Posted on 06/11/2024 5:57:47 AM PDT by MtnClimber
I’m old enough to remember a time when there were serious environmental concerns with internal combustion engine vehicles. NOx and SOx emissions caused a thick layer of brown smog in the atmosphere during calm weather spells in summer and winter; and a layer of black soot would cover the snow along the roadside in the winter. But gradually that all got cleaned up. Today the bona fide serious environmental concerns about internal combustion engines are far in the past. But the war to eliminate them — supposedly on environmental grounds — is just ramping up.
The Biden Administration is all in with the plan to get rid of the ICE car. Why? It seems to have something to do with the non-existent “climate crisis.” Meanwhile, Congress has passed no legislation authorizing the executive agencies to force ICE vehicles off the market. Nor is the Administration honest enough to admit that they are engaged in outlawing the vehicles that 90+% of the people drive.
Instead we get massive and thoroughly dishonest regulations effectively forcing the approaching end of the ICE vehicle without ever directly saying so. All with effective dates far enough into the future that the public will not notice that anything is happening in time for the upcoming election.
Two big new regulations on this subject have just gone final. First, there was EPA’s “Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light- Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles,” issued on April 18. And then yesterday from the NHTSA (part of the Department of Transportation) we get “Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards for Passenger Cars and Light Trucks for Model Years 2027 and Beyond and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Heavy-Duty Pickup Trucks and Vans for Model Years 2030 and Beyond.” The first is 373 pages in the three-column, single-spaced format of the Federal Register. The second is 1004 pages in standard double-spaced typing.
If you should take the time to read some or all of the 1377 pages of text, don’t expect to find anywhere in all of that an admission that the plan is to suppress and ultimately eliminate the internal combustion car. Instead it’s happy sweet talk about the supposed “health” benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Here is an example from among many, this from page 27,844 of Volume 89 of the Federal Register:
EPA is establishing both criteria pollutant and GHG standards in this rulemaking given the need for additional reductions in emissions of these air pollutants to protect public health and welfare and based on EPA’s assessment of the suite of available control technologies for those pollutants, some of which are effective in controlling both GHGs and criteria pollutant emissions. Under these performance-based emissions standards, manufacturers have the discretion to choose the mix of technologies that achieve compliance across their fleets. EPA’s modeling provides information about several potential compliance paths manufacturers could use to comply with the standards, based on multiple inputs and assumptions (e.g., in what we have termed the central case, that manufacturers will seek the lowest cost compliance path).
“Manufacturers have the discretion to choose the mix of technologies that achieve compliance . . . .” Right. Everybody knows that the point of this is to force the majority of new car sales to be EVs or plug-in hybrids by some time in the early 2030s. But they’ll never say it straight.
And it’s the same with the new NHTSA Rule. This Rule sets new fleet-average fuel economy standards. NHTSA — aren’t they supposed to be in the business of “Highway Traffic Safety” (that’s the “HTS” part of their name)? Yes, but in the ultimate mission-creep, they are now the people behind the so-called “CAFE” (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. Obviously, the people cannot be expected on their own to make appropriate trade-offs between fuel economy and other transportation needs (like carrying capacity). Thus, NHTSA now determines that beginning in the early 2030s, manufacturers must achieve average fuel economy for their fleets of 50+ miles per gallon.
But, you say, vehicles with internal combustion engines can’t achieve that figure if they are bigger than a thimble. Exactly. So here is a small piece of NHTSA’s justification:
Reducing gasoline consumption has multiple benefits – it improves our nation’s energy security, it saves consumers money, and reduces harmful pollutant emissions that lead to adverse human and environmental health outcomes and climate change. NHTSA estimates that relative to the reference baseline, this final rule will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 659 million metric tons for passenger cars and light trucks, and by 55 million metric tons for HDPUVs through calendar year 2050. Again, these relative reductions are greater if the rule is compared to the alternative baseline, but demonstrating a similar level of absolute carbon dioxide emissions.
You say that you have a need for a vehicle that can actually carry a couple of passengers and maybe a few suitcases? What kind of a traitor are you? Your options are to buy an EV or hire a ricksha.
The agencies know full well that they are forcing a transition to EVs that customers do not want. How fast must the forced transition be? This piece from Atlas EV Hub from March 25 estimates that EPA’s Rule by itself will force EV sales to be up to 69% of new vehicle sales by 2032:
The regulation is set to bring significant changes to the auto industry, potentially putting the United States on the glide path to full electrification. Manufacturers have several options to meet the new standards, and electric vehicles (EVs) will play a pivotal role in ensuring manufacturer compliance with these regulations. Under this final rule, battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric light-duty vehicles could make up 32 percent of all new vehicle sales in model year 2027, increasing to 69 percent by model year 2032.
The NHTSA CAFE Rule would require comparable, or perhaps even higher, percentages of EVs in manufacturer sales to achieve compliance.
Do you believe that the U.S. new vehicle market will switch over to mostly EVs so quickly over the next several years? I don’t believe it for a minute. So what happens when manufacturers produce mostly EVs to comply with these Rules, and then nobody will buy them? This could be very entertaining.
Nope, I don’t want an EV.
Manhattan Contrarian ping
I’ve said for decades that if the private automobile were invented “today”, we would not be allowed to have them. And they are trying to figure out a way to get us out of them once and for all.
Enter EV’s. The implications are all there.
I am not sure what time frame this person claims to have seen soot layers in the atmosphere, i have been alive for seventy years, mostly in michigan, i never have seen what this person claims. And for the record, no to electric vehicles.
I’m also 70, lived all my life in Texas and I’ve never seen any of that either.
“So what happens when manufacturers produce mostly EVs to comply with these Rules, and then nobody will buy them?”
What happened in Cuba to US automobiles after Castro took over the US embargoed Cuba? The Cubans found a way to keep the cars on the island running for decades.
Hold onto your pre 2020 autos and trucks especially those who can’t be disabled remotely. Keep them well maintained and stockpile key parts such as filters, belts and other parts known to fail periodically on that make and model. You may have to depend on your old ICE vehicle for a decade or two until sanity returns.
Well maintained used vehicles will become priceless by 2030 if the current EV plans of Biden and the Democrats remain in place. Expect the auto manufacturers to go out of business if forced to make electric vehicles no one will buy and for which the infrastructure to recharge does not exist on the scale required to support the changeover.
Thank you for the ping!
These “geniuses” in the industry already know that(A) the figures they want for fuel mileage are totally unrealistic, (B)that reduced CO2 figures are stupid as CO2 is Not a pollutant, (C) that the alternatives being EVs would mean that much of the nation could be on foot by such & such year. These people are just not looking at this realistically. It takes a lot of power(big trucks & trains) to move any appreciable amount of goods. The mileage being achieved by the passenger vehicles(cars) that most of us drive is already quite good & in some cases even exceptional. The state of California has already tried to shove it’s emissions standards on the rest of the country for years often just making things worse in the process.
The democrats make believe all kinds of things.
Craziness
Passenger or freight vehicles that rely entirely on batteries for stored energy are a technological dead end. If only were were a way to generate the necessary electrical power aboard the vehicle...
The nation has had experience with Diesel-electric railroad locomotives going back to the 1930’s, and compared to the coal-fired steam locomotives they replaced, are both more reliable and economical. When first introduced, the hybrid internal combustion engine and the battery-powered traction motor vehicles seemed like an excellent compromise, in terms of economy and reliable energy supply generated right on-board the vehicle. But this was not enough for the fanatics who have a superstitious fear of all things powered by petroleum sources, so the all-electric vehicle powered by storage battery arrays, and recharged from the electric grid were introduced as the “ultimate” answer. But battery technology, and the infrastructure to assure adequate supplies of energy to vast numbers of these battery arrays, have lagged far behind, and cannot cope with the demands even now.
End result - denial of personal and freight transportation, because of the inadequate infrastructure, and a resulting constriction on economic development, to the point of actual starvation of large segments of the human population on this planet. Maybe that is the ultimate objective.
But The Powers That Be dare not admit this.
[[. But gradually that all got cleaned up]]
Yep. I remember when California was smog covered too, and yes, our nation did clean it up, becoming one of the cleanest industrialized nations on earth, but per usual, that is not good enough for the perpetually outraged self righteous green-earthers
Why can’t conservatives sue the EPA and NHTSA for overstepping their Constitutional authority?
They blatantly have.
I don’t care if the infrastructure is there or not. If I have to wait more than 30 minutes to be able to drive my car, I don’t want it. I don’t mind sitting in line for 10 to gas up, but 30 minutes to charge? No thank you.
Imagine the irony. The UAW is always dependable to vote for democrats. Dims are working like hell to put the UAW out of work. And it won’t just be auto plant workers. All of the support industries will fold also. It will be a nasty ripple effect that will sweep the country.
bkmk
Easy ‘fix’, if ANY of the worthless (R)N(C) had the fortitude to push things:
- Create a law that *ALL* govt entities (dept., agencies, employees, contractors+) *MUST* utilize “green” for *all* their needs (utilities, travel, etc.)
Let THEM ‘walk the walk’
I’ve seen it in NYC around 2000- if you wore lighter colored clothes you could see light grey stains on your shirt at the end of the day. Not sure if that was from vehicles or other sources of soot.
If FJB is “reelected,” Obama’s people in charge will contrive to shut down gas stations.
We, the ignorant goobers in flyover country, just don’t know what is good for ourselves.
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