Stricter US car emissions mandate a boon for Tesla as unions warn of botched gas vehicles phase-out

The head of President Biden's Environmental Protection Agency - Michael S. Regan - will reportedly be announcing the most stringent US government regulation of vehicle emissions this Wednesday. The EPA envisions a tailpipe emissions cut so drastic that it will force automakers to speed up their portfolio transition to electric vehicles. The mandate will seek to ensure that two thirds of the new cars sold in 2032, when the government's IRA tax credits expire, will be electric vehicles.

Given that less than 6% of cars sold in the US last year were battery-powered, the new tailpipe emissions standard is looking to increase their market share ten times in less than a decade. While the new EPA mandates will be a boon for Tesla and a few other all-electric players like Rivian, worker unions at legacy automakers are worried about the potential for job losses if the government doesn't do the transition right.

This is why the EPA has given somewhat unprecedented access to its labs and EV testing procedures. There, it has been running various probes on electric vehicles in order to balance the emissions standard with what EV batteries can do now, and what will be possible in the near future. Apparently, yet-unreleased electric vehicles from Tesla and others have been put to torture tests such as operating them in heat or freezing temps, as well as running them until the battery dies down to determine the actual range.

According to the National Fuel and Vehicle Emissions Laboratory Director David Haugen, the test results has made the EPA confident that automakers can pull this off:

Observing these technologies gives us a lot of confidence that this can happen. This regulation will help all the automakers move at the fastest pace they possibly can so that we can address climate change with the urgency it deserves.

Assembling electric cars, however, requires about half the manpower needed for those with gas-powered engines and a myriad of small moving parts. According to auto industry union estimates, more than 150,000 of their members may become redundant because of the rapid shift to vehicle electrification.

The government is addressing this issue with subsidies of up to US$7,500 per new EV assembled in the US, or 35 cents per kWh of made-in-America battery capacity. The new electric car and battery plants, however, are predominantly being built in the South precisely because of lax union regulations there.

According to Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell who has also served as executive at General Motors, the balancing act will be difficult but has to happen eventually:

I’ve had real heart-to-heart conversations with the president and he does understand what these workers are afraid of. We have to make sure the policy underpinnings to be able to achieve something like this are there, without hurting people... There’s too much at stake not to get this right. But it’s a very difficult balance.

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