Difficulties due to legal obstacles against high price of electric car conversion in the US
The U.S. electric vehicle conversion policy is still facing high consumer prices and low profits from automakers, a vicious cycle of opposition from the labor union, and legal obstacles in leading the environment ministry.
All automakers in the United States have already invested billions of dollars in electrification, but they are still injecting profits from internal combustion engine vehicles, and the new regulations proposed by the Biden administration will require more investment in new electrical facilities to reap the benefits. The New York Times predicted on the 15th that it would be difficult to expect a price drop due to mass production of electric vehicles.
Regarding the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announcement on the 14th, “In order to change to an industrial scale, the Biden administration will face legal problems from those who believe that regulation is excessive application of the government, as well as resistance from manufacturers and consumers.” "The aggressive timeline envisioned by the government means that automakers will have more difficulty sourcing the materials needed for vehicle batteries that are already hard to come by," he said.
The consumer challenge is that, despite a federal tax incentive of up to $7,500, electric vehicles cost more upfront than conventional cars and trucks, with the average new car costing $49,507 by the end of 2022, compared to $61,448 for an electric car, and motivated consumers The NYT also found that there is a great fear of being stranded due to range anxiety and insufficient fast charging stations.
Harvard University professor Jody Freeman (environmental law), who was climate adviser to President Barack Obama (Democratic Party), said that the current Supreme Court, which consists of six justices appointed by the Republican president, including three justices appointed by Trump to the court, "is highly resistant to any kind of regulation." "The court is unsympathetic and particularly hostile to the EPA," he told the NYT.
He said the Clean Air Act had worked successfully for years to force polluting industries to invest in new technologies to reduce emissions, but "all of this is part of the EPA's normal process of setting standards." .
"The risk of accelerating the shift away from gasoline vehicles is very high for the industry as electrification requires significant investments in new battery electric vehicles, battery technology, supply chain and manufacturing capabilities, and charging infrastructure," said Matthias Heck, vice president of credit rating agency Moody's Investors Services. Even if it is not, it is high," he told the NYT.
"Ford and other automakers have yet to secure sufficient sources of the lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and other materials needed for car batteries, and it is unclear where they can get them," the NYT said. "It's likely that automakers will have to spend billions of dollars more to get two-thirds of the vehicles sold."
"The Executive Order from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exceeds the administration's carefully considered, data-driven target announcement," said John Bozella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a leading body for large U.S. and foreign automakers. "How can we justify the uncertainty caused by
He said in his statement today. "EV and battery manufacturing is on the rise nationwide as automakers have self-financed billions of dollars to expand vehicle electrification, and it is also true that the EPA's proposed emissions plan is aggressive by any measure," he said. A lot has to go right for this massive and unprecedented change in the world to succeed.”
"There is no good reason why electric car manufacturing shouldn't be a gateway to the middle class for generations of unions and auto workers," said Sean Payne, chairman of the Detroit-based United Auto Workers. "I'm concerned that early signs in this industry are prioritizing corporate greed over economic justice," he said, revealing the collapse of the middle class of auto workers.
Auto workers lost their jobs because electric cars require less than half the number of workers to assemble than cars with internal combustion engines, electric car and battery factories are concentrated in lower-paying southern states, and unions are politically hostile. is becoming
Unionists and automakers have already expressed various fears directly to the president since 2023, when President Biden issued an executive order directing government policy to have 50% of all new passenger car sales be electric by 2021, the NYT reported. revealed
The Biden administration clung to a 'bet' that mass production would lower the cost of electric vehicles, but Carlos Tavares, CEO of automaker Stellantis, said, "It is not economical because raw materials are scarce and very expensive, and it is very volatile." Recently in Detroit said at an open meeting.
Manufacturers are uniformly funding electric vehicle production with significant profits from gas-powered trucks and sport utility (SUV) vehicles, and it will be difficult to remain profitable in future production of more electric vehicles and less gas-powered models. NYT experts reported the diagnosis.
GM has said it's not yet making money from its electric vehicles, and Ford recently said its electric division is expected to lose $300 million this year.
The way the Biden Administration's EPA treats automakers is that it can't mandate the sale of a specific number of electric vehicles, but it does put forward the Clean Air Act to limit the pollution generated by the total number of cars sold by each manufacturer and billions of dollars. It leads to fines of dollars and various punishments.
The only way for automakers to comply with the FDA's limit setting is to report to the federal government the average greenhouse gas emissions of all new cars sold in each model year covered, in 'selling a percentage of zero-emission vehicles', so that 'gasoline and It is also possible to respond to the imposition of fines by 'maintaining the ratio through the sale of large quantities of electric vehicles'.
A group of Republican Attorney Generals have already challenged several of the Biden administration's climate policies, the most ambitious of which is the car pollution regulation.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey told the New York Times on the same day that "this group will fight the EPA's latest proposal."
Steven G. Bradbury, who was the Trump administration's chief counsel for the Department of Transportation, told the New York Times that the rule would amount to an overreach by the government.
Bradbury, former clerk of Justice Clarence Thomas (Republican), said: “They are using a long-standing statute to achieve an entirely new goal: to transform an industry into electric vehicles. has never been considered," he told the NYT.