The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to make a groundbreaking announcement this week that will make the majority of new US car sales EVs by 2032, according to a breaking New York Times scoop.
The EPA’s impactful new rule and EVs
The EPA’s administrator, Michael S. Regan, is expected to announce proposed limits on tailpipe emissions on Wednesday in Detroit. The Times noted that its sources “spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been made public.”
It will be the federal government’s most aggressive climate legislation yet, and will make the US a world leader in the efforts to cut transportation emissions.
The requirements will be some of the world’s most stringent auto pollution limits, thus ensuring that EVs make up between 54-60% of all new cars sold in the US by 2030, with that figure rising to 64-67% of new car sales by 2032. This beats President Joe Biden’s earlier goal of having 50% of new cars sold be EVs by 2030.
Only 5.8% of all vehicles sold last year in the US were electric, so this new rule is going to represent a “quantum leap,” as the Times puts it, for the country.
The proposed regulation will go through a public comment period and may be altered by the government before it’s finalized.
Electrek’s Take
This EPA rule will be rightfully celebrated by climate change activists and people who generally care about the fate of our planet. But the Biden administration is definitely throwing down the gauntlet for traditional automakers, and they will have no choice but to accept the challenge.
This will also create urgency for those installing EV chargers, those responsible for updating the grid, and the mineral procurement sector for EV batteries.
The Times rightly notes that this regulation will almost certainly be challenged legally, and it will become a hot-button issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. A future administration could also undo or weaken it.
It won’t be an easy transition – there will be supply chain issues, technical challenges, and labor and skills issues, to note just a few things, seeing how it’s no less than a complete radical transformation of the US automotive sector.
But we at Electrek celebrate this EPA rule, as it’s exactly what’s needed to speed up the US electrification transition. Traditional automakers will have no choice but to jump on the EV bandwagon.
