BURLINGAME, Calif.—This week, President Joe Biden announced his goal to have the United States surpass China in electric vehicle production, Reuters reports. “We have a lot of catching up to do, but we're going to be in a position where we ought to own the future,” Biden said during a virtual tour of Proterra, an electric bus and battery manufacturing facility. “We ought to be the single most significant suppliers of electric buses and vehicles in the world before it's over. Right now, we're running way behind China.”
In China, auto manufacturers sold around 1.3 million passenger EVs last year, compared with 328,000 in the US, according to Canalys. The U.S. president would like to shell out $174 billion to increase manufacturing and sales of zero-emission cars and buses, as well as add EV charging stations. That proposal also includes $100 billion for consumer rebates and around $45 billion to electrify some school buses and transit vehicles.
Proterra projects that half of all new North American-built buses in 2025 will run on electricity. Biden has made a “commitment that all American-made buses will be zero-emission by 2030,” according to the White House.
The White House hasn’t announced a date to phase out sales of new combustion engine vehicles like California or Washington state have done. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris visited in person a Thomas Built Buses facility in North Carolina earlier this week to see the company’s electric bus plant.
NACS is ready to work with the administration to craft EV infrastructure legislation. To learn more about consumers’ views on electric vehicles, be sure to read “Weak Signals No More” in NACS Magazine.
The Fuels Institute has prepared an evaluation of the electric vehicle market from the consumer perspective, including total cost of ownership, recharging infrastructure requirements, anticipated consumer recharging behavior and the relationship of EVs to competing technology in terms of consumer adoption. Visit “Electric Vehicle Adoption: Focus on Charging” to learn more. In addition, the Institute’s Electric Vehicle Council soon will be publishing three new reports pertaining to EV charging infrastructure options, regulations and consumer behavior.
Watch this YouTube video by the Fuels Institute and NACS for more information on EV infrastructure.
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