Biden to sign executive order aiming for 50% EVs by 2030

President Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order on Thursday to adopt electric vehicles, aiming half of all new cars sold in the U.S. by 2030 are zero-emissions vehicles and propose new emission standards to cut pollution through 2026, the White House said.

The 2030 goal won support from major U.S. and foreign carmakers but also warned that it would require billions of dollars in government funding.

“We have got to act,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a CNBC interview. “This goal of getting half of our new vehicles to be electric within the decade is going to be urgently needed for us to meet the imperative of climate in our time.”

In a joint statement, General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co, and Chrysler-parent Stellantis NV said they aspired “to achieve sales of 40-50% of annual U.S. volumes of electric vehicles ... by 2030.”

Though Biden will sign an executive order, the sales target is not mandatory. Instead, it will encourage the auto industry and government to promote legislation and adopt electric vehicles. The target includes zero-emission vehicles powered by fuel cells and batteries, as well as plug-in hybrid models with internal combustion engines.

Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign, told Reuters the plan “relies on unenforceable voluntary commitments from unreliable car makers... Voluntary pledges by auto companies make a New Year’s weight-loss resolution look like a legally binding contract.”

Jessica Caldwell, executive director at auto insights firm Edmunds, told CNBC that the EV sales goal isn’t “particularly over-ambitious”, but it will ultimately depend on regulations and consumer adoption, which remains low.

“Automakers are all making aggressive plays in this category,” Caldwell said. “However, what we’ve seen over the past five years or so is these targets tend to be moving targets, not solid targets. All of it is more fluid than actual plan.”

Previously, the Obama administration set a goal to sell 1 million EVs from 2012-2015, but in reality, only 400,000 electric cars had been sold.

Executives of the Detroit automakers are scheduled to attend an event Thursday at the White House to pledge the goal, although it’s still unknown which companies would attend the event.

Early on Thursday, Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk tweeted, “Seems odd that Tesla wasn’t invited.”

The ‘Detroit 3’ automakers said the aggressive EV sales goals can only be met with billions of dollars in government incentives, including consumer subsidies, EV charging networks as well as “investments in R&D, and incentives to expand the electric vehicle manufacturing and supply chains in the United States.”

Ford CEO Jim Farley said, “We’re counting on strong cooperation among the Biden Administration, Congress, and state and local governments, and are doing our part by developing high-quality, zero-emission vehicles that customers want.”

Biden has called for $174 billion in government spending to boost EVs, including $100 billion in consumer incentives. A bipartisan Senate infrastructure bill includes $7.5 billion for EV charging stations but no money for new consumer incentives.

Picture Credit: Siemens