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U.S. President Joe Biden today announce a pledge from the country's automakers to produce electric vehicles for as much as half of U.S. sales by the end of the decade. Also asking automakers to raise gas mileage and cut tailpipe pollution by 2026, Biden is now one step closer to meeting his pledge to cut carbon emissions and tackle climate change.
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Pulling out all the stops to make the U.S. the world's largest carmaker in competition with China, President Biden announced a commitment from the country's automakers to produce electric vehicles for as much as half of the country's sales by 2030.
At the White House, he signed an executive order which included both the regulatory and the automakers' voluntary targets.
"This is an executive order strengthening America's leadership in clean cars and trucks. Said Biden.
The President was in great form today as he hopped into a plug-in hybrid Jeep that can run both in hybrid mode and solely on batteries.
After the short trip, he touted and extolled the virtues of electric cars.
"But you see that sucker over there? Zero to sixty in 4.1 seconds. It's all electric."
Prior to today's signing of the aforementioned executive order, Biden had announced there would be new mileage and anti-pollution standards from the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department, which is part of Biden's goal to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade.
"First, I'm following through on the campaign commitment to reverse the previous administration's short-sighted rollback of vehicle emissions and efficiency standards."
The new standards, coupled with Biden's climate plan enunciated earlier this year, would cut greenhouse gas emissions and raise fuel economy by 10 percent over the Trump rules.
Knowing the U.S. has all the makings of the world's largest car producer, Biden also urged companies that produce car components from batteries to semi-conductors to make sweeping changes aimed at contributing to the all-out environmental effort and creating more job opportunities.
"The question is whether we lead or fall behind in the race for the future." Said Biden.
As of June this year, electric vehicles sales remain sluggish, as only 2.2 percent of new vehicles sales in the U.S. were fully electric vehicles. But that's still up from 1.4 percent last June.
Having learned that replacing traditional diesel vehicles with fully electric vehicles would make for a better environment and give rise to a brighter carmaking future, several automakers have announced electric vehicle sales goals. As a matter of fact, Ford's CEO said last week his company expects 40 percent of its global sales to be fully electric by 2030. And General Motors is the most ambitious. It said the company is devoted to making all of its global sales completely electric by 2035.
Gassing up their traditional diesel vehicles is a routine for many Americans, and the same can be said for those driving electric vehicles. Speaking of refuelling vehicles, in a bipartisan infrastructure bill awaiting Senate passage, 7.5 billion U.S. dollars have been earmarked to build charging stations for electric cars.
Shifting from diesel cars to electric cars completely is assuredly worth its weight in terms of the country's carmaking future and the environment. But be that as it may, many believe only with policies that can incentivise Americans to purchase electric vehicles and provide funding for charging stations, as well as for expanding electric vehicle manufacturing and the supply chain can the dramatic and history-making shift happen.
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