ALEXANDRIA, Va.—President Biden’s energy policy will be much more aggressive in terms of emissions reduction and carbon mitigation than his predecessor. “This administration has a different philosophy about fuels that’s driven mainly by greenhouse gas emissions,” said David Ruisard, U.S. products editor at Argus Media, on this week’s episode of Convenience Matters, “Outlook for 2021 Travel Patterns.”

Through November 2020, 1.9% of vehicles sold in the United States were plugins electrics, with the rest being gasoline and diesel. “Electric vehicles are such as small component—they’re luxury vehicles,” he said. “The cost is prohibitive for a lot of people. … I don’t see the explosion [of EVs] coming that people would like to see.”

Another consideration is the lifecycle of the U.S. fleet. “The average age of a car on the road in the U.S. is eight to 10 years old,” he said. “That’s a long turnover time for vehicles. … Shifting things over takes a long time. People are still very wary of EVs as far as travel.”

What’s the easiest fix for the Biden Administration to reduce emissions? “He’s really going to put more pressure on larger emitters that are easier to control, like power plants. He’s probably going to push more airline fuels than automobile fuels,” Ruisard said. “I think the easier fixes will be going into industry, … versus tackling every single car owner in the U.S. … There’s a certain amount of marketing and greenwashing going on inside the industry.”

Listen to the podcast for more on what the Biden Administration will mean for travel and for vehicle sales in the United States. Each week a new Convenience Matters episode is released. With more than 200 episodes to choose from, the podcast can be heard on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play and other podcast apps and YouTube and at www.conveniencematters.com. Episodes have been downloaded more than 200,000 times by listeners around the world.