“Owning a car facilitates upward mobility and a better way of life for low-income individuals and families,” writes Project 21’s Donna Jackson in a commentary syndicated through InsideSources.
Unfortunately, the electric vehicle agenda of the Biden Administration is having the opposite effect: “Their primary goal is to take away private car ownership from low-income families and trap them in their communities.”
Donna’s commentary is reprinted in full below.
Reality is starting to intrude on America’s electric vehicle fantasies. After years of hype, it is becoming undeniable that most people don’t want them, and increasingly fewer can afford them. Millions of Americans will pay a price for this folly, most of all the low-income households that depend so much on the affordable gasoline-powered vehicles that have been the target of this agenda.
Donna Jackson
The higher sticker price of EVs — even with the tax credits — is not the only reason they don’t make sense for those of modest means. Perhaps the greater affordability issue stems from their limited range, long charging times and difficulty charging in urban environments where street parking is the norm compared to the relative ease and reliability of operating gasoline-powered vehicles.
EVs are not practical as a household’s sole vehicle, which is all many struggling families can afford. Indeed, upward of 90 percent of EVs sit in the driveways of multi-car households next to one or more gasoline-powered cars that are typically driven more miles. The EV agenda may be in fashion with those on the upper rungs of the economic ladder, where such virtue signaling is in vogue. Still, it is badly out of touch with the realities of those lower down.
Biden administration policies don’t just favor EVs; they also burden gasoline vehicles with costly regulations. Past and proposed future regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are a big part of why sticker prices for new cars have skyrocketed.
The average new gasoline-powered vehicle goes for $48,000 — higher than the average Black household income of $46,400 annually — putting it out of reach for low-income and most middle-class households. Used-car prices have risen in tandem. The administration calculated that carrots for EVs alone won’t achieve their all-electric transition and that bigger and bigger sticks are needed to drive gasoline vehicles out of the market. And the poor, who already suffer financially because of energy poverty, are disproportionately paying the price.
Financing is also a growing challenge for car buyers with less than spotless credit. Auto loan default rates are at a 30-year high, particularly on the high-interest subprime loans that many minority and low-income buyers have.
It’s a double whammy. The costs of this anti-car agenda fall on struggling households — the very people who need affordable vehicles the most. For example, many urban poor live in neighborhoods far from the most economically vibrant parts of the city or the suburbs — where the most lucrative jobs often are. And public transportation can only take you to a fraction of the job opportunities that are available if you can drive door to door. It is even worse for those working two or three jobs to make ends meet. Dependence on public transportation also excludes low-income workers from the gig economy.
Beyond jobs, quality of life is greatly improved when low-income families have a car. Everything from being able to take kids to medical appointments or after-school activities to escaping food deserts by driving to supermarkets is all made possible with an affordable, reliable car.
Books could be written about how owning a car facilitates upward mobility and a better way of life for low-income individuals and families. Ironically, these are the aspirations progressives used to support and still claim to support. Still, now they are willing to sacrifice them for the sake of the climate agenda, of which EVs are an integral part.
Rather than acknowledge the importance of affordable transportation to the least fortunate, the administration is doing its best to deny this reality. Worst of all is Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s recently assembled Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity, filled with academics and activists who decry cars as somehow racist — as if we are doing Black families a favor by making them prohibitively expensive.
This goes to show that their primary goal is to take away private car ownership from low-income families and trap them in their communities. Rather than encouraging economic freedom for low-income families, this is only leading to government-imposed dependence and de-facto segregation.
Donna Jackson is the director of membership development for the Project 21 black leadership network. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.
Reprinted with permission from The National Center for Public Policy Research by Donna Jackson.
Excellent article, Ms. Jackson. Knowing the list of problems to be anticipated with EV’s should be a wake up call to those still determined to vote for democrats.
Another very good article in the same day from AMAC. Does AMAC have someone new selecting which articles to post on this web site? If so, keep it up as it is a great improvement.
As to the article itself, the author correctly states the real goal of switching from ICE to EV is ultimately about controlling where and how far Americans can travel without some government-controlled infrastructure. It’s just not about removing private ownership from low-income families, but from the middle class as well. After all, the true cost of an EV without all those subsidies the government provides to both the manufactures to produce them, as well as the consumers who are being forced into buying them as the increasingly only option, it will only tend to increase as the cost of copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel, etc. all increasing in price to match the heightened demand facilitated by the government mandates to an EV only world. Which of course enriches China in a massive wealth transfer from the West to China and helping to make President Xi’s dream to a China-centric world that much close to reality.
Government’s intention, under the Democrat view of the world, has always been to limit the discretionary movement of the public and thus corral people into tightly controlled enclaves called cities. Thus, increasing dependency on the government, which drives Democrat votes and thus more political power. At the end of the day, the government under Democrat rule, