The Environmental Protection Agency released historic new pollution standards for passenger cars and small trucks Wednesday that could effectively require most new vehicles sold in the United States to be hybrid or electric by 2032—though it gave carmarkers more time to comply than an earlier proposal last year, in a major concession to auto manufacturers and labor unions.
The new rules will require most new cars to be hybrid or electric by 2032.
The auto industry will meet the new standards if 56% of all new vehicles are electric by 2032, at least 13% are plug-in hybrid or partially electric, and only 29% are traditional combustion engine vehicles, according to the EPA’s regulation.
The agency backed off a more ambitious regulation proposed in April 2023, which would have required 67% of all new cars and small trucks to be electric by 2030, and allowed more options for automakers, including plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles.
The regulations were announced after electric vehicle sales surged in 2023, with Kelley Blue Book reporting a record 1.2 million vehicles sold over the course of the year—however, those sales appear to be weakening in 2024.
Wednesday’s announcement comes almost two years after President Joe Biden signed an executive order pushing for 50% of all new cars made in the U.S. to be electric or zero-emission by 2030, and the president said the new regulations would help the industry “meet my goal by 2030 and race forward in years later.”
According to the EPA, the new standards will protect Americans from 7 billion tons of carbon emissions, and save American drivers an estimated $62 billion on fuel costs—or $6,000 per driver over the lifetime of a vehicle.