Are Stricter Emission Norms Right to Push Mass EV Adoption?

Governments, in many parts of the globe, are planning to suggest stricter emission norms in a bid to push mass EV adoption. We are witnessing a historic transition to electric mobility as the sales surge with every passing year. Needless to mention, it is the case exclusively in some of the top countries in the world with regard to the market size of the automobile industry while most nations are still struggling to get to terms with this metamorphosis.

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Stricter Emission Norms to Push EV Adoption?

As per recent online reports, the EPA (Environment Protection Agency) in the USA is proposing stringent emission norms for the existing and upcoming ICE-powered vehicles so that the carmakers have no other option but to embrace electrification rapidly. Emission regulations across the world already get more demanding with each passing year.

As a result, it becomes expensive to keep developing the existing diesel and petrol powertrains to abide by the requirements. We have seen diesel fizzle out just in the last couple of years due to this very reason from many global markets. The cost to upgrade diesel engines to meet the latest vehicular pollution limits was simply too high to make business sense. Hence, the companies started ditching the diesel powertrain altogether.

But if governments across the world start imposing high demands from the existing IC engines, it will become difficult to keep upgrading the petrol engines so frequently too. Essentially, the government is forcing the hand of the car marques to voluntarily and swiftly adopt EVs.

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Challenges with this

While such measures have a positive aspect wherein the car marques will need to invest heavily in the development of EVs and charging infrastructure, we are not sure how the auto companies will react. The prices of EVs still continue to be high putting them out of the reach of a vast majority of the populace, the charging infrastructure is far from abundant in most parts of the world, range anxiety is still prevalent, a few fires have caused people to be a bit apprehensive about the safety, the use of rare earth elements and metals like cobalt poses serious environmental and human rights challenges, lack of battery recycling opportunities, increased use of semiconductors in EVs are some of the key challenges still associated with electric cars.

Therefore, while the intention might be correct, governments across the world must first ensure that the general public is in a position to buy EVs on a large scale and the infrastructure is there to eliminate the issue of range anxiety. Most countries are on board with ambitious carbon-neutrality plans in the next couple of decades but there is still a lot of groundwork to be done to make it a reality.