How to Move America to Electric Vehicles

The policy brief advocates for a resolute US national strategy to accelerate electric vehicle (EV) adoption, proposing a target of 70 million EVs by 2030 and 100% new vehicle EV market share by 2035. It emphasizes that current fragmented efforts by states and private companies are insufficient to meet climate targets or compete with countries like China. The author recommends four key actions: establishing a national vision and government/industry commission, implementing an industrial strategy for manufacturing retooling, executing an aggressive public and private fleet electrification plan, and launching a nationwide education campaign.

• To align with 1.5°C climate goals, the US transportation sector must reduce carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, which requires the electrification of 70 million EVs by 2030, assuming a parallel 20% reduction in miles travelled.
• The author proposes a national target of 100% EV market share for new vehicle sales by 2035 and the installation of 300,000 DC fast-chargers and 200,000 L2 chargers by 2030 to support this transition.
• The US faces a risk to its global automotive competitiveness as countries such as China, Germany, and India treat EV technology as a national imperative; for comparison, China produced 1.2 million EVs in 2019 while the US produced fewer than 325,000.
• The federal government can signal demand certainty to manufacturers by replacing its 645,000 vehicles—including the US Postal Service's 200,000 vehicles—with EVs, and by directing all federal fleet funds toward EV purchases after 2030.

APA

RMI (2021). How to Move America to Electric Vehicles. https://rmi.org/resources/how-to-move-america-to-electric-vehicles/

Chicago

RMI. How to Move America to Electric Vehicles. 2021. https://rmi.org/resources/how-to-move-america-to-electric-vehicles/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=How to Move America to Electric Vehicles |date=28 January 2021 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/how-to-move-america-to-electric-vehicles/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2021how, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{How to Move America to Electric Vehicles}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2021}, month = jan, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/how-to-move-america-to-electric-vehicles/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }