THOMAS CATENACCI on December 22, 2021 5:44 PM
The Biden administration rolled out a series of new emissions regulations for passenger vehicles and light trucks that it said would “unlock” $190 billion in benefits for American consumers.
The regulations will be enforced beginning with 2023 car models and will be revised with more stringent standards in 2027, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced.
The EPA said the new emissions standards would ultimately quicken the transition from traditional engine vehicles to zero-emission cars.
“This day is truly historic,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said during an event on Monday.
“At EPA, our priority is to protect public health, especially in overburdened communities, while responding to the President’s ambitious climate agenda,” Regan said in a statement prior to the event.
“Today we take a giant step forward in delivering on those goals while paving the way toward an all-electric, zero-emissions transportation future.”
The standards are the “most ambitious” rules of their kind ever put into place, the EPA said. They are projected to cut car emissions by 3 billion tons over the next three decades, the equivalent of half the carbon dioxide emitted in the U.S. per year.
The rule announced Monday will also lead to 15% less gasoline consumption nationwide, according to the agency.
“Today’s action is a tremendous step in the right direction in our fight against the climate crisis,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone said in a statement.
“Paired with the investments in the bipartisan infrastructure law, this action will accelerate the process of transforming our transportation sector to the benefit of public health and the environment.”
“I applaud the Biden EPA for meaningfully addressing the climate crisis once again, and I look forward to continuing to work with the administration to swiftly and ambitiously tackle climate pollution from the rest of the transportation sector,” Pallone added.
The action Monday is the latest move in the Biden administration’s crusade against climate change which aims to lean heavily on pushing Americans to buy electric vehicles.
Read more at Daily Caller
I earlier wrote about this nonsense:
https://www.cfact.org/2021/08/02/ev-weirdness-looms-large/
Government regulators live in a world where they come to believe thier own Orwellean language.
The economic rigor behind the assertion that “benfits exceed cost by as much as $190 billion” is the same as that allowing Biden to assert that a $3 trillion “build back better” bill would actually cost nothing. I.e., pure fantasy. The claimed public health benefits exist only in computer models which are about as believable as RCP8.5.
The net fuel savings over increased price argument is equally deceptive. It is absolutely not worth spending an extra $10,000 dollars today to buy a car that will save you $1,000 over the next 10 years.
The EPA release goes into no details on exactly what the regulations are, but I assume they are simply racheting up CAFE standards; they certainly can’t require new technology on 2023 models at this point; it takes much longer. For example, the backup camera requirement which went into effect for all 2016 model cars was authorized in legislation signed by President Bush in 2008. And that was simple technology that was well understood and widely used elsewhere at the time.
If so, increased EV sales will be the minor effect. The first effect of regulations which add signifcant cost to new vehicles will be to make people hang on to current cars longer. The average age of US passenger vehicles on the road today is a little over 12 years and it has been increasing steadily. So it will be more than 12 years for 50% of the cars on the road to incorporate any new technology mandated today. Making new cars more expensive will stretch that out further.
The second effect will be to make hybrids more attractive. The cost penalty for a hybrid is about $2,000 – $3,000 — much less than the premium for an EV. You can already get over 50mpg with a Prius and close to that with the new hybrid Camry. I just drove from Atlanta to Indianapolis (558 miles) at mostly 70 mph and averaged 37.8 mpg in a 2013 Avalon hybrid which used the same drivetrain as the Camry.
I suspect this is really nothing more than restoring the higher CAFE requirements scaled back by President Trump and dressed up to look like Biden actually did something new.
Allan,
Bull manure.
My wife and I drive Subaru Outbacks, 30 mpg, $54,000 total cost
Replacing those with EVs, with equivalent storage and utility, would require 2 Tesla Model X, at a cost of $200,000
The financing and depreciation costs would be killers
We would be saving $2000/y in gas?
Biden and his BBB bill are first-class idiocies.
