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The proposals aim for two-thirds of vehicles sold to countries to be EVs by 2032.
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This is a significant increase in the targets put in place by the Biden administration.
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The builders haven’t commented on this yet, but some of them might object.
In order to curb climate change and global warming, the EPA says it will have to tighten its requirements for auto emissions and electric vehicle sales.
In a new proposal to be voted on, the administration outlines new guidelines that would significantly reduce the level of pollution each automaker’s vehicles are allowed to generate.
Since the EPA does not have the power to dictate how many electric vehicles must be sold by each automaker, it has made its new emissions requirements stringent enough to ensure that automakers will have to sell a large number of electric vehicles in order to comply with regulations.
The proposal projects that two-thirds (67%) of all new light-duty passenger vehicles and 46% of medium-duty vehicles (delivery vans) sold in the United States will be powered by electricity in 2032.
Another proposal also tackles pollution created by heavy vehicles, such as tractor-trailers and buses, by ensuring that half of new buses and a quarter of new trucks will be EVs in the same period.
Achieving all of these goals would eliminate the equivalent of two years of carbon dioxide production in all sectors of the US economy.
According to scientists, new gasoline-powered vehicles must be banned by 2035 to limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the threshold beyond which natural disasters such as droughts, floods or species extinction would accelerate.
These new regulations are significantly more aggressive than before, as the Biden administration’s previous guideline, announced in 2021, called for only 50% of new vehicles to be EVs by 2030.
While environmentalists praise the EPA for taking action on climate change with these new proposals, many believe they are unrealistic and pose a threat to the profitability of automakers and the stability of the US economy.
These groups estimate that it will not be possible to increase the market share of EVs from the current 5.8% to 67% in just ten years.
The United Auto Workers (UAW), which represents workers in the auto industry, is also concerned. The association fears job losses, because the manufacture of EVs requires half the labor of gasoline or diesel vehicles.
While automakers have yet to comment on the new proposals, some of them may object in the coming days.
The director of the EPA lab tasked with determining likely advances in electric vehicle technology over the next decade says automakers are used to complaining about new regulations, but complying with them anyway .
The aggressiveness of the new proposals appears to have taken industry members by surprise as the announcement was to be made in Detroit with representatives from the UAW and EVs from various U.S. automakers in attendance, but those plans were scrapped and the EPA held the conference at its headquarters in the absence of automakers and UAW members.
One automaker that probably won’t complain is Tesla, since its lineup includes only electric vehicles and an electric tractor-trailer would give it a significant advantage over most of its competitors if these proposals are adopted.
Source : The New York Times
