Today President Joe Biden unveiled a plan that would speed up the transition to electric vehicles in the United States.
Included was an executive order (in this case a goal) calling for half of new passenger car sales to be of electric vehicles powered by batteries and fuel cells or plug-in electric hybrids by the end of the decade.
And new proposed regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks through model year 2026. The proposed regulations would reverse a Trump administration freeze on fuel-deficiency standards that was itself a reversal of the Obama administration regulations that would have ramped up average fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon by model year 2025.
The Big Three U.S. automakers have proposed a “shared aspiration” less ambitious than the Biden goal. They are proposing that 40% to 50% of their annual U.S. sales be battery electric, fuel cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2030.
Environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council pointed out that the Biden proposal “delivers less carbon pollution reductions than the Obama-era standards and includes unfortunate loopholes that undercut progress.”
And the administration’s proposal lags that put forth by the European Union last month that would effectively phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered engines by 2035.
Beyond the regulations that the administration can propose and put into effect through executive action, much of the Biden plan depends on funding from Congress. And there, so far, the record is mixed. For example, the bipartisan infrastructure plan now before the Senate includes just $7.5 billion for adding chargers for electric vehicles in the United States. That’s half the amount Biden first called for to build 500,000 recharging stations. (Electric car charging stocks were up today. EVgo (EVGO), for example, gained 10% on the day. That, however, only erases about one-third of the stock’s losses from $11.88 on July 31. The stock closed at $10.01 today. The stock is a member of my Volatility and Millennial portfolios, where it is off 10.86% and 14.95% since I added the shares to those portfolios on May 19, and July 19, respectively.)
The administration’s announcement comes on a day when a new report warned that the system of the Gulf Stream and other currents that regulate the climate around the Atlantic Ocean is closer to collapse than previously expected.
Full disclosure: I own shares of EVgo in my personal portfolios.
