicles or providing electric power. And I would actually give more credence to the auto industry than a prospective seller . . . a vendor who would like to get into the market.”

Green cited price estimates for electric vehicles of $25,000 to $40,000. Since auto makers could not hope to sell limited-range electric cars at that price, the study contends, manufacturers would charge less and spread the higher cost across their conventional new cars. This would prompt consumers to delay buying newer, less-polluting cars.

But EV proponents say electric vehicles are just one of a wide range of pollution-control strategies that will have to be imposed to meet the federal Clean Air Act. If electric cars are not required, there will be more pressure for cutting back further on such pollution sources as manufacturing plants, which employ thousands.

“What they don’t say [in the Reason study] is that particularly in the Los Angeles area, there are air quality standards that have to be met,” said John N. Stearns, director of Project California, a public-private initiative to promote an advanced transportation industry.