Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Apply the current traffic password from the media, this time the United States is really panicked. Seeing that the most important environmental goals may not be met, the Biden government has launched several major initiatives not only to ensure that previous plans are completed, but also to achieve higher goals.

Sales of electric cars hit a new high. Biden took environmental protection climate as his main platform when he ran for president in 2020. After taking office, he formulated many climate-related policies, the most eye-catching of which was to vigorously support and subsidize the electric car market. It is proposed that electric cars account for half of new car sales by 2030.

It is true that electric car sales in the United States are hitting new highs. Last year, pure electric vehicle sales in the United States rose 65% year-on-year to 763000, according to Clean Technica, a US electric vehicle market research firm. The year-on-year growth even reached 72% in the fourth quarter, the seventh consecutive quarter of growth of 235000 vehicles, and an astonishing 147% growth compared with the same period two years ago.

When it comes to brands and models, Tesla remains the unshakeable leader in the u.s. electric car market, with sales rising 43% last year to 510000 vehicles. Tesla's share of the US electric car market has fallen from 70 per cent in 2021 to 66 per cent after traditional carmakers launched electric models. Sales of non-Tesla electric cars soared 269 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year.

However, Musk's advantage in the US electric car market remains unshakeable, with the Model Y and Model 3 monopolizing the top two best-selling electric models last year (84,000 and 54000, respectively), while the Chevrolet Bolt ranked third with just 16000. Moreover, after Tesla continuously reduced prices and promoted sales at the end of last year, the market share in the first quarter of this year should increase significantly.

This is the trough of the American auto industry. Due to supply chain problems affecting car production, limited supply of new cars pushing up prices, a sharp decline in the stock market, and inflation seriously dampening willingness to buy cars, total US car sales last year totaled 13.7 million vehicles, down 8% from the same period last year. It fell to the lowest point since 2011. Originally, before the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, new car sales in the United States had exceeded 17 million for five consecutive years.

After Biden took office, he introduced many policies to promote the popularity of electric cars. However, even though the overall US car market has declined and tram sales have increased significantly, electric cars still accounted for only 5.8% of new car sales in the United States last year. It may exceed 7% in the first quarter of this year, and is expected to rise to 8.8% this year, a significant increase compared with the previous two years. Electric cars accounted for only 3.2% of new car sales in 2021, 1.7% in 2020.

Obviously, the popularization speed and current situation of electric vehicles in the United States are still far from the popularization goal previously set by the government, which not only fails to reach the average growth rate of the global electric vehicle market, but also has a huge gap between China and Europe, the two major new energy vehicle markets. Last year, global pure electric vehicle sales rose 68 per cent year-on-year to 7.8 million, with new cars growing by 10 per cent for the first time.

Although Tesla has become a global electric car giant, China and Europe have been far ahead of the United States in the popularity of new energy vehicles. Sales of pure electric vehicles in Europe rose 29 per cent year-on-year to 1.58 million. Pure electric vehicle market penetration rates in Germany, the UK and France reached 18 per cent, 17 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively. In Germany, Europe's largest market, electric vehicles accounted for 25 per cent of new car production in 2022, and more than 30 per cent of newly registered cars were electric vehicles.

In 2022, China's production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 705.8 million and 6.887 million respectively, an increase of 96.9% and 93.4% over the same period last year, with a market share of 25.6%. The production and sales of new energy vehicles have ranked first in the world for eight consecutive years. Of this total, sales of pure electric vehicles were 5.365 million, up 81.6 per cent from the same period last year. Electric cars account for more than 30% of new car sales in China.

These figures dwarf the popularity of trams in the United States and embarrass the Biden administration, which previously claimed to lead the "global climate crisis and new energy transformation." At the current rate of popularity of electric cars, even in the United States, electric cars account for only 45% of new car sales by 2032, falling short of the Biden administration's goal of accounting for half of electric car sales in 2030.

Even in California, which has the highest penetration of electric cars in the United States, the proportion of electric cars in new car sales is not as high as that in China and Europe. Last year, California sold 346000 zero-emission vehicles, including electric and hydrogen vehicles, up just 38 per cent from a year earlier and accounting for 18.8 per cent of new car sales. California accounts for 40% of sales of zero-emission vehicles in the United States.

The US government plans 2/3 new cars to put pressure on trams in 2032. Against this backdrop, the Biden administration has had to formulate additional policies to accelerate the promotion of the US electric car industry. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has introduced the "most stringent" vehicle emissions regulations to date, requiring automakers to directly cut emissions by 56 per cent from 2027 to 2032.

In other words, the EPA does not require car companies to sell how many electric cars they must sell each year, but directly limits the total amount of greenhouse gases they can emit, putting further pressure on traditional car companies to accelerate electrification. In fact, the 2023-2026 emissions set by the Biden administration after taking office in 2021 have been reduced by 25% compared with the previous Trump administration, and now the pressure has been stepped up.

The EPA predicts that if the new rules are implemented smoothly, trams will account for 60 per cent of new car sales in the US in 2030 and more than 2/3 (67 per cent) in 2032, while electric cars in medium-sized trucks will account for 46 per cent. That means the EPA's new target is a step higher than the streetcar target set by the Biden administration two years ago for half of 2030.

Transportation is the second largest source of carbon emissions in the United States, emitting 27% of the greenhouse gases in the United States in 2020. The EPA also expects the new rules to reduce total US carbon emissions by an additional 10 billion tonnes in 2055, twice as much as last year. At the same time, emissions cuts will help save the US 200 barrels of oil imports and reduce health and medical costs by up to $1.6 trillion.

