US may miss 2030 EV target

In August, the US government announced a non-binding goal to make electric vehicles (EVs) account for half of new vehicle sales by 2030. The target covers battery (BEV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV) or hydrogen fuel cell (FCEV) vehicles.

We currently expect the share of electric cars in the US car fleet to reach 50% in 2036, missing the target by several years.

Although steps taken by the Biden administration will accelerate the shift towards clean vehicles, the US will lag behind peers including the EU, UK and Canada, owing to low government subsidies for EVs and a lack of mandatory targets.

Separately, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed stricter vehicle emission standards, which would require a 10% cut in CO2 emissions in model year (MY) 2023, followed by a further 5% cut each year until MY 2026.

The federal regulator calculates that carmakers would need to raise the share of EVs in their new light-vehicle fleets to more than 8% in order to meet the proposed emission standards, up from 2% in 2019.