Biden wants 50% of new vehicles to be electric by 2030

The White House announced on Thursday some measures to achieve, that by 2030 half of all new vehicles sold in United States be electric, or with zero emissions, at the same time it reinstated strict consumption and emissions standards that were eliminated during the Presidency of Donald Trump (2017-2021).

President, Joe Biden, is scheduled to sign today at the White House before representatives of the manufacturers General Motors (GM), Ford, Stellantis, as well as the United Auto Workers (UAW), an executive order that establishes as a new goal that by 2030 half of all new vehicles sold in the country are electric.

The initiative was backed by America’s big three automakers, which in recent months have announced tens of billions in investments to electrify their vehicle ranges as soon as possible.

In a joint statement, Ford, GM and Stellantis pledged to “achieve annual sales of 40-50 percent” of electric vehicles to “bring the nation closer to the future of zero emissions consistent with the targets” of the Paris climate agreement.

Senior administration officials of Biden acknowledged during a conference call with the media to present the measures that one of the motivations of the US government is not to allow China to dominate the electric vehicle market, which is the future of the sector.

The US authorities have pointed out that while others, such as the European Union (EU), are accelerating their plans to electrify the sector to take the lead, China is trying to secure control of the global supply chain for electric vehicles and batteries.

In this sense, the president of the UAW, Ray Curry, pointed out that the sector is “at a critical moment in which countries compete to produce the vehicles of the future” and that the United States “is lagging behind China and Europe” as manufacturers spend billions of dollars on expanding markets and productive capacity.

The White House indicated that the executive order that Biden will sign today will change this situation and that the target of 50% of sales by 2030 “is calibrated” so that existing production plants can adapt without danger.

In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation will announce today the imposition of strict fuel consumption and emissions standards on new vehicles that had been phased out by the previous Trump administration.

The White House indicated that the new standards will provide net benefits of about 140,000 million dollars with the saving of 757,000 million liters of gasoline in the next five years as well as the reduction of 2 billion metric tons of carbon pollution and improvements in the population health.

The US government estimated that each driver will save an average of $ 900 during the period due to the lower consumption of their vehicles.

The Biden administration noted that all of these measures will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles sold in 2030 by more than 60% compared to vehicles sold in 2020.

This, in turn, will meet Biden’s goal that, by 2030, global emissions from the US economy will be 50-52% lower than in 2005.