The mother of all mandates
Clueless Joe's Environmental Protection Agency sprung a doozy on us on Good Friday.
Quote:
The Biden administration on Friday announced a regulation designed to turbocharge sales of electric or other zero-emission heavy vehicles, from school buses to cement mixers, as part of its multifront attack on global warming.
The Environmental Protection Agency projects the new rule could mean that 25 percent of new long-haul trucks, the heaviest on the road, and 40 percent of medium-size trucks, like box trucks and landscaping vehicles, could be nonpolluting by 2032. Today, fewer than 2 percent of new heavy trucks sold in the United States fit that bill.
The regulation would apply to more than 100 types of vehicles including tractor-trailers, ambulances, R.V.s, garbage trucks and moving vans.
The rule does not mandate the sales of electric trucks or any other type of zero or low-emission truck. Rather, it increasingly limits the amount of pollution allowed from trucks across a manufacturer's product line over time, starting in model year 2027.
New Pollution Rules Aim to Lift Sales of Electric Trucks - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
EVs make up less than 1% of U.S. heavy truck sales, and nearly all are in California, which heavily subsidizes and mandates their purchase.
EPA’s rule will require electric trucks to account for 60% of new local delivery trucks and 25% of long haul tractor sales by 2032.
No problem right ? Currently there are no long haul tractor trailer EVs on the market . The batteries can't do the job. Even light duty electric trucks only go about 150 miles between charges .The batteries themselves are heavy which means that they can carry less load or do more to the road surfaces .
To make the same deliveries will require more trucks and more drivers ,Currently there is a shortage of drivers .
Power generation will need to be greatly expanded ;and renewable sources will not fit the bill. So any reduction in the use of fossil fuels by having EV fleets will just be transferred to the use of fossil fuel for electric generation.
A rough estimate is that 1.4 million additional chargers would be required by 2032 . That is 15,000 a month starting now. The infrastructure is not sufficient to make that happen ;even in the most populus regions of the nation.
The sad part of all this is that the US is achieving it's carbon reduction goals already
It has nothing to the with a conversion to electric. It has everything to do with the natural gas revolution.
Increases in gas electricity generation is the largest driver, accounting for 33% of the total emissions reduction in 2016.
Analysis: Why US carbon emissions have fallen 14% since 2005 - Carbon Brief
