From Heartland Daily News
By Mandy Gunasekara
The Biden administration released new emissions control standards for vehicles. Billed as the “most ambitious climate regulations” ever, they have captured headlines, but technical realities and high costs have both rules headed straight for a brick wall.
The light-duty category covers cars, trucks, and vans, and requires 67% of all new car sales to be electric by 2032. The heavy-duty category covers 18-wheelers, buses, and other work-related vehicles and requires half of new buses and a quarter of new truck sales to be electric by 2032. For comparison, last year, electric vehicle sales made up 5.8% of new car sales and less than 2% for heavier trucks. These proposed standards are not ambitious but rather represent a new level of regulatory lunacy.
The Clean Air Act (CAA) requires the EPA administrator to set vehicle regulations aimed at reducing pollutants from light-duty vehicles that negatively impact public health and the environment. In setting these standards, the administrator must take into consideration the feasibility of new technologies as well as costs. Team Biden promised as much when they committed to establishing a “data-driven” goal. But it’s hard to see how any serious expert would support the notion that, in less than five years, when car companies will begin designing the model year 2032 vehicles, they can develop enough electric vehicles, procure the massive amount of critical minerals needed for the batteries, and convince skeptical consumers to massively shift their purchasing priorities to meet this goal.
Despite numerous federally sponsored incentives, electric vehicle adoption rates remain low for a variety of reasons. Even with major advancements in EV technology, recharging batteries still takes hours, while filling up gas tanks takes minutes. Coupled with a limited network of charging stations, EVs continue to be a hard sell. Even the majority of current EV owners still rely on gas-powered vehicles—78% own a second gas-powered car to supplement their transportation needs.
Future demand isn’t there either. A new AP-NORC poll found only 19% of Americans are “very likely or extremely likely” to go electric. Gallup similarly poured water on the enthusiasm claim, suggesting Americans are “slow to adopt electric vehicles.” More troubling for EV backers: Even if this push was possible, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasted just 9% of U.S. vehicles would be electric by 2050.
The administration displays tone deafness by touting expensive alternatives to reliable gas-powered cars. Many Americans are struggling to afford eggs and meat in the inflationary economy. It’s highly unlikely lower and middle-income folks are planning to purchase a car with an average cost of $54,000. The availability of taxpayer subsidies doesn’t change that equation. To date, most EV drivers are in households that make at least $150,000 per year or more. In states like Mississippi, where the median income is around $50,000, EVs are cost-prohibitive and regulations like the proposed Biden standards will only make those costs go up.
One of the nation’s leading auto manufacturing groups called the proposal “aggressive” and “unprecedented” even for them—suggesting the administration is going too far too fast. Their statements should be heavily considered given the industry has already invested billions to expand vehicle electrification. Although the industry has adopted the transition narrative, they are rightfully concerned with the expedited timeline and unrealistic expectations in the current proposal.
Despite serious technical hurdles and overwhelming preference by consumers for gas-powered vehicles, Team Biden seems done with the carrot approach and is using a regulatory stick to force its all-EV future on Americans. The courts may once again be the saving grace.
Critics have an opportunity to present legal arguments against the EPA. The biggest legal elephant in the room is the West Virginia v. EPA decision that invoked the “major questions” doctrine. Specifically, the Supreme Court made clear that agencies must point to “clear Congressional authorization” if they take actions of “vast economic or political significance.” One can argue in this instance that the EPA does not have the ability to restructure the entire transportation industry in the same way the agency did not have the ability to redesign entire energy markets in the West Virginia case.
The current rules, as proposed, have numerous technical and legal vulnerabilities. They also stand to undermine environmental progress as Americans will undoubtedly settle on driving older cars longer instead of amassing serious debt to acquire a new, less reliable car. As a result, the reach of new technologies and the affiliated benefits such as reduced pollution and safer roads will fail to materialize.
