State air regulators have altered America's most stringent auto emissions regulation, determining that 'cleaner cars' will stand in place of pollution-free vehicles.

The California Air Resources Board voted by eight votes to three yesterday (April 24th) to adopt rules promoting alternative technologies in place of its revolutionary 1990 regulation that called for ten per cent of cars for sale this year to be completely non-polluting.

Chairman Alan Lloyd said the board was now seeking to foster an era of co-operation with the motor industry, insisting that the decision did not represent a step backward.

'It's not backsliding. We're getting vehicles out there in greater numbers that we anticipate being closer to zero,' Mr Lloyd said. 'In fact, we're probably getting clean air faster.'

The revised regulation, which takes effect in 2005, calls for hundreds of thousands of cleaner vehicles, tens of thousands of gas-electric hybrids and 250 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles during the next five years.