Trump Derangement Syndrome living large in the leftist head. Rent-free. Anything Trump did while POTUS, now must be flipped. Can’t have anything which benefits the US, and the world, left standing. The Brandon administration has nothing to stand on and will make sure the accomplishments of the Trump era are removed from the public arena. Trump is still a major threat to the commies. Close to the time for the “resist” movement to go full throttle, on premium fuel. Its getting ridiculous, more so with each passing day.
Just sayin’.
As a conservative, I say Trump is a bit of an idiot and a B.S. artist, but even so, I voted for him twice in the end, as he is FAR better than any liberal!
My ’05 Impreza is looking better and better. The most complicated thing I have to deal with is the aftermarket radio I installed when the original one died.
Hey Brandon,
You could also dictate the EPA to place windmills on top of the cars. It would save on the placement of charging stations.
‘Now that’s savy!
I am 70 with a 2005 Tahoe – fair amount of rust / 278,000 miles. Old ICE vehicles held together by something like duct tape and junk yard visits will become very popular. I fully expect them to start going after replacement parts when they realize what is happening – despite the fact that they will raise the price of all fuels by 1000%.
I used to believe a lot of people were really stupid until it became apparent that they just an indoctrinated cult of the “woke again” flock that worships the government. However, anyone that doesn’t understand that electricity must be generated by using more fossil fuel than using it directly to move a vehicle really are stupid.
These people never seem to be able to mention any downsides. If people really wanted to transition to EVs, they wouldn’t need to be ‘encouraged’ by government, would they?
Hundreds of billions of dollars going down a black hole sorry green hole!
From the above article:
Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha.
Left unmentioned: the standards are the “most ambitious” rules of their kind ever put into place because they are projected to increase power plant emissions by over 4 billion tons over the next three decades* due to the simple fact that there is no credible path to supply the amount of extra electrical power needed for the projected increase in EVs in the next 30 years without using fossil fuel-based power plants. Solar?, nope. Wind?, nope. Hydro?, nope. Nuclear?, you gotta be kidding.
[*My scientific WAG based on the inefficiencies of distributing electrical energy across the grid and the inefficiency of AC-DC current conversion and the inefficiencies inherent in battery storage of electrical energy. . . no, I haven’t done the detailed calculations . . . is there anyone—anyone at all—the believes calculations 30 years into the future are credible???]
Another point: anyone notice the sleight-of-hand being played in the above-quoted statement? “the equivalent of half the carbon dioxide emitted in the U.S. per year” sounds really impressive until you realize that it is in comparison to EPA projected vehicle emission reductions savings OVER 30 YEARS. In other words, the annual projected vehicle emissions savings from forcing a huge increase in EVs (while just not accounting for the increased emissions from fossil fuel power plants) would really be (3 billion tons/30 years)/(6 billion tons/year) = .0167 = 1.7%. Not so impressive now, is it?
As I said earlier: Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha . . .
You are making FAR too much sense, Mr. Dressler. You will confuse people who have low comprehension skills, people such as ecohippies and greenbeaners.
Please continue. I will enjoy watching them squirm.
“Nuclear?, you gotta be kidding.”
You would need one new nuke for each million new BEV. So it is doable.
Of course it would make more sense to just build new nukes and skip the BEV.
Kit P posted: “You would need one new nuke for each million new BEV. So it is doable.”
Really? The newest reactor to enter service is Tennessee’s Watts Bar Unit 2, which began operation in June 2016. The next-youngest operating reactor is Watts Bar Unit 1, also in Tennessee, which entered service in May 1996.
Therefore, over a recent 20 year-span, the US managed to build and put into operation just one nuclear reactor.
As of end-2020, there were about 287 million passenger vehicles registered in the US. So, an increase of one million EVs, an increase of about 0.35% of the amount EVs in that total, would be “doable” (your claim) every 20 years or so based on this data.
Doable? . . . methinks you need a reality check.
Clearly Gordon is not a doer.
Between the US navy and the US commercial nuke industry, we are the world leaders in building and operating nuke plants there is no close second.
