PABLO PARDOCRESPONDENT WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

Updated Wednesday, March 20, 2024-21:38

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has tightened the regulation of vehicle emissions in that country, but it has done so far below what it had planned.

With the new rules, which will come into force in 2027,

electric vehicles will account for between 31% and 40%

of electric car sales in that country in 2032, a figure much lower than the 67% that would have been caused by the first draft of the document, released eleven months ago.

The key is that the reductions in new vehicles circulating in 2032 must be

around 50% lower than they were in 2026

.

It is an ambitious goal, but much less than the one announced in April of last year, which set a decrease of 67%.

The new criteria allow companies to manufacture a greater number of hybrids.

It is a concession to the traditional automobile manufacturers -

General Motors, Ford, and the Franco-Italian Stellantis

- with whom the Joe Biden Government has good relations, since they allow the existence of union organizations in their plants.

Another beneficiary, although less so, is Tesla, the second largest producer of electric cars in the world, whose largest shareholder and manager,

Elon Musk

, has turned towards xenophobic positions in recent weeks, clashing with the Biden Government.

Tesla also does not allow workers to organize in its factories, which is a source of additional tension with Washington.

So far this year, Elon Musk's company has been hit hard by the entry of new competitors in the electric car segment and has lost a third of its stock market value, becoming, together with the aerospace manufacturer

Boeing, in the company with the worst performance in the S&P500 index,

which groups the 500 largest American companies.

In 2022, electric cars will reach 5.9% of sales, and last year 7.6%.

The increase in market share is slowing as comparators opt for hybrids and cheaper models.

The technical problems of electric cars and the lack of charging centers for their batteries have also hit the popularity of these vehicles.

Therefore, the new emissions regulation seems to be an extraordinary help for the sector.

However, when the EPA announced the current reform eleven months ago, it set much more ambitious goals that could have virtually spelled the end of combustion engines in automobiles in the world's largest economy, given that the goal was for two-thirds of the cars that were put on sale in eight years were electric.

The agency's decision has been Solomonic, and seems to fit into the Joe Biden Government's strategy in this election year of keeping all parties satisfied: manufacturers - both electric and gasoline cars -, consumers and environmental groups.

The transportation sector is the largest emitter of 'greenhouse' gases in the United States,

especially due to the impact of off-road vehicles, SUVs and open-box vans, which are the types of vehicles on which the new regulations focus.

The EPA has estimated that once the regulations come into force, they will generate annual savings close to 100,000 million euros, of which

62% will correspond to lower spending on fossil fuels,

and 13% to the fall in health costs caused by gas emissions from combustion engines.

However, the package of rules is not yet guaranteed to come into force.

The US Congress - one of whose chambers controls the Republican opposition - could try to modify it, although it does not seem that this will be possible.

The rules can also be taken to court.