President Joe Biden suggested Tuesday it is false that his administration is restricting consumer choice in the automobile market, but his administration recently finalized a rule that will force electric vehicles (EVs) to make up a much larger share of overall auto sales over the next decade.
Biden made the remark during a Tuesday speech about his administration’s decision to significantly bolster tariffs against Chinese products including steel, semiconductor chips and EV batteries. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule in March that requires manufacturers to make EVs constitute between 35% and 56% of new cars sold in 2032, according to CNN.
“Americans, I want to make this clear, notwithstanding what the other guy is saying, can buy any kind of car they want, whether it’s gas, electric or hybrid,” Biden said, referencing former President Donald Trump. “But we’re never going to allow China to unfairly control the market for these cars, period.”
Trump has slammed the Biden administration’s EV push, including from a New York City courthouse on Tuesday. Trump has also suggested that the EV agenda will hurt blue-collar auto workers and consumers while providing opportunities for Chinese companies to capitalize on the U.S. market.
While Americans will be able to buy gas-powered cars in the 2030s, the EPA’s final tailpipe emissions rule and a proposed update to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) fuel economy standards would drastically reshape the auto market to favor EVs over gas-powered models. These regulations, as well as subsidies that the Biden administration has pushed to facilitate the EV transition, will also likely increase the costs of new and used gas-powered vehicles, making those models less accessible to consumers, auto market experts and economists previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Critics of the Biden administration’s EV agenda have characterized the EPA rule as an “EV mandate” because of these economic impacts, and also because relevant policies are projecting huge increases in EV adoption relative to the 6.5% of all new sales that were EVs in February 2024, according to Edmunds.
