• The Biden administration’s overall strategy aims to reduce tailpipe emissions by pushing Americans to use electric vehicles.
  • Automakers need more time to meet the White House’s goals, and unions are leaning toward slowing the pace of electric vehicle development.

Sources first told The New York Times that the administration’s shift on tackling climate change was intended to placate automakers and unions.

New legislation

The Biden administration is reportedly working on legislation to give automakers breathing room by requiring them to rapidly ramp up production of electric vehicles over the next few years.
The new plan, which won’t be finalized until “early spring,” would require automakers to ramp up sales of electric vehicles by 2030, rather than requiring the target to be met sooner. The Biden administration’s overall strategy aims to reduce tailpipe emissions by pushing Americans to use electric vehicles. The original goal was to complete the work by 2030 in order to rapidly reduce carbon emissions from gasoline cars, the country’s largest source of greenhouse gases. According to the New York Times, automakers not only need time to produce electric vehicles and cut costs, but also to build an infrastructure of charging stations across the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, there are only 160,000 charging stations in the United States, and only 88 percent of them are public charging stations.

Also read: Honda zero series: Lighter, aerodynamic EVs redefining sustainable driving

Biden’s approach

In addition, with President Biden up for re-election this year, the policy change also helps placate labor unions, which reportedly believe that a rapid move into electric vehicles could cost workers manufacturing jobs. As more electric vehicle plants are built in union-unfriendly states, unions need that slowdown, too, for their unions to try to keep up with the industry’s growth, the report said.

Union support for Mr. Biden is seen as crucial to his re-election campaign, and the president even attended the auto workers’ strike last year.