Us Environmental Protection Agency Director Michael Reagan (Michael Regan) said in a statement that the new emission standards will help accelerate the future transformation of the United States towards clean vehicles, respond to the pressing climate crisis, and improve air quality in the United States, which is historic news for children, the climate and the future. The new regulations will be reviewed by the public and are expected to be implemented next year.

Reagan believes that the goal of reaching 67% of electric car sales by 2032 is "ambitious but achievable." He mentioned that the federal government's $7500 tax rebate for electric cars and the $5 billion investment in the major infrastructure bill to build 500000 new charging stations will jointly boost consumer demand for electric cars.

According to White House statistics, there are about 130000 public charging stations and about 3 million electric vehicles in the United States. It is planned to have 13 million electric vehicles in 2030. However, the total number of cars in the United States is about 270 million, and the proportion of electric cars is still negligible.

The California government has always been at the forefront of US environmental policy. According to the California government's Advanced Clean vehicles Act II (ACC2), California's electric car sales will account for 68% of new car sales in 2030. 82% of new car sales will be banned in 2032 and diesel locomotives will be banned in 2035.

Obviously, compared with the radical policies of the California government, the Biden government's new environmental regulations do not ban the sale of fuel cars. Although the Biden administration has repeatedly expressed support for California's environmental initiatives, given the varying degrees of acceptance across the United States, the federal government is unlikely to set such a goal.

The policy of traditional car companies complaining that they are too aggressive will obviously be welcomed by the electric car industry and environmental groups. Electric car company Rivian said in a statement that it welcomed the Biden administration's new emission standards, which would be a key complement to the US government's climate change policy. Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Federation (American Energy Alliance), believes that the Biden government is actually banning the sale of diesel locomotives.

Manish Bapna, president of the National Resource Defense Council (Natural Resources Defense Council), an environmental group, said the EPA's new emissions rules are the right move towards ending polluting roads from vehicle emissions and will also help reduce oil dependence, create more domestic jobs and reduce consumers' fuel spending.

But for traditional car companies, the new emission rules will bring them more trouble. The Association for Automotive Innovation (Alliance for Automotive Innovation), an industry association representing traditional automakers, issued a statement complaining directly that the new EPA policy of the Biden government was "too Aggressive by any measure".

The industry association explained that manufacturers are already vigorously developing electric vehicles, planning to invest a total of $1.2 trillion to promote electrification by 2030, and manufacturers such as Ford have set a goal of stopping the sale of traditional diesel locomotives by 2040. but the new emission standards will only disrupt automakers' established goals.

Among the traditional car companies currently sold in the US market, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (former Fiat Chrysler and France's Peugeot Group), Toyota and Honda all accounted for 40% of 2030 electric vehicle sales before 40%. Only a few manufacturers, such as Daimler and Volvo, have a 2030 target higher than the Biden government's previous plan.

This means that the carmakers, which had struggled to meet the Biden administration's 2030 target, are now forced to accept higher demands. GM and Ford did not publicly oppose the EPA's new rules, but hinted that they needed more policy support from the government.

On the one hand, traditional car companies are complaining, but on the other hand, radical environmental groups feel that this is far from enough. After the introduction of the new emission standards, the Center for Biodiversity (Center for Biological Diversity), an environmental group, believes that the Biden government should require a direct reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by at least 75% by 2030, forcing automakers to sell more electric cars and reduce the sales of millions of internal combustion engine models, especially the more polluting SUV models.

Policy risks and people wait and see, however, the results of next year's US election also bring a lot of policy uncertainty risks to the new US electric car policy. Whether Trump or de Santis takes office, the new environmental policy efforts of the Biden administration over the past few years are likely to come to naught. At present, Republican Party opinion polls show that Trump's approval rating is much higher than that of de Santis, and he is expected to be nominated for president again according to the current situation.

It is well known that Trump and Republicans are extremely close to the traditional energy industry in the United States. After Trump took office in 2016, he led the United States directly out of the Paris climate agreement, appointed oil giant ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, and even appointed Andrew Wheeler, who denies climate change and works as a lawyer for coal companies, as director of the Environmental Protection Agency.

In addition, more than a dozen conservative states, including Texas, are suing the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, and if federal judges in conservative areas issue an injunction, the Biden government's new rules on electric cars will have to be shelved. If the Supreme Court, which is overwhelmingly conservative, upholds the conservative state, the new rule may even be rescinded directly.

On the other hand, the high price of electric cars also hinders the popularity of electric cars in the United States, which cannot be solved by the new regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency. According to KKB, an industry body, the average price of electric cars in the United States before subsidies is as high as $58600. Even with a $7500 federal tax rebate subsidy, electric cars remain high.

LMC Automotive, an automobile industry information agency, believes that because the price of electric cars is significantly higher than that of diesel locomotives, even by 2032, trams will only account for 49% of new car sales in the United States, which is unlikely to reach a higher level, and it is even less likely to completely replace diesel locomotives in the future.

Can the US government still meet its target of electric car sales by 2030? It seems that the American people are also skeptical and wait-and-see. According to a joint poll released this month by the Associated Press and the University of Chicago Energy Policy Institute, only 19 percent of people said the next car was likely to buy an electric car, while 22 percent said they might consider it. In addition, as many as 47% of people said they were unlikely to buy an electric car in their next car.

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