SACRAMENTO, CALIF. ? When General Motors charged up its first electric-powered vehicle in the late 1980s, it was heralded as the “car of the future.”

California officials saw it as salvation for their smog-choked cities and quickly made the new technology the centerpiece of their toughest-in-the-nation emissions rules.

But now, more than a decade later, the state is retreating from those strict pollution policies, and dozens of GM’s electric EV1s are lined up behind a chain-link fence in Van Nuys. The Big Three automakers have all abandoned their electric-battery vehicles and are focusing instead on low-polluting hybrids and other technology.

GM spokesman Dave Barthmuss said the company was taking back the remaining 375 of its 1,000 pioneering EV1s as their leases expire because it can’t supply parts to repair them. Some will end up in museums or research labs. Others will be used for spare parts.

It’s a long way from a program once touted as GM’s clean air solution, and it comes as California again rewrites its once-ambitious zero emissions vehicle rules. The plan launched in 1990 would have required 10 percent of cars for sale in the state this year be nonpolluting. Today, state regulators are asking that 10 percent be at least low-pollution by 2005, but even that is on hold for now.

Barbed wire frames a lot full of General Motors electric cars at a GM testing and repair facility in Van Nuys, Calif. As California retreats from its strict pollution regulation, GM is taking the electric cars off the road when leases expire because it can no longer supply parts to repair them, GM spokesman Dave Barthmuss said.

Carmakers, who have fought the rules, say the market should dictate what they build, not state regulators.

To the drivers who embraced the technology, the loss of the EV1 is a heartbreaking prelude to the end of battery-powered vehicles.

“They’ve gone from being regulators to just asking politely, ‘Gee, industry, would you do this?”‘ said Greg Hanssen, of the Production Electric Vehicle Drivers Coalition, which has lobbied for more battery-powered cars. “To us driving battery electric vehicles, we’re saying, ‘Hey, you’ve left us hanging out to dry.”‘

It was only after seeing the promise of the first GM electric car that California launched its ambitious zero emission vehicle program to help clean up America’s smoggiest skies. New York and Massachusetts followed suit, but they and other states have been watching to see how California’s rule-making plays out. In New York, the latest rules require 10 percent of cars sold starting in 2004 be low-polluting, rather than nonpolluting.

Major automakers say they stopped production because the vehicles were limited to a range of about 100 miles, required lengthy recharges and were costly. Leases ran about $400 a month, though California state credits could cut that in half; the battery-electric version of Toyota’s RAV4 sold for about $40,000.