Washington Update From the U.S. Oil and Gas Association - 4.6.2024

The Regulatory Hounds Enleashed

April 5, 2024

Biden mandates EVs. Market says “Hold on…”

Two weeks ago, Biden’s EPA announced historically strict emissions regulations on light cars and trucks, “ensuring” two-thirds of all car and truck sales to be EVs by 2032. The challenge is that in 2023, less than 8 percent of vehicle sales were EVs. 

This week, car manufacturers reported their sales and boy are the EV numbers are bad—especially for the world’s two leading EV companies—Tesla and China’s BYD.  EV sales from both Tesla and BYD were down big in the first quarter of 2024 versus the fourth quarter of 2024. Tesla’s sales were down 24 percent versus Q4 and BYD’s sales were down 42 percent.

Tesla’s sales were so bad they were down 8.5 percent versus the first quarter of last year. While BYD doesn’t sell cars in the U.S., its sales declines show that slowing EV sales is not just a U.S. phenomenon. 

Other car companies also reported sales this week. Ford, for example, saw its EV sales grow by 86 percent year over year, which sounds great until you realize that EVs still made up less than 4 percent of Ford’s sales. It is a long, long, long way to go to have EVs make up 4 percent of sales in 2024 to 67 percent of sales in 8 years under Biden’s EV mandate. 

So, What Does the Public Think? The latest polling on EVs…