Filmmaker and environmentalist Chris Paine’s Who Killed the Electric Car?—a retrospective documentary released in 2006 on the rise and, at the time, fall of the electric vehicle (EV) industry in the early 2000s—raised some controversial points that are still relevant to today’s EV market. Paine makes the claim that General Motors, one of the largest car manufacturers in the country, intentionally sabotaged its original EV model, the EV1, out of fear of market repercussions. General Motor’s main argument for discontinuing the EV1 was a common myth in the automobile industry: Low customer demand for all-electric vehicles make EVs a “worthless” niche to pursue as a company. But what if producers had an incentive to expand manufacturing to include EVs?
Soon after President Biden took office, he signed an executive order to replace all government vehicles (include USPS) with electric vehicles. Since then, President Biden has made efforts to increase electric vehicle charging infrastructure with large funding opportunities from the Department of Energy, among other government agencies. In the last month, President Biden pitched his $174 billion EV proposal in the heart of the car manufacturing industry in the United States—Michigan. In addition, Senate passed a $3.5 trillion budget framework on August 11, 2021, that includes funding to make EVs more affordable for consumers, including a public charging network and financial incentives.
Lowering greenhouse gas emissions relies not only on making EV charging infrastructure available but also on getting more EVs on the road. Consumer Reports analyzed EV production plans by vehicle producer, including big names like Ford Motor Company, Volvo, Honda, and General Motors. Among its findings: Jaguar plans to be all-electric by 2025, the United Kingdom will ban diesel- and gas-powered cars affective 2030, and General Motors will become completely carbon neutral by 2040. Individual companies setting targets, however, will not be enough for a timely fleet turnover—the International Energy Agency determined that governments will need to accelerate decarbonization policies to meet their climate goals, which will involve extensive upgrades to the transportation sector.
While EVs make up 4.6 percent of car sales around the world, and more than 20 countries have electrification targets or planned bans on internal combustion engines, in the United States there are no federal targets for EV sales. Instead, states have taken the lead and incentivize businesses and consumers to make the switch from conventional internal combustion engines to hybrid and battery-operated EVs. As consumer demand for EVs increases over time, auto manufacturers must abandon the idea of EVs being a “small niche market” to promote turnover of combustion engines, facilitate meeting climate goals, and to achieve the target of half of all new domestic vehicle sales being electric by the end of this decade.
Sagal
Alisalad
Assistant Researcher
Myisha Majumder
Research Assistant
This is a part of the AEC Blog series