Mandy Gunasekara is the director of Independent Women’s Forum’s Center for Energy and Conservation and previously served as Chief-of-Staff at the U.S. EPA. Follow her on Twitter at @MississippiMG
Originally published by RealClearEnergy. Republished with permission.
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To read more about Biden’s EV push, click here.
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The light-duty category covers cars, trucks, and vans, and requires 67% of all new car sales to be electric by 2032. The heavy-duty category covers 18-wheelers, buses, and other work-related vehicles and requires half of new buses and a quarter of new truck sales to be electric by 2032.
The problem is, the EPA (or any other government agency) can’t “require” people to buy something they don’t really want, especially when there is a viable alternative that has been in use for well over 100 years, whose design has been improved over all that time.
Gasoline-powered cars routinely last about 15 to 20 years if not damaged in accidents, so there will be an increased incentive for owners of gasoline-powered cars to have them well-maintained so that they last beyond 2032. This would also become a boon to the auto repair business, where hundreds of thousands of trained mechanics with long experience in repairing gasoline-powered cars will continue to keep old, reliable cars running because people can’t afford electric cars whose batteries die in the middle of nowhere in blizzards.
Such an EPA “rule” or “regulation”, if allowed to stand, would also create a mad rush to buy new gasoline-powered cars in 2030 and 2031, before the rules go into effect, especially if people are aware of the proposed regulation 9 years ahead of time. If these cars last an average of 15 years, gasoline-powered cars will continue to dominate the entire fleet through 2045, and will support the auto repair industry to keep them running as long as possible.
A rule or regulation initiated by the Executive Branch (including the EPA), if it has not passed Congress, can be rescinded by the next President. President Biden is very unpopular right now, with only a 36% approval in recent polls, so that it is likely that he will be replaced by a Republican in 2024, who could rescind this rule in 2025, long before it is scheduled to take effect.
The push toward all-electric vehicles doesn’t make sense, even from an emissions point of view. This only transfers the emissions from the cars’ tailpipes to the stack of a power plant, which results in MORE emissions if the power plant is coal-fired.
A much better alternative is to incentivize the use of hybrid vehicles, in which part of the energy from braking is used to recharge a battery, which can power the wheels at low speeds, while the gasoline engine powers the vehicle at high speeds. Such vehicles routinely get over 40 miles per gallon in city driving (low-speed driving with frequent starts and stops). These vehicles can significantly reduce emissions in congested areas (where pollutant concentrations are higher), while not increasing power plant emissions, because they do not require recharging from the electrical grid.
For heavy-duty transportation, another viable alternative (which has been used in several large cities) is natural-gas-powered buses, which usually operate over short distances in congested areas. Natural gas tanks have to be refilled under pressure, which makes them unsafe for routine refueling by untrained personnel (such as drivers at gas stations), but for a municipal bus system, they can be refueled at night (for example, between midnight and 5 AM, when there is little demand for bus transport) at a central location by a small team of safety-trained personnel. Natural-gas-powered buses emit far less pollutants per passenger-mile than diesel-powered buses.
Just great, your big solution to bad government regulation is different bad government regulation.
“67% of all new car sales”
Not manufacture, but sales. So will dealers have to impost quotas? They must have sold two EVs before they can sell a ICE? Even if government dictates what must be made, how does it dictate what people buy?
(I don’t think I want to know the answer)
you guys need to catch up. future is coming. denial wont work
Got yer battery car yet, mosh?
I like to watch car repair shows. Preferring those shows that actually do repair vehicles versus those that solely push products and rarely incur grease covered hands.
Over the last decade their has been an upswing of shows focusing on rescuing junked vehicles. A vehicle’s frame and body are refit with newer suspension and drivetrains. Engines and transmissions are rebuilt and installed.
Total costs are much less than buying a new car and the rebuilt vehicles are very serviceable for road trips, errands and job commutes.
Crushing the new car market only increases the amount of people returning expired cars back to service.