Biden’s Push for EVs Sales by 2030 Won’t Work For 3 Reasons

United States President Joe Biden may only have another few months in the Oval Office, but he is absolutely determined to ensure that he leaves America better off than it was four years ago.

The fact that planet Earth is in trouble is not new news; for years, scientists have understood that climate change is a very real problem. Experts say that, in addition to the horrifying side effects humans are seeing right now, the situation will only get worse unless the human race can find ways to reverse the issue and allow the Earth to return to its natural fluctuations.

President Biden has taken this advice to heart and spent a great deal of time, energy, and money over his four years in the White House to transition America to green, sustainable energy sources.

Biden’s belief that EVs could actually help save the planet is not just a wild idea, it’s based on tangible evidence collected by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.)

With this information in mind, President Biden announced last year that he had plans to completely transition America from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles as soon as humanly possible.

At first, it seemed that the president was only planning on investing in the EV industry. In 2022, Biden announced he had created the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, both of which included plans to invest billions of dollars into the EV market.

But within the year, Biden had made a very different announcement. In 2023, the president proclaimed that at least 50% of all vehicle sales in the United States will have to be electric by 2030.

The auto manufacturing industry, unsurprisingly, was infuriated by Biden’s plan to make 50% of all vehicles sold in the US electric in just over five years. Over 150,000 Americans are employed by the auto industry, and if Biden’s plan goes ahead, they are worried thousands will lose their jobs.

Additionally, if American-based auto companies can’t produce a sufficient number of EVs by the president’s instructed due-date, citizens who need new cars will likely have to shop abroad, specifically in China where EVs are plentiful and inexpensive.

Another issue is the affordability of EVs. For comparison, Ford’s F-150 has been one of the best-selling pickup trucks in America for nearly 40 years. In 2022, Ford released an electric version, the F-150 Lightning, which should have helped pick-up truck lovers switch over to EVs.

This price tag has been a big hurdle that stops Americans from buying electric cars, which is throwing a wrench in the country’s climate goals. In a recent poll, more Americans don’t want to spend the average price of $55,000 on an eclectic car, which is being seen as a luxury item.

After the original announcement, Biden and the EPA had to reevaluate their EV plan to keep the auto industry and millions of Americans happy. At first, they considered extending the timeline from 2030 to at least 2032, but instead, it seems the Biden administration has gone in a different direction.

In March 2024, the president announced that his original goal that 50% of all new car sales are electric by 2030 will go ahead as planned. Biden said in a statement, “Three years ago, I set an ambitious target: that half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 would be zero-emission.”

It’s important to note that while it seems as though Biden is going ahead with his plan and has calmed the concerns of the auto industry, it might never happen. The new presidential election is only a few months away, and while Biden is defending the White House against former prescient Donald Trump, he very well may lose.

Elizabeth Krear, vice president of Electric Vehicle Practice at consumer-intelligence firm J.D. Power tells the BBC that Americans want to buy EVs, but a few issues are stopping them from adopting the green-friendly car.

With the US interest rates at a two-decade high, the price tag for the avenge American EV is too high, even with a discounted rate and tax credits.

“The median income for a family of four is somewhere around $70,000. The average electric car in 2022 cost more than $60,000. So, think about that: the near equivalent of what you’re pulling in for the year,” Krear says.

With the sales of EVs falling short despite Biden’s push to only have EVs sold by 2030, automakers have responded by reducing the price of various models. Tesla, which accounts for more than half of EV sales in the US, reduced the price on various models by 17 to 35 percent from 2022.

Another issue that has caused some EV hesitation is that many Americans do not have reliable public charging stations. If your refueling light comes on in rural areas during a road trip, not every gas station nearby will have a charging station.

The great charging problem in the US could also be solved by the federal government establishing a budget of $7.5 billion to fund charging network operators in building reliable EV infrastructure.

“Imagine if you go to a traditional gas station and two out of 10 times the pumps are out of order,” Asensio said in a post detailing the results of the study.

Recent research by the Harvard Business School, which analyzed more than 1 million public EV charging station customer reviews using customized AI models, found that charging stations in the U.S. have an average reliability score of 78%.

Another fear for some is that charging comes with risk. Some multi-unit apartment buildings do not allow residents to charge EVs in the parking garages as owners without the knowledge of what to do with a broken charger have accidentally caused fires.

One issue the US could tackle to help solve the charging problem in the US is establishing a standard issue for the charging port. Tesla chargers are specifically designed for Tesla vehicles.