Biden administration finalizes rule expected to require significant shift to EVs

The rule is a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s climate agenda, as the cars and other light-duty vehicles it regulates currently make up about 17 percent of U.S. planet-warming emissions. The rule also regulates medium-duty vehicles. 

The Biden administration finalized a rule on Wednesday that’s expected to make a significant amount of the new car market electric or hybrid.

An administration official told reporters Tuesday that under the new rule, 56 percent of the new vehicles on the market in 2032 could be battery electric, while an additional 13 percent could be plug-in hybrids.

That’s up from a collective 16 percent of sales being electric and hybrid cars last year. 

The rule is a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s climate agenda, as the cars and other light-duty vehicles it regulates currently makeup about 17 percent of U.S. planet-warming emissions. The rule also regulates medium-duty vehicles. 

But the regulation is expected to be highly contentious — with a proposed version last year garnering pushback not only from Republicans and industry but also the auto workers' union.

In the wake of the criticism, the administration made some changes to the rule, which covers vehicle model years 2027 through 2032.

In a press call with reporters, officials described the rule as similar to an alternative proposal from the original that was less stringent for model years 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030, but ratchets up to a similar level for 2031 and 2032. 

Overall, the rule is expected to prevent 7.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions through the year 2055 — about four times the emissions of the whole U.S. transportation sector in 2021.

In the year 2055, it is also expected to prevent up to 2,500 premature deaths and reduce the number of heart attacks because of reductions in pollution. 

The rule, from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is technically not a mandate for electric vehicles or any specific vehicle technology. 

Instead, it sets pollution limits for automakers’ vehicle fleets — but the standards are so stringent they are unlikely to be met with improvements to gas-powered cars alone, meaning they are expected to shift the market toward electric or other low-carbon options. 

Officials said that the estimate the EPA gave in last year’s rule only looked at electric vehicles and did not model hybrid vehicles — making the number of electric vehicles expected difficult to directly compare. 

However, looking at emissions numbers, the new rule is projected to cut 7.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide through 2055 while the proposal was projected to cut 7.3 billion tons.