Biden’s rollback of EV rules will be worse for pollution than thought

A few months ago, the Biden administration changed the rules around its EV expectations for the future. Largely, this consisted of lowering the percentage of the American fleet that needs to be electric by 2032, but there was a more sinister change behind the scene: That requirement could now be met by plug-in hybrids. This is not great. From Reuters:

When the Biden administration announced new U.S. auto-emissions regulations in March, it made concessions to industry allowing for a much slower electric-vehicle transition than it had proposed a year earlier.

Instead of aiming to convert two-thirds of new vehicles to EVs by 2032, it lowered that target and said automakers could comply by producing more gas-electric hybrids.

…

A Reuters examination of the rule changes and the agency’s emissions projections show the concessions will result in substantially more pollution than originally foreseen in two ways: by delaying stricter emissions limits for years; and by retaining an outdated formula for plug-in hybrids that the EPA concedes underestimates their real-world pollution.

Using the EPA projections, Reuters calculated that the rules allow the average-per-mile carbon emissions of light-duty vehicles to be 14% higher between 2027 and 2032 than in the original proposal.

Oh, those EPA projections? They’re hopelessly optimistic too. The agency’s formulas for calculating PHEV emissions haven’t been updated in years, because automakers don’t want more realistic estimates. again from Reuters:

In its original proposal, the EPA called for replacing the 14-year-old formula for plug-in-hybrid emissions with a measure “determined from real world data” on charging, but it decided under pressure from automakers to keep it until 2031. Some automakers argued a more restrictive formula would stifle plug-in innovation.

As a resident of New York, I’m excited for our city to take on a more Venetian flair. I think commuting to work by gondola would be fun, actually. Take a little boat up Sixth Ave, toss a tip to a man in a striped shirt for ferrying you. I’m not coping, you’re coping.

A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik’s The Morning Shift.