Show-Me Institute: Zero-emissions crusade, push for electric vehicles ignores reality

The Biden administration aims to bring about a massive transition at breakneck speed: forcing the American people — and U.S. automakers — to abandon gas- and diesel-powered cars and trucks and switch to all-electric vehicles (EVs).

EVs accounted for a much-ballyhooed 7% of U.S. passenger car and pickup sales in the first quarter of this year. Almost half of those vehicles went to consumers with an average annual income of more than $150,000, many of them eager to jump on the environmental bandwagon. The average income of people who purchased vehicles with internal combustion engines was not even half as much. But they did account for 93% of the market.

Under new rules and guidelines, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to ensure that two-thirds of all new passenger cars will be all-electric by 2032. That’s right: up from 7% to a commanding 67%. Within the next seven or eight years.

How is that possible? Below the level of top earners, there is deeply entrenched consumer resistance, not to mention myriad logistical, technological, and economic challenges.

Undaunted, the administration appears fully prepared to kill the traditional auto industry in order to ram electric vehicles down the throats of tens of millions people who don’t want them. These people are used to making their own decisions in buying cars and trucks. They aren’t trying to make a statement; they just want to get the most value at the lowest cost.

The first problem is that the cheapest EVs are still significantly more expensive than equivalent gas-powered cars, but they are ill-equipped do all the things people expect from their gas-powered cars. That includes not only quick trips and daily commutes, but also long-distance travel on weekends and family vacations. EVs fall short on convenience, reliability, and comfort.

EV drivers suffer from so-called “range anxiety,” knowing that their electric cars average barely half the distance of gas-powered vehicles in highway driving before they need “a fill-up,” and also knowing that charging stations are not nearly so ubiquitous as gas stations. Most EVs bearing the “Long Range” designation can’t make the 300-mile trip between St. Louis and Chicago without recharging, which may easily add another hour to a four-and-a-half-hour trip. Much cheaper gas-powered cars and SUVs can easily make the same trip. Unlike the EVs, they will also keep a family warm when the outside air is well below freezing and cool when it is extremely hot.

“Naturally,” as Car and Driver said in a recent article, “our first instinct when we climb into a cold car is to crank up the heat. However, in electric vehicles, turning on the heat can’t be an afterthought, because it dramatically impacts efficiency and range.” In gas-powered cars, excess heat from the engine is used heat the cabin with no loss of efficiency from the engine. They also have an ample supply of on-board energy (a 15-gallon gas tank holds more than six times the available energy in a fully charged long-range Tesla) that can be used to provide low-cost, efficient cooling. EVs, on the other hand, draw their energy for heating and cooling directly from their batteries. More comfort leaves less energy for propulsion. In cold-weather testing of the Tesla Model 3 Long Range, Car and Driver found that the car’s range when fully heated drops from what it would be in an unheated state by more than 60 miles — to a “meager 173 miles.” But consider the alternative of everyone shivering in a cold car for several hours.

Government-created labor strife

We come then to the ongoing labor dispute between the United Auto Workers and their primary employers — the Big Three auto companies in Detroit. What went wrong between the union bosses, the corporate bigwigs, and the powers that be in Washington, D.C.? It may be described as a falling out among self-interested parties, if not a falling out among thieves. Each is seeking its own interests at the expense of the others.

President Biden and his administration made a lot of promises to secure the early support of both the union and the companies. There would be lots of “good-paying, union jobs,” extended tax credits up to $7,500 for people buying EVs, and tens of billions of dollars of loans and subsidies for building battery factories, plus big government investments in new charging stations.

There was, however, an iron fist in the velvet glove of all of these nice promises — namely, a sudden tightening of emission controls in the years immediately ahead, to the point that they will effectively outlaw further use of the internal combustion engine and force traditional auto companies to stop selling their most popular and profitable brands. Not to be outdone by the federal government, hyper-progressive California has banned all new gas-powered cars by 2035.

The UAW knows that tens of thousands of jobs for its members are in jeopardy. Assembly of electric cars involves many fewer parts and many fewer workers. GM, Ford, and Chrysler know that they are far behind Tesla and other competitors inside and outside the U.S. in the EV market. They need the profits they get from gas-powered cars to be able to compete in the EV market.

Let the market decide

The bottom line: the Biden administration and California, its co-enforcer, may destroy the Detroit automakers, even if they are perfectly capable of producing cars that many — or even most — people want to buy.

Why shouldn’t people have the freedom to buy a car of their own choosing? It isn’t as if the gas-powered cars and trucks at question here aren’t built to exacting fuel and emissions standards. They are. Do they really represent serious threat to the environment?

We say: let producers of gas-powered and electric vehicles compete with one another with minimal government interference. Let consumers decide the outcome in a marketplace that provides an abundance of choice.

Andrew B. Wilson is Senior Writer and Resident Fellow at the Show-Me Institute, while Aaron Hedlund is the Institute’s Chief Economist.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Show-Me Institute: Zero-emissions crusade ignores reality