Contradicting critics of California's zero-emissions vehicle mandates, a UC Davis study of 450 households has identified a significant market for electric cars. The newly defined market of so-called "hybrid households" can absorb at least five times the number of vehicles required by the controversial state clean-air mandates, says study co-author Tom Turrentine, a researcher at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. Previously, most analysts have assumed that in the early years state zero-emissions mandates would be met largely by electric vehicle sales to government and corporate fleets, not to consumer households. In part, the study concludes what many already knew: People who own two or more cars are good candidates for electric cars. What's new is that the electric cars don't have to be any more special than many already on the road. Existing technology is good enough to start and sustain a market for electric vehicles at least through the turn of the century, the study says. "This hybrid household market segment is defined by how people buy and use their cars," says co-author Ken Kurani, a researcher at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. "It's not just people owning two or more cars; it's what they do with them."