The EV Mandate’s Fine Print EPA orders an electric battery warranty that isn’t legal or practical.
The Biden Administration is promoting electric vehicles as a vast technological improvement over internal-combustion engines. But then why is the Environmental Protection Agency requiring manufacturers to provide extended EV battery warranties and durability assurances?
Under the backdoor EV mandate the EPA rolled out last week, high-voltage batteries and electric powertrain components will be required to have an eight-year or 80,000-mile warranty. Auto makers will also have to certify that EV battery performance doesn’t decline by more than 20% over five years or 62,000 miles, and 30% over eight years or 100,000 miles.
The Clean Air Act specifies a warranty period of eight years or 80,000 miles for “major emission control components” such as catalytic converters. This is to ensure that cars with more use continue to meet tailpipe emission standards. But the law was never intended to apply to EVs because they don’t have tailpipe exhausts.
The Clean Air Act also lacks a warranty requirement for EV batteries, though they can rapidly degrade, especially when cars are left in the heat. Minor defects in battery cells can also cause batteries and even whole cars to be junked. Batteries can represent up to half of an EV’s cost so it’s often not worth replacing them.
Lightly-used batteries that have to be scrapped or replaced would negate the putative CO2 emissions reductions from EVs. Manufacturing batteries, their components and minerals consumes loads of energy—mostly from coal in China, where 77% of battery cell manufacturing and some 90% of rare earth mineral processing occurs.
This explains why the EPA proposes to deem EV batteries “major emission control components” covered by the Clean Air Act’s warranty requirements even though the cars themselves produce no emissions. The EPA reasons that companies can use “powertrain electrification as an emissions control technology to comply with EPA standards.” That’s a big legal stretch and could trigger a challenge under the Supreme Court’s major questions doctrine.
Note that the mandatory warranty won’t cover repair costs from accidents. Reuters reported last month that “for many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents, forcing insurance companies to write off cars with few miles—leading to higher premiums and undercutting gains from going electric.”
EVs with only a few thousand miles are piling up at salvage yards. But no worries—EPA says batteries might someday be recycled so the U.S. will be less dependent on China.
Someday, maybe. The more you inspect the EPA’s new EV mandate, the more it looks like a nightmare of central planning.
Lightly-used batteries that have to be scrapped or replaced would negate the putative CO2 emissions reductions from EVs. Manufacturing batteries, their components and minerals consumes loads of energy—mostly from coal in China, where 77% of battery cell manufacturing and some 90% of rare earth mineral processing occurs.
This explains why the EPA proposes to deem EV batteries “major emission control components” covered by the Clean Air Act’s warranty requirements even though the cars themselves produce no emissions. The EPA reasons that companies can use “powertrain electrification as an emissions control technology to comply with EPA standards.” That’s a big legal stretch and could trigger a challenge under the Supreme Court’s major questions doctrine.
Note that the mandatory warranty won’t cover repair costs from accidents. Reuters reported last month that “for many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents, forcing insurance companies to write off cars with few miles—leading to higher premiums and undercutting gains from going electric.”
EVs with only a few thousand miles are piling up at salvage yards. But no worries—EPA says batteries might someday be recycled so the U.S. will be less dependent on China.
Someday, maybe. The more you inspect the EPA’s new EV mandate, the more it looks like a nightmare of central planning.
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