Once upon a time, California regulators started a zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) program that called for 10 percent of all cars sold in California -- about 100,000 per year -- to be electric by 2004.

Obviously, that plan -- adopted in 1990 -- didn't work out too well. In fact, in 2003 those same regulators on the state Air Resources Board (CARB) scaled the requirement back to 25,000 zero-emission vehicles and extended the deadline to between 2012 and 2014.

And now they've scaled it back again. Last Thursday, CARB members voted 7-0 to reduce the mandate for sold vehicles to 7,500 fuel-cell cars -- or 12,500 electric cars -- between 2012 and 2014.

In an attempt to compensate for reducing the ZEV mandate by 70 percent (now 92.5 percent less than the original target), CARB set new rules for the six auto manufacturers subject to the program -- Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan and Toyota -- requiring them to build 60,000 plug-in hybrid vehicles while zero-emission technology is developed.

The 7,500-figure agreed on by the board after its eight-hour hearing last week is actually three times larger than what CARB staff had recommended they approve. That may or may not have anything to do with the fact that the six automakers opposed even the scaled-back rules, telling the board last month that the changes would still "place an inordinate burden" on them.

It's unclear how last week's decision will affect the 12 states that had previously agreed to follow California's lead on the ZEV program. In those states -- Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington -- automakers are already required to sell 120,000 new plug-ins by 2014.