Nissan has announced it began selling its green-car credits under California’s clean-air rules.
The only automaker that had previously disclosed doing so is Tesla Motors.
The state of California requires large automakers to sell electric or other zero-emission vehicles in proportion to their share of the largest U.S. state market for cars and trucks.
Nissan has delivered enough of its LEAF electric hatchbacks that it has started selling excess credits, Executive Vice President Andy Palmer told reporters in Irvine, California, this week.
“We’ve got carbon credits to sell, and we’re selling them — California ZEV credits,” Palmer said. He didn’t elaborate, and the Yokohama, Japan-based company declined to provide details about timing, price or purchasers.
U.S. demand for plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles has been pushed by California’s requirement for such vehicles to ease emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide and other exhaust gases and by federal rules aimed at doubling fuel-efficiency by 2025. The state’s target is to get 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025.
Tesla, too small to be required to accrue the ZEV credits under California’s pollution rules, has so far been the main seller.
[source: Bloomberg]
