The brand new requirements will improve availability of fascinating and reasonably priced electrical automobiles (EVs), giving new automobile patrons extra selections, however they don’t equate to an EV mandate.
Stan Cross | March 29, 2024
| Clear Transportation, Electrical Automobiles
Final week, the EPA introduced new air pollution requirements for passenger automobiles, light-duty vehicles, and medium-duty automobiles for mannequin years 2027 and past.
I’m excited to see the EPA do its job beneath the Clear Air Act by proposing stronger tailpipe emissions requirements. The EPA’s new clear automobile requirements will obtain 4 important issues:
- Give customers extra selections to purchase extra environment friendly, lower-cost automobiles and lightweight vehicles, together with fuel automobiles with higher gasoline financial system, hybrid automobiles that mix fuel and electrical applied sciences, and pure electrical automobiles
- Deal with the transportation sector’s contribution to the local weather disaster, which is the largest of all financial sectors
- Create jobs and financial improvement for our nation and the Southeast
- Cut back tailpipe emissions to defend public well being, particularly in communities overburdened by air air pollution
Regardless of what you will have heard, the requirements don’t mandate EVs. Automakers can and can proceed to make fuel automobiles and vehicles, albeit extra environment friendly ones, and customers can proceed to purchase them.
This isn’t to say that the brand new clear automobile requirements aren’t historic and vital – they’re essentially the most intensive administration motion ever taken to handle the local weather disaster, and can urgently transfer us towards a cleaner and extra affluent transportation future. In reality, by 2032, the EPA estimates that these requirements will end in a 50% discount in light-duty automobile local weather air pollution and a 44% discount in medium-duty automobiles.
Historical past has proven that industries, together with transportation, don’t defend human and environmental well being nicely when left to their very own gadgets. That’s why Congress has handed landmark environmental legal guidelines, such because the Clear Air Act, authorizing federal businesses to set and monitor requirements to maintain individuals and the ecosystems we rely on protected. The brand new clear automobile requirements are the most recent instance. They may encourage automakers to supply and promote cleaner, extra environment friendly automobiles and lightweight vehicles, together with EVs, to enhance the air we breathe and defend the secure local weather we rely on.
The underside line is new and used automobile patrons could have extra and higher selections.
The brand new clear automobile requirements will improve the provision of fascinating and reasonably priced electrical automobile and lightweight truck fashions, giving new automobile patrons extra selections. On prime of elevated selections, Inflation Discount Act (IRA) tax credit present customers upwards of a $7,500 rebate to help new EV purchases. The uptick in new EV purchases will, in flip, speed up the used EV market, the place two-thirds of People purchase automobiles, and the place IRA supplies customers upwards of a $4,000 rebate.
Spurring the EV transition will profit American staff past client selection.
These new requirements coincide with EV, battery, and provide chain manufacturing incentives in IRA that may financially help automakers, battery producers, and provide chain corporations in transitioning from inner combustion to electrical transportation. Because of IRA’s made-in-America necessities tied to incentives, the EV transition is bringing manufacturing and jobs again to America.
Look no additional than Southeast’s EV and battery manufacturing investments and jobs growth. The area ranks #1 within the nation for EV-related manufacturing development. As of December 2023, the area secured $70.8 billion in EV and battery manufacturing investments, representing 41% of the nation’s complete investments. The investments are anticipated to ship 69,920 new high quality jobs, accounting for a 3rd of the EV and battery manufacturing jobs created nationwide.
Southeast Electrical Transportation Indicators as of December 31, 2023
Along with manufacturing jobs, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation supplies almost $680 million for EV quick charging station deployments throughout the Southeast beneath the Nationwide EV Charging Infrastructure program, creating new jobs for electricians in each state and offering customers with accessible and dependable public charging.
No different sector within the Southeast is and can proceed to ship as many new financial improvement alternatives as transportation electrification. In reality, states throughout the nation are benefiting from EV investments and jobs; up to now, $176 billion has been invested in 433 services anticipated to make use of 228,000 staff nationwide. For this reason the closing clear automobile requirements gained the help of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents the auto trade, and the United Car Employees, which represents union labor.
I’m an early adopter of pure electrical automobiles and have benefited from getting access to EV possession. Over the previous decade, I’ve pushed EVs 150,000 miles, saving over $11,000 by driving on reasonably priced electrical energy as an alternative of high-priced fuel. Plus, figuring out I’ve lowered my transportation local weather footprint by 69% feels good. I have a good time the EPA’s new clear automobile requirements, which, in tandem with IRA, deal with the local weather disaster, create jobs, enhance public well being, and provides all customers, together with you, extra selections to entry cleaner, lower-cost mobility.
SACE’s Electrify the South program leverages analysis, advocacy, and outreach to speed up the equitable transition to electrical transportation throughout the Southeast. Go to ElectrifytheSouth.org to be taught extra and join with us.
