Biden backtracks on EV push

 Washington Examiner:

President Joe Biden is backtracking on unpopular environmental policies as November’s presidential election comes closer.

His administration announced Wednesday that it will impose lower auto tailpipe emissions requirements through 2029, and will not require as many pure electric vehicles to be sold.

Biden has faced pushback from automakers on EV targets, with trade groups arguing that the administration’s sales targets are impossible in the intended time frame and would risk limiting consumer choice, disadvantaging the auto industry, and pushing prices higher for all vehicles.

Republicans, including Donald Trump, the presumptive presidential nominee, are attacking the targets, saying they constitute an EV mandate would make U.S. drivers dependent on China, which controls the critical minerals supply chain for EV battery manufacturing.

The Environmental Protection Agency will press for 67% of new vehicles sold to be electric by 2032, the same as was proposed last year, but it will allow automakers to include other types of vehicles, including plug-in hybrids and improved internal combustion engine vehicles, not just pure battery powered vehicles.

Speaking on a media call Tuesday evening, Biden’s officials said the new rules for passenger cars, light trucks, and medium-duty vehicles beginning in 2027, are still the strongest-ever tailpipe reduction standards. They insisted this would help Biden achieve his goal of more than 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide reductions by 2055.

The regulations will reduce fine particulate emissions by 95% and nitrogen oxide emissions and other ozone smog precursors by about 75%, as Biden promised.

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This a mistake that will do more harm than good.  The free market should decide what kind of vehicles are available in the US.  If EVs were better there would be no need for a mandate of them. Americans obviously are not breaking down the doors to buy one. 

See also:

Biden’s war on gas cars will cost Americans a fortune

The Environmental Protection Agency released what it calls the “strongest-ever pollution standards for cars,” which it claims will “expand consumer choice in clean vehicles.”

That’s a stretch: These new regulations, which are clearly beyond EPA’s defined powers, will limit overall vehicle choice and force Americans into expensive and unreliable electric vehicles.

The EPA expects plug-in electric vehicles to make up between 62% and 70% of the automotive market. But this unrealistic target ignores two key facts:

First, consumers are not lining up to purchase electric vehicles, which made up only 7.6% of 2023 vehicle sales despite heavy subsidies.

American drivers simply aren’t embracing EVs because they know these vehicles have shorter driving ranges and longer refueling times. Not to mention that they’re significantly more expensive.
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