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General Motors plans to achieve company-wide carbon neutrality by 2040 and sell only light-duty vehicles with no carbon emissions by 2035, a major step for America’s largest automaker to align its future on the climate change imperatives of the Paris International Accord and the Biden-Harris administration.
Thursday’s announcement commits GM, the first American automaker to move towards electric vehicles, to a much wider range of battery-powered cars and trucks in the United States and abroad. By 2025, GM will have 30 battery-powered vehicle models available worldwide, and those models will represent 40% of its U.S. vehicle models on offer.
Its new 2040 target to eliminate carbon emissions from its vehicles and corporate operations slashes its previous commitment to 2050 by a decade. This mid-century target is held by fellow American automaker Ford Motor Co. and its global competitors, including the target of reducing Volkswagen and Toyota by 90% by 2050.
Other auto manufacturers’ carbon reduction targets include BMW’s commitment to reduce vehicle emissions by one-third by 2030 and Honda Motor Co.’s plan for electric and battery-powered vehicles. fuel to represent two-thirds of sales by the end of the decade.
“General Motors joins governments and businesses around the world working to build a safer, greener and better world,” said Mary Barra, CEO of GM, in a prepared statement. “We encourage others to do the same and to have a significant impact on our industry and the economy as a whole.
A change in federal clean transportation policy
GM’s more aggressive goals come as federal policy begins to align with the more aggressive state-level decarbonization goals for the transportation sector. California Governor Gavin Newsom pledged this summer to end sales of new gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035, after a summer of wildfires caused by extreme weather induced by the climate change.
The Biden-Harris administration, which aims to end economy-wide carbon emissions by 2050, has acted quickly to reverse the Trump administration’s setback to national energy efficiency standards for road vehicles.
President Joe Biden said Monday he would shift all federal vehicle purchases to “clean electric vehicles made here in America,” and on Wednesday signed an executive order that, among other things, calls on federal agencies to “source fuel. electricity without carbon. and clean, emission-free vehicles. ”
Jennifer Granholm, Biden’s selection to head the U.S. Department of Energy, has a long history of working with automakers during her years as Governor of Michigan. In his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Granholm underscored the job-creation promise of electric vehicles and clean fuel technologies, while also pledging to work to reduce the impact of the Biden administration’s policies. Harris on jobs in the fossil fuel industries.
EVs accounted for just 2.6% of global auto and heavy-duty vehicle sales last year, but that share is expected to reach nearly 14% by 2030, according to consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. Beyond government mandates, electric vehicles are increasingly competitive with fossil fuel vehicles when lifetime fuel costs are factored in, although their initial costs are even higher in most cases.
The rich history of GM’s electric vehicles
GM’s new shift comes after years of expanding its market experience and developing electric vehicles, ranging from its ill-fated EV1, the first modern mass-produced electric vehicle launched and then scrapped in the late 1990s, to the unveiling of its plug-in Chevrolet Volt. hybrid sedan in 2010 to compete with Toyota’s popular Prius Hybrid.
While the Volt was discontinued in 2016 and GM stopped building it in 2019, it has since expanded its line of electric vehicles with the Chevy Bolt in 2016 and an expanding line of fully electric models from brands such as Cadillac and Hummer. It is investing $ 2.2 billion to convert its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant to producing fully electric vehicles and has centered its entire range of electric vehicles on a common battery platform, dubbed Ultium, produced in a $ 2.3 billion plant in Lordstown, Ohio in conjunction with LG Chem.
GM’s plan won approval from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which previously opposed the automaker’s later overturned decision to challenge California’s decision to maintain its own fuel economy standards. compared to the reduced standards promulgated by the Trump administration.
“Overall, by 2050, zero-emission vehicles will deliver more than $ 100 billion in net social benefits each year (economic and pollution benefits) and provide $ 1.6 trillion in cumulative net benefits to people. Americans by 2050, or nearly 10% of US gross domestic product, ”EDF Chairman Fred Krupp said in a statement Thursday.
A range of zero emission transport technologies
Transportation accounts for about two-fifths of America’s carbon emissions. Reducing this impact will require a massive shift from gasoline and diesel internal combustion engines to battery electric vehicles loaded with carbon-free energy or to fuel cell vehicles running on hydrogen produced with clean energy.
GM’s fuel cell ambitions include a partnership announced this week to supply truckmaker Navistar with its Hydrotec fuel cells and test them with shipping company JB Hunt Transport. A plan for supplying fuel cells and working with clean truck manufacturer Nikola was scaled back at the end of last year.
More efficient and less polluting internal combustion engines powered by hydrocarbon-based fuels produced using net-zero carbon processes may also offer alternative routes to reduce transportation-related emissions for certain applications such as long haulage. -mail.
The infrastructure to charge and power zero-emission vehicles remains a major challenge in expanding their use in the United States and abroad. WoodMac predicts an estimated ten-fold increase by 2030 of the estimated 3.3 million EV chargers in the US, European and Asian markets. California has set a target of 5 million zero-emission vehicles by 2030 and 250,000 charging ports in operation by 2025, and New York’s targets include 2 million electric vehicles by 2030 and more 50,000 charging stations by the middle of the decade.
GM is committed to working with EDF and other stakeholders to “build the necessary charging infrastructure and promote consumer acceptance while maintaining high quality jobs.”
Tailpipe emissions represent 75% of GM’s emissions. But the automaker, already among the top 10 buyers of renewable energy in the United States, has also pledged to accelerate decarbonization targets for the rest of its operations. Thursday’s announcement pledged to source 100% renewable energy for its U.S. sites by 2030 and its global sites by 2035, five years earlier than previously announced targets.
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