PZEV – “Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle”
Have you seen these PZEV stickers and badges on cars? It stands for “partial zero emissions vehicle.”
The acronym was devised by the State of California, which makes sense, because it makes no sense. What part of zero are we talking about?
PZEV Defined
A partial zero emissions vehicle has zero evaporative emissions from its fuel system, has a 15 year (or 150,000 mile) emissions system warranty, and meets SULEV tailpipe emission standards.
So it appears there are two kinds of emissions in play here: evaporative and tailpipe. Evaporative emissions result from gasoline vapors escaping the vehicle’s fuel system. For the last 40 years, every car sold has had a fully sealed fuel system, resulting in zero evaporative emissions.
So if that’s really nothing special, it comes down to the warranty and the SULEV requirements. And since any manufacturer can put any arbitrary warranty they want on a car, it must be all about the SULEV requirement.
SULEV stands for Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle. No joke. To attain SULEV status, a car must emit 90% less tailpipe emissions than the average car in their model year. It’s like they are the cum laude students of their graduating class. If tailpipe emissions was the only class that counted.
Today I turned my car into a real ZEV with a simple modification: turning it off.
February 2nd, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Well, it’s actually dad. PZEV…only in CA! I meant to drive to work today, but could never get away from the home office, so the car just sat there all day..ZEV!