Transportation has now become the greatest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. So tackling the climate challenge calls for an all-out effort to retire the internal combustion engine.
One by one, major automakers are coming to grips with that reality. General Motors said it aims to stop selling new gasoline-powered cars and light trucks by 2035 and will pivot to battery-powered models. Volvo said it would move even faster and introduce an all-electric lineup by 2030. Ford, Volkswagen, and other manufacturers also have announced such goals. As a result, EVs are expected to account for half of all vehicles produced in the world by 2030, according to UBS Global Research, up from three to four percent today.
Tesla, of course, has dominated the landscape so far, but there are a number of cars available. As Norman Mayersohn put it in The New York Times, “Electrics are available in many sizes, shapes and prices, with models that can be basic errand-chasers or outrageous sports cars.” He listed 14, describing each one briefly. Today there are 1.8 million EVs on U.S. roads.
Is there an American EV that has the potential to woo undecided motorists and help end the nation's fascination with giant gas-guzzlers? The answer may be the Ford Mustang Mach-E, according to Karl Brauer, executive publisher of the website CarExpert, and Ivan Drury of Edmunds.com. ABC News’ Morgan Korn reported: “The slinky SUV boasts an estimated range of up to 300 miles, and the more pricey GT version posts a 0-60 mph sprint of 3.8 seconds, faster than some conventional Mustangs on the road today.” Prices start at $42,895.
It would be wise, though, to season all the enthusiasm with a dash of reality. “The consumer in the middle of America just isn’t there yet,” when it comes to switching to electric vehicles, St. Louis car dealer Brad Sowers told The Wall Street Journal. He cited the long distances many of his customers drive daily and a lack of charging infrastructure outside major cities.
To address that shortage, President Joe Biden has proposed adding 500,000 charging stations over the next decade. Today, there are just 100,000.
Another hard reality: There are 280 million vehicles on the nation’s roads. Even if every car sold this year were electric, it would take a number of years to scrap all those that run on fossil fuels.
It’s also important to remember that the electricity that powers EVs is coming from power plants, a sizable percentage of which are burning coal, natural gas, or oil--and thus emitting greenhouse gases. So moving those plants to renewable sources is vital.
Then there’s the challenge of obtaining enough of the raw material needed to build all the batteries. Lithium is a critical ingredient and, while deposits can be found all over the world, it’s difficult to turn them into the chemicals that power batteries, The Wall Street Journal explained.
Finding and developing lithium is a key to success for a nation’s automakers. During her confirmation hearing, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the United States needs to manufacture more batteries at home if it wants to compete in the world's electric vehicle market. “Of the 142-lithium ion battery mega factories that are under construction,” she testified, “107 are in China. Nine are in the U.S. We can't sustain this,” she said. “We have got to lean in much more quickly.”
The country setting the EV standard is Norway. Battery electric vehicles made up 54.3 percent of all new cars sold there in 2020, up from 42.4 percent in 2019. Government policies play a large role in ramping up EV percentages. The EU has been ambitious, while the United States has moved more slowly. That should change during the Biden administration.
One way that the administration could help is through its own fleet purchases. The federal government has 650,000 vehicles, everything from Army Humvees to Social Security Administration staff cars, NPR’s Brian Naylor reported.
By far, the largest chunk of the federal fleet, about a third, is the U.S. Postal Service's delivery trucks. In February Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced a new contract to replace many of those aging, gas-guzzling vehicles. Unfortunately, he said that only about 10 percent of those new trucks would be electric vehicles, explaining that the USPS can’t afford the additional $3 billion to $4 billion he estimates it would take to make the fleet 90-percent electric.
Short-sighted? Definitely. That’s why 17 Democratic congressmen have just introduced a bill that would provide the funds to ensure that at least 75 percent of the new fleet consists of electric or zero-emission vehicles.
Another sensible fleet target: the nation’s 65,000 transit buses. The federal government covers most of the capital costs, and if the Federal Transportation Authority paid, say, 60 percent of the cost of new diesel buses and, perhaps, 85 percent of the cost of electric or other zero-emission buses, that would be a strong incentive for cities, states, and other operators of public bus fleets to go electric. Congress should enact such a differential. Electric buses cost more than diesel buses, but they have lower maintenance and fuel costs
One sound way to accelerate the move to EVs would be an honest price on carbon emissions. That would make it more expensive to operate a car burning fossil fuels. Congress is working on a package of climate change measures, and a carbon fee should be in it.