The roadblocks to Biden’s electric vehicle plan

The Biden administration introduced new rules on Wednesday to bring the United States – the largest car culture the world has ever seen – into the era of electric vehicles.

With new tailpipe pollution limits from the Environmental Protection Agency, automakers will essentially be forced to make a majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States all-electric or hybrid by 2032. To meet the new standards, 56 percent of new cars sold by 2032 would have zero emissions and another 16 percent would be hybrids, according to the EPA’s analysis.

Electric vehicles currently account for just 7.6 percent of new car sales, so the targets represent an ambitious effort to overhaul one of the country’s largest industries in a remarkably short time.

A successful phase-out of gas-powered cars and trucks could also make a big dent in the fight against climate change; Automobiles and other forms of transportation are the largest source of emissions the United States produces due to global warming.

But there are plenty of things that could derail the White House plan.

Politics

Electric vehicles are now an integral part of the culture wars. a opinion research found that 71 percent of Republicans would not buy an electric car, compared to 17 percent of Democrats.

Former President Donald Trump has used increasingly bold language about electric vehicles and their effect on the US economy, claiming they will “kill” the US auto industry and calling electric vehicles a “killer of jobs.” It is almost certain that he will continue that theme in his presidential campaign.

Speaker Mike Johnson called the rule part of President Biden’s “crusade against American energy and gas-powered vehicles,” saying it would limit consumer choice, raise costs for consumers and increase U.S. dependence on China.

Lobbying and lawsuits

The fossil fuel industry also opposes the new EPA rule.

American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a lobbying group, has launched a major advertising campaign to politicize what it incorrectly calls “Biden’s EPA car ban” in swing states.

And a coalition of fossil fuel companies and Republican lawyers are expected to sue to block the rule. These challenges could end up before the Supreme Court, which has issued several rulings in recent years limiting the EPA’s authority.

Car dealers

American car dealers are a major obstacle to the transition to electric vehicles. Last year, two-thirds of American dealers did not have a single electric car for sale, he said a Sierra Club report. And about half of dealers said they wouldn’t offer an electric car even if they could.

There are several reasons for dealers’ resistance. Profit margins for electric cars are generally smaller than for gas-powered cars and their sales requires infrastructure investments. Perhaps more importantly, dealers earn almost half of their profits from servicing cars. Electric vehicles have fewer parts, require far fewer trips to the service department and are cheaper to maintain than gasoline-powered cars and trucks.

And dealers are politically influential, with donations heavily skewed toward the Republican Party. In many states, they are protected by laws that prohibit automakers like Tesla from selling directly to consumers.

Lukewarm question

Early adopters drove sales of Teslas and other all-electric hits like the Ford Mustang Mach-E. But demand has declined in recent months. Ford said in December that this would be the case scaling back production of the acclaimed F-150 Lightning pickup – the electric version of the best-selling vehicle line in America – by half.

EVs are still the fastest growing segment of the U.S. auto market, but many consumers remain reluctant to leave their gas guzzlers behind. Electric vehicles generally remain more expensive than their conventional counterparts, and there are fewer models to choose from, as well as fewer SUVs and pickup trucks, the most popular categories in the country.

Prices could eventually drop, especially if that happens in China new generation of cheap EVs makes it to the United States. But given the Biden administration’s increased scrutiny of Chinese electric vehicle imports, that seems unlikely at the moment.

Charging infrastructure

American motorists, especially those in rural areas, are concerned about the range of electric vehicles. And charging an electric car outside major cities can still be a major challenge, as I discovered on an ill-fated reporting trip last year.

Not all EVs can be charged at all EV chargers, it can take hours to top off a battery, and there are few chargers left in much of this vast country. For anyone who doesn’t have a charger at home, or is planning a trip of more than a few hundred miles, charging is a big problem.

The federal government should help with this. In 2021, Congress appropriated $7.5 billion to build tens of thousands of EV chargers across the country. But from December not one was installed.

Why the new standards could work

Despite the many obstacles, there is also reason to believe that the EPA rule could work – or at least make a big difference.

Automakers have been slow to introduce new EV models, but a wave of cheaper, better-performing electric vehicles are expected to hit the market in the coming years. The charging infrastructure is being standardized and car companies are investing their own money in developing a better network.

And while the EPA rule will likely face legal challenges — and Trump has pledged to “end” the Biden administration’s climate rules if he is re-elected — it cannot be easily undone.

Persistent heat from India to Brazil

This week, the heat index in Rio de Janeiro reached 144 degrees Fahrenheit, or 62 degrees Celsius, the highest ever measured in the city. The national government has issued health warnings due to the extreme heat in several cities.

In South Sudan, temperatures were forecast to reach 113 degrees Fahrenheit, well above the 90 degrees typical of the dry season from December to March, as my colleague Abdi Latif Dahir reported.

In Bengaluru, India, water supplies are running lowand last month Ghana and Nigeria issued heat warnings to the public.

We don’t yet know whether all these events were caused or exacerbated by climate change. But we do know that human-induced global warming was the cause of many of the extreme heat events that helped make last year the hottest on record. A recent study also concluded that climate change made the extreme heat that West Africa experienced in February ten times more likely, my colleague Delger Erdenesanaa reported.

What is abundantly clear is that many of these developing countries are not prepared to protect people from this kind of heat.

Most schools in South Sudan are overloaded, underfunded and lack infrastructure such as air conditioning. And in West African countries, about half of the urban population lives in informal housing, including houses built with sheet steel, which retains heat.

Maja Vahlberg, one of the authors of the West Africa study, told Delger that this means that “people have very limited options for individual coping strategies, such as using air conditioning and drinking or showering more often.” — Manuela Andreoni