as part of the presidents vision of a nation that produces cuttingedge batteries and electric cars a more efficient electrical grid and caps abandoned oil rigs and coal mines gina mccarthy bidens top climate adviser appeared to signal thursday that deeper cuts in emissions would have to come from sectors other than the auto industry to reach the goals she defended the administrations decision not to set a specific deadline for ending sales of new gaspowered cars or for achieving netzero emissions from the transportation sector we have a whole lot of ways mccarthy said to cut us greenhouse gas emissions in half without a transportation goal for the transportation sector the government says it will improve vehicle efficiency invest in lowcarbon renewable fuels and achieve transit rail and bicycling improvements the administration also wants to convert the 650000vehicle federal vehicle fleet to battery power to increase sales of electric vehicles the administration plans to spend 15 billion to build a halfmillion charging stations by 2030 as well as offering unspecified tax credits and rebates to cut the cost swapping the entire fleet of gas burners for electric vehicles could take even longer than 20 years todd campau associate director of automotive for ihs markit estimates that the number of mostly gaspowered vehicles on us roads will keep growing to 284 million by 2025 the situation is only getting worse as far as the volume that needs to be exchanged campau said campau and others say it would take highly attractive government incentives to lure additional people out of their gasburners something like a reprise of the 2009 cashforclunkers program proposed by senate majority leader chuck schumer of new york but on a vastly larger scale the schumer plan proposes rebates of at least 3000 for people to scrap combustion vehicles for electrics bill hare director of climate analytics a berlinbased climate think tank predicted that pollution reductions in the transportation sector will come after 2030 as the electric vehicle fleet grows what you would then end up seeing is more or less complete decarbonization of the transport sector but by 2050 he said even if tailpipe emissions cant be cut quickly bidens goals might at least in theory be reached with significant cuts in electric powerplant emissions as well as reductions in methane pollution from oil wells and cuts in hydrofluorocarbons used in refrigeration and air conditioning said kate larsen director at rhodium group a research firm studies show that electric power emissions can be cut 80 per cent by 2030 with a mix of investment and regulations larsen said that will get us the bulk of the way she said we wont see 50 per cent reductions across the board zero emissions electric generation sets the stage for converting cars and many other pollution sources to electricity she said even countries that are ahead of the us in electric vehicle adoption mainly in europe and china sales still wont have enough electric vehicles in use