The Biden Administration is reportedly giving legislative breathing room to auto manufacturers required to rapidly increase electric vehicle production within the next few years. First reported by sources speaking to The New York Times, this shift in drastic climate change action is meant to appease automakers who say they need more time to meet the aims of the White House, as well as unions, who favor a slower EV ramp-up as well.
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The new plan, which won’t be finalized until “early Spring,” will give car manufacturers through 2030 to ramp up sales of its EVs instead of demanding that this happen much sooner. The Biden Administration’s overall strategy aims to cut down on tail-pipe emissions by pushing Americans toward EVs. The original goal was to have this done before 2030 in order to rapidly cut down on carbon emissions from the country’s largest source of greenhouse gases: gasoline cars.
Auto manufacturers need the time, the NYT reported, not only to build EVs and cut their costs but to establish charging station infrastructure across the US. Statistics from the Department of Energy say that there are just over 160,000 charging stations across the US, with only 88 percent of them being public use stations.
Additionally, with President Biden up for re-election this year, the policy change also serves the purpose of assuaging labor unions who reportedly feel that the swift into EVs may cost workers their manufacturing jobs. The labor unions, the report says, also need this slowdown in order for their unionization efforts to keep pace with the growth of the sector as more EV plants get built in union-unfriendly states.
Union support for Biden is seen as crucial for his reelection campaign, and to this end the president went as far as to appear at an auto workers strike last year.
President Biden’s ambitious stated goal is to eliminate carbon emissions from the US by 2050, but with this move, it seems like he’s not in a rush to do so.