The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is to tighten pollution standards for cars and light trucks by drastically raising the vehicle mileage standard to 55 miles per gallon by 2026 citing efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles and hoping this will result in doubling of EVs sales in the years to come.
Considering that transportation overall is the largest source of US greenhouse gas emissions, it’s quite understandable that tougher standards for passenger vehicles are a major part of efforts to curb CO2 output.
The stipulated raising of the standard to 40 mpg in 2023 – and up every year from there – by the Biden administration’s standard revision is a 25% increase over the 36 mpg standard Trump administration announced last year and 5% above the EPA- proposed 38 mpg.
EPA chief Michael Regan stressed in a statement that they’re setting robust and rigorous standards that will pave the way toward an all-electric, zero-emissions transportation future which will aggressively reduce the pollution and will make a giant step forward in delivering on Biden’s agenda to combat climate change.
The new standard which will go into effect 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register, will prevent, according to EPA, around 3 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – more than half the total US CO2 emissions in 2019 and will lower the gasoline consumption by about 360 billion tons.
The idea behind EPA’s changes is to slow climate change, improve public health, and lower the cost of driving through improved fuel efficiency, saving the drivers about $1,080 over the lifetime of their new vehicle.
Confident that carmakers can meet the target by rolling out more electric vehicles, EPA’s setting the new rules to start applying to 2023 vehicle models, hoping to also drive the sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids – the so-called zero-emissions vehicles – that, according to Biden administration’s plans, should to have about 17% of the US market share in 2026.
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