California, like the rest of the nation, is addicted to oil. Just like other addictions, heavy oil use comes with a heavy price – for our wallets, our health and our climate. The good news is that California and the federal government are taking bold steps to tackle these problems.

They've signed automakers up for a plan to gradually improve fuel efficiency and reduce global warming emissions for cars and light trucks built between 2017 and 2025. California has also proposed new tailpipe smog standards, and hopes are high that automakers won't try to block them.

These steps will help protect public health, cut our oil addiction and save consumers billions over the next two decades, but they aren't enough. If we want our daily commutes to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, consumers need a different kind of car, one that is not captive to high gas prices and can deliver zero pollution. A strong Zero Emissions Vehicles – or ZEV – program can do just that.

Since 1990, the ZEV program has helped ensure long-term public health and consumer choice by speeding up the commercialization of the cleanest gasoline cars and hybrid vehicles. Nearly 2 million Californians drive such next-generation vehicles, which emit 80 percent less smog-forming pollution than the average car built in 2002. Now the California Air Resources Board has announced its strongest push for advanced vehicles in the program's 20-year history.

The plan, revealed at the Los Angeles Auto Show this month, aims to have battery, fuel cell and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles account for up to 15 percent of California's new vehicle sales in 2025. Overall, the program would result in as many as 1.4 million such vehicles being sold in California between 2018 and 2025.

These new targets are laudable, but they must go further for California to deliver on the safer climate, cleaner air and stronger economy it needs. ZEVs need sufficient sales volumes to launch the industry and make electric cars an affordable choice for millions of car-shoppers. California must also eliminate credits that would allow automakers to produce fewer electric cars. At the end of the day, no one can drive a credit.

To make electric-drive cars a viable option while achieving the state's economic, public health, oil use and climate goals, California must strengthen its ZEV proposal by 30 percent – that will put at least 1.8 million electric-drive cars on our roads from 2018 through 2025. At least half of them should run exclusively on electricity or hydrogen. California must also stand firm on plans to require oil companies and other energy providers to put the necessary refueling infrastructure in place to support these cars.

Historically, many in the automobile and oil industries have fought progress on electric cars. It's the same story we've seen before with seat belts and catalytic converters: The automakers leave the technology on the shelf until policymakers require them to do what is in the best interests of the American people. The same kind of push is required to create market certainty and drive investments in ZEV technology.

California has a long and successful history of leading the nation and the world in clean car technology, and it can do so again. By setting a stronger ZEV standard, the ARB has the opportunity to send a clear signal to automakers and the oil industry that the state must and will work to transform the electric vehicle from a niche product to a mass-market success. In doing so, it will give California's car buyers a real choice between the fuel of the past and the clean cars of the future.

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Don Anair is the senior analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists' Clean Vehicles program in Berkeley. Rosemary Shahan is president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, a nonprofit advocacy organization based in Sacramento.