Car makers are pushing back on the U.S. environmental regulator’s attempts to push the country into electric vehicles.
In April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new automobile emission rules that—it estimated—were so tight they would result in 67% of new passenger vehicles and light trucks having to be electric vehicles (EV) by 2032, along with 50% of buses, 35% of short-haul freight tractors, and 25% of long-haul freight tractors.
Car manufacturers are warning, though, that such a transition is unachievable under present circumstances.
Stellantis and Toyota criticised the EPA’s plan as “overly optimistic.”
The comments were made directly to EPA as part of the public comment period on the agency’s proposal. The proposed rules are first subject to a 90-day public comment period.
Toyota told the regulator that its proposal “underestimates key challenges, including the scarcity of minerals to make batteries, the fact that these minerals are not mined or refined in the U.S., the inadequate infrastructure and the high cost of battery electric vehicles.”
“The sources for those minerals are almost exclusively outside the U.S., as is most of the mineral processing to turn the ore into usable battery-grade material. And the charging infrastructure (both in-home and public) needed to support that level of electrification is far from where it needs to be,” the company added.
The car makers noted that though various estimates differ in predictions of the number of electric cars on the road in the foreseeable future, all estimates show that the transition to electric cars the EPA hopes for would require millions of public charging stations while even the latest government infrastructure plans provide for only 700,000 charging stations in the U.S. by 2030.
Toyota additionally cautioned that consumers were switching to electric cars at much slower rates than government regulations. A recent analysis by Cox Automotive showed that though car manufacturers are cranking out electric cars, customers are slow to buy, causing a glut of EV inventory at dealerships.
Not surprisingly, car maker Tesla, which makes only totally electric battery-powered vehicles, welcomed the EPA’s new rules. Tesla told the EPA that electric vehicle technology is well-proven and uptake was moving along at a more than acceptable rate, so the EPA should aim for no less than a 69% market penetration rate in model year 2032, a figure slightly higher than the regulators’ hoped-for uptake of electric cars.
The trade magazine CleanTechnica notes that, since the U.S. opted years ago to rely on globalised supply and production chains, allowing China to monopolise the raw materials market, auto manufacturers now find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place:
“[They] are getting slapped around by two competing forces—the need to produce electric cars and the need to source the components and materials for them domestically in order to make sure their products qualify for federal tax credits. If they don’t, those cars and trucks will be noncompetitive in the marketplace,” the publication explained.
Experts agree that as electric vehicle technology stands right now, achieving a large shift to electric cars will require extensive additional mining of needed minerals, which could take decades, and comes with its own environmental toll. Additionally, if the U.S. government wants it sourced domestically, it will have to contend with communities hesitant to have the mining tear up their region of residence.
Toyota, CleanTechnica notes, is hedging its bets in all directions. It plans to keep manufacturing combustion engine cars for decades to come but also recently announced it’s developing very promising solid-state batteries that could cost half of the current lithium batteries, the most common EV battery type.
