New US Tailpipe Emission Rules Announced

Like Kevin Costner listening to a bunch of ghosts in a cornfield hoping to manifest his dreams, the US has released some strict vehicle rules hoping consumers will shift to buying electric vehicles.

What happened: Yesterday, the US Environmental Protection Agency laid out some tough new rules looking to curb tailpipe emissions. Under the new rules, two thirds of all new vehicles sold would have to be electric by 203 and applies to cars, SUVs, and light-duty trucks.

• For context, emissions from transportation accounts for 27 percent of all US emissions, the largest sector in the country.

These rules would increase the EV share 10x over the next ten years, as just 7.2 precent of new car sales are electric today in the country.

Yes, but: Americans are not keen to go electric. According to a recent survey by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute, only 40 percent of Americans are very likely or somewhat likely to have their next car purchase be electric.

Likelihood next car will be an EV
percentage of respondents

The top reasons cited for not being an electric vehicle were cost, charging station availability, and limited battery performance.

Bottom line: A mandate does not force change. We’ll let Cox Automotive analyst Michelle Krebs close this one out:

“The big question is, ‘What is consumer expectance?’ You can mandate them, butmpeople have to buy them. A lot of that will depend on can automakers produce affordable ones, and ones they can be profitable with?”