My last job was at a nuke plant in China. The reactor vessels were forged forged for US reactors but ended up in China.
At the time in the US, near the planned US plant was a LNG facility importing natural gas. Now it is exporting natural gas.
As part of the doing class, we do things that need to be done.
So when fracking changed the economics of US nukes, I went from working on the same standard design were using for some US plants to a plant in China.
In other words, nuke plants like other power plants are constructed to meet a need not the current POTUS fantasy.
Is there a ‘need’ for BEV in the US?
No not at the moment. Since I am a doer, I know doing takes a lot of work and engineering. There are no magic wands.
Looking back 20 years, it looked like there might be a need for more nuke plants and BEV because the US was not producing enough oil and gas. Under POTUS Bush research on several different options for increasing domestic energy supply.
I consider myself fortunate to live in a country with lots of doers in the coal, oil, gas and nuclear industries. It is good to have choices for reliable power.
Clearly nuclear is doable for producing power.
Since climate is a political issue and not a real problem, real solutions that do not fit the same political agenda are not being considered.
Even though you may claim to be a “doer” and disparage those you assert, without any evidence, are not “doers”, you would do well to follow the advice of fictional maverick cop Harry Callahan (played in movies by actor Clint Eastwood) who famously said ” A man’s got to know his limitations.”
Nuclear power plants may indeed by “doable” in China, or India or other countries outside of the USA. However, the topic of the above article (and my responding, relevant comments) is the EPA putting into place regulations that would force a massive increase in electric vehicles, and hence a large need for additional large-scale power plants, within the United States.
While the technology exists to build modern nuclear power plants, political and financial and environmental-concern factors prevent such from happening today at any significant pace in a non-military setting within the US. To reiterate, a demonstrated pace of bringing just one commercial nuclear power plant on-line every 20 years will not support the EPA’s plans for increasing by more than 1% or so the EV share of the total number of US passenger vehicles.
Of course, since you are self-identified as a “doer”, I anxiously await your successful campaign to overcome the above-mentioned impediments so that perhaps the US can emplace 20-30 new commercial nuclear power plants to support 20-30 million BEVs being on the road within the next 30 years. 🙂
My guess: 2022 models are going to fly off the shelf, if they can ever get the chips to finish making them, that is.
I know most people here think EV’s are a complete joke, but obviously not everyone is of that mindset…EV stocks soared in 2021; investors betting revenue to follow in 2022 (cnbc.com)
The operative word in your post is “betting”.
Investors aren’t betting that EV’s are rational, they’re betting that governments will give out enough tax dollars to make them profit.
Half a year’s emissions over 30 years?
So 29.5 year’s of emissions is just fine and dandy, 30 years is DEATH.
I wonder what happens in year 31…
To be repealed in 4 years by President DeSantis.
He is governing by regulation based on ideology. Nothing democratic about it. But this type of behavior has a very short shelf life and when you get up each morning thinking you can repeal the laws of physics on a whim, there is a good chance you will go to bed beaten and impoverished with no allies to speak of.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Facism.
Is there a regulatory agency that is not corrupt?
I wonder what the voters will think when power outages due to too many electric vehicles charging at the same time hit? All that new grid infrastructure to connect to wind turbines that may or may not be working. Meanwhile lots of new fossil fuel power plants to supply constant baseload power. It’s going to get expensive.
I never liked electric car race tracks as a gift either, just saying.
I am getting the impression the globalists needed a patsy and Biden was the perfect candidate.
He is so perfect, he doesn’t know what he is doing and has no capacity to remember what he has done or will do.
You don’t get gifts like that everyday.
And not ONE politician has proposed reducing the speed limit, even though doing so would immediately reduce ’emissions’. And that is beacuse the people would immediately see the results of doing so and would revolt.
Boy am I glad we bought new cars this year. I am 74. My new Avalon may last me until my kids take away my keys. At any rate, I will probably not have to buy one of those overpriced golf carts.
Yes, even the fanciest most expensive “electric” vehicle is a golf cart.