These European cities represent the interests of 60 million people, with combined public budgets and “investment capacity” estimated by the group at two trillion Euros combined. In a global car industry where there’s still a tug-of-war between fully electric vehicles, fuel cell cars, diesels, hybrids and plug-in hybrids to emerge as the dominant emissions-friendlier alternative to regular internal combustion engines, any common path taken by such a large block of countries could easily tilt the balance in favour of one or more of these technologies.

Think of the vehicles and fuel economy changes California’s block of 35 million people and its leaders were able to push through since the early 1970s, when the California Air Resources Board first seriously targeted smog and its associated health effects. With a population roughly equal to Canada’s now, but with a taste for pricier and more cars overall, California earned the right to set its own unique emissions targets separate from the national Environmental Protection Agency’s standards.

Which brings us back to Vancouver, and how it became one of the few jurisdictions outside California to lease the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell. Even though Ballard has largely sold its automotive fuel cell business to various automakers, the area is still a hotbed of fuel cell research, with Mercedes-Benz setting up a small production facility there as well. As such, it’s the only area in the country to offer modern 10,000 psi fuel cell storage tanks, which is what the Tucson FCEV uses. Ontario has at least one older 5,000 psi facility, said one source at Hyundai Canada, but that would mean that no Ontario driver could fill the Tucson FCEV’s tank to more than half full.

Plus BC’s recently re-introduced clean car rebate program added a new $6,000 incentive for fuel cells. This allowed Hyundai Canada to decrease the monthly lease payment from $599 to $529 and eliminate the $3,600 down payment formerly required. Plus, these drivers will receive free hydrogen and free scheduled maintenance over the course of the three-year lease.

So while the waiting game continues for whatever emissions reduction measures the federal government will implement, plus the closer but still unconfirmed details on Ontario’s announced cap-and-trade system, Vancouver’s city council voted in March to study ways to increase its renewable electricity use from 98 to a full 100 percent, plus joined a coalition of 10 international cities in targeting at least an 80 percent emissions reduction by 2050 (http://usdn.org/public/Carbon-Neutral-Cities.html).

With collaboration now going global between municipal, provincial and federal officials in many areas affecting future automotive technologies, the answer to what will be the next big thing in green cars may not lie in the traditional power emporiums of auto executive offices or even large industrial superpower governments, but increasingly the sub-national levels of government which are waking up to their considerable, often global, influence.

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