The worst thing to ever happen to the electric car industry is Joe Biden. His hard-line strategy of forcing Americans to buy electric cars will only strengthen consumers’ resolve not to buy electric cars. [emphasis, links added]
Sales of electric vehicles had been strong before Biden won the White House, but the sales boom stalled as conservative voters revolted and even derided electric vehicles as “Biden cars.”
While electric vehicles are becoming popular in blue states like New York and California (where more than a third of sales occur), people in red states are less optimistic about these future vehicles.
That's not the only setback.
Deloitte Global Automotive Consumer Research recently found:
“Consumer interest [traditional] Internal combustion engine cars are rebounding amid “affordability concerns” over $75,000 plug-in cars.
Some 67% of consumers said they would prefer an internal combustion engine the next time they buy a vehicle – up from 58% last year. Only 6% prefer pure electric vehicles, while 21% prefer hybrids.
Back in March, the EPA announced new emissions rules that would be only slightly less stringent than its original pie-in-the-sky proposal, The plan requires that 67% of sales must be pure electric vehicles by 2032 (currently, non-hybrid electric vehicles account for only about 7.6% of new car sales).
But Biden’s basic scenario is still the same In 2032, 56% of all model sales must be non-hybrid electric vehicles.
What's worse, Biden would only allow 64% of new cars sold in 2027 to be purely internal combustion engine vehicles, and only 29% of new cars sold in 2032.
So the federal government mandating 67% electric vehicle sales by the end of the decade is about as likely as Trump and Kamala Harris kissing and making up after the election.
But Democrats still ignore this cold reality and are still seeking a complete ban on fuel vehicles by 2035.
Many blue-state politicians in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington have already ordered such anti-abortion policies.
Politicians are ignoring America's love for cars.
Currently, electric vehicles are going the way of the infamous Ford Edsel.
The auto industry has also forgotten this lesson as it follows government mandates and rolls electric cars off the assembly line without asking car buyers what they think.
As a result, companies like Ford lose more than $30,000 on every electric car sold. This is one hell of a business model.
Volvo, meanwhile, is the first carmaker to commit to selling only electric cars by 2030.
Why? Bjorn Annwall, chief commercial officer at Volvo, said: “Pure electric vehicles also need to make a profit,” so they must “adapt to reality.” So do about six or seven other major car companies.
Currently, electric vehicles are going the way of the infamous Ford Edsel, which in the 1950s was considered a can't-miss car of the future but suffered a historic failure among consumers.
What’s perhaps most surprising about the stagnation of electric vehicles is that — except in very affluent zip codes, where driving a plug-in has become an exaggerated form of virtue signaling — The federal government pays car buyers $7,500 to purchase them, subsidizes their production with billions of dollars in grants, and provides EV owners with parking spaces of all choices.
But Americans still don't bite.
The irony of this failure is that polls and buying habits suggest hybrids may be the next big thing.
They reduce pollution levels and are convenient for consumers who want to use batteries for short trips and natural gas for longer trips. (For the record, my wife and I own a hybrid.)
Yet the green movement foolishly wants none of this. Hybrids do not count towards the directive and are effectively considered gasoline vehicles.
That's because commitments to “net-zero” emissions policies are lagging behind economically. So instead of forcing car buyers to buy cars that cut emissions in half, they're trying to force people to buy cars they wouldn't buy.
So we now have a policy that is bad for the environment, bad for taxpayers, bad for the American auto industry, and is having the opposite effect of what was intended.
However, 190 House Democrats recently voted en masse against an amendment that would have loosened an unachievable electric vehicle mandate.
It’s hard to believe that someone who thinks he’s smart could come up with such a stupid strategy.
Top image generated using Copilot AI
Read more in The Telegraph
