It is no business of the state to steer drivers from one automotive technology to another. But if the U.S. government should decide to do this, it should do so through Congress, not a regulatory agency. Where climate policy is involved, though, individual autonomy and popular consent have a way of being overridden. In April 2023, the EPA proposed a set of rules designed to ensure that, depending on which “compliance pathway” — a phrase redolent of a bureaucracy run amok — auto manufacturers took, electric vehicles (EVs) would account for as much as 67 percent of new light vehicle sales by 2032.
These sales targets were to be achieved by penalizing automakers if the fleet of vehicles they sold could be capable of generating more than a certain amount of CO2, an amount scheduled to start shrinking after 2027. Whether manufacturers wanted to make these EVs, or consumers wanted to buy them, was irrelevant. The automakers, conscious of two practical realities — the timetable was too short, and they needed the profits from their conventional car business to fund their enormous investment in EV production — complained they were being asked to do too much too soon. The UAW was uneasy, and some Democrats had also expressed concern. The White House, perhaps also with the Supreme Court in mind, has paid some attention. The final version of the regulations has been slightly watered down. But a little less of a bad thing is still a bad thing.
In a nutshell, the final rules (which still begin in 2027) still work the same way, but will increase the size of the initial CO2 “ration.” This, as before, is reduced in succeeding years (with more of it now backloaded), until it arrives at a point slightly higher than had previously been suggested. According to the EPA, one pathway would mean that auto manufacturers could meet the agency’s targets for the final (for now) year (2032) with U.S. sales comprising 56 percent EVs, 13 percent hybrids, and 29 percent traditional cars. In 2023, EVs accounted for 7.6 percent of new car sales.
These rules are an admission of failure. The internal-combustion engine prevailed without governments banning steam-powered cars, earlier electric vehicles, and, yes, the horse. And however much the administration is claiming that the final version of the rules offers more flexibility than the original proposals (some of which may be illusory, especially as hybrids are concerned), it is still an attempt to bribe and bully manufacturers into making cars they don’t want to make, and consumers into buying cars that they do not want to buy — in sufficient numbers anyway.
One day, EVs may be ready for the American mass market, but that time is not now, and nor is it likely to be by 2032. Given how much needs to be done (and spent, much of it with money we don’t have) to build out an adequate charging network and to ensure that (at a time when we are degrading the reliability of our electricity grid in the name of the climate) the power is there when it is needed, that date looks forbiddingly close.
And then, to pick a couple of examples, there are problems such as decreased EV range when the weather is too cold — or too hot. And there’s the way that the sluggishness of “fast” chargers will add considerably to journey times. All of these, incidentally, are problems that will prove particularly excruciating for urban drivers who cannot easily charge their cars at home.
Betting against human ingenuity is a mistake, but to order auto manufacturers to hit certain sales targets before these problems have been resolved is remarkably reckless. It also ignores the fundamental lesson that the best way to foster technological improvement is competition in a free market. EVs’ strongest natural competition comes from the internal-combustion engine. To hobble it will weaken the improvement of the EV when the reverse is required.
If the problems with EVs that have discouraged buyers are not overcome, they will continue to want to purchase traditional cars and, as they have been doing in greater numbers recently, hybrids. But if the availability of such cars is limited by the EPA rules, their price will inevitably rise and that, in turn, will have a knock-on effect in the used-car market. Price, of course, has been another reason that buyers have been less enthusiastic about EVs than expected. But there are good reasons, many of them based on the availability of raw materials, to think that pricing will continue to be a problem unless, of course, we invite Beijing to step in.
And the climate? The administration can talk as much as it wants about all the millions of tons of CO2 that will not be released if U.S. consumers move from conventional cars to EVs, but, even assuming those numbers are correct, they are highly unlikely to move the dial enough to make a material difference, meaning that the threat to American prosperity, mobility, and (thinking, again, of China) geopolitical strength will have been for nothing.
These rules should be scrapped.