WASHINGTON (AP) — New vehicles sold in the United States should average about 38 miles per gallon (61 kilometers per gallon) of gasoline in 2031 under real-world driving conditions, up from about 29 miles per gallon (46 kilometers per gallon) this year, under new federal rules unveiled Friday by the Biden administration.
The final rule will increase fuel economy by 2% per year for model years 2027 through 2031 for passenger cars, while SUVs and other light trucks will increase by 2% per year for model years 2029. to 2031, according to requirements published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The final figures are below a proposal launched last year. Government officials said the relaxed requirements will allow the auto industry flexibility to focus on electric vehicles, adding that higher gas mileage requirements would have imposed significant costs on consumers without sufficient fuel savings to offset them.
President Joe Biden has set a goal for half of all new vehicles sold in the United States by 2030 to be electric, as part of his effort to combat climate change. Gasoline-powered vehicles are the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
The 50% sales figure would represent a huge increase over current EV sales, which accounted for 7.6% of new vehicle sales last year.
Even as he promotes electric vehicles, Biden needs the cooperation of the auto industry and the political support of workers in the sector, a key electoral bloc, as the Democratic president seeks re-election in November. The United Auto Workers of the United States union has backed Biden but has said it wants to ensure the transition to electric vehicles does not cause job losses and that the industry pays high wages to workers who build electric vehicles and batteries.
Biden’s likely opponent, former President Donald Trump, and other Republicans have denounced Biden’s electric vehicle initiative as unfair to consumers and an example of government overreach.
The new rules will save nearly 70 billion gallons of gasoline through 2050, avoiding more than 710 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions by mid-century, the Biden administration said.
“Not only will these new rules save Americans money every time they fill up the tank, they will also decrease harmful pollution and make America less dependent on foreign oil,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “These standards will save car owners more than $600 in gasoline costs over the life of their vehicle.”
The highway safety agency said it has sought to align its regulations to match new Environmental Protection Agency rules that tighten standards for tailpipe emissions. But if there are discrepancies, automakers will likely have to follow the stricter regulation.
In the byzantine world of government regulation, both agencies are essentially responsible for setting fuel economy requirements, since the quickest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to burn less gasoline.
Fuel economy figures used by The Associated Press reflect actual driving conditions that include factors such as wind resistance, hills and air conditioning use. Because of those factors, the actual numbers are lower than the mileage figures presented by NHTSA.
“These new fuel economy standards will save our nation billions of dollars, help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and make our air cleaner for everyone,” said NHTSA Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman.
John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a leading industry group, said the Biden administration “appears to have arrived at a CAFE rule that works with the other recent federal tailpipe rules.” Bozzella was using an acronym for fuel standards, which are officially known as corporate average fuel economy rules.
Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, criticized the new rules as inadequate.
The highway safety agency was supposed to set strong standards for gasoline-powered vehicles, he said, “but instead it sat on their tailpipes, leaving automakers free to make cars, SUVs and trucks that will consume and they will pollute for decades to come and keep America dependent on oil.”
The government “caved to pressure from automakers, with a weak rule that requires only a 2% improvement” per year in fuel economy, Becker said, adding that the rule does not meet the agency’s own requirement. to establish fuel economy standards at the maximum technologically feasible level.
NHTSA said its rule includes a 10% per year improvement for commercial trucks and work vans for model years 2030 through 2032. Automakers can meet the requirements with a mix of electric, gasoline hybrid and electric vehicles. and improvements in the efficiency of gasoline and diesel vehicles.
Bozzella, the industry official, said the government may soon need to reconsider whether fuel economy standards are necessary “in a world that is rapidly moving toward electrification” of the vehicle fleet.
Mileage standards are “a relic of the 1970s,” Bozzella said, “a policy to promote energy conservation and energy independence by making internal combustion vehicles more efficient. But those vehicles are already very efficient. And electric vehicles don’t burn anything. “They don’t even have an exhaust pipe.”
Chris Harto, senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports, said NHTSA’s rules were not strong enough to pressure automakers to ensure new electric vehicles are as efficient as possible.
“Today the Administration is simply checking the box on the legal requirement” to set fuel economy standards, he said, adding that NHTSA is limited by legal limitations that prevent it from explicitly considering electric vehicles when setting mileage standards.
“This important consumer protection program is likely to become increasingly irrelevant as electric vehicle sales continue to grow,” Harto said.
This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
