Biden administration announces rules that will boost EVs, hybrids

New tailpipe pollution limits seen as among most significant climate regulations in US

WASHINGTON - The Biden administration on March 20 issued one of the most significant climate regulations in US history, a rule designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the country are all electric or hybrids by 2032.

Nearly three years in the making, the new tailpipe pollution limits from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would transform the automobile market in the United States. A record 1.2 million electric vehicles (EVs) rolled off dealers' lots in 2023, but they made up just 7.6 per cent of total US car sales, far from the 56 per cent target under the new regulation. An additional 16 per cent of new cars sold would be hybrids.

Cars and other forms of transportation are, together, the largest single source of carbon emissions generated by the US, pollution that is driving climate change and that helped to make 2023 the hottest. year in recorded history.

Electric vehicles are central to President Joe Biden's strategy to confront global warming, which calls for cutting the nation's emissions in half by the end of this decade. But EVs have also become politicised and are becoming an issue in the 2024 presidential campaign.

"Three years ago, I set an ambitious target: that half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 would be zero-emission," said Mr Biden in a statement. "Together, we've made historic progress. Hundreds of new expanded factories across the country. Hundreds of billions in private investment and thousands of good-paying union jobs. And we'll meet my goal for 2030 and race forward in the years ahead."

The rule increasingly limits the amount of pollution allowed from tailpipes over time so that, by 2032, over half the new cars sold in the US would most likely be zeroemissions vehicles in order for carmakers to meet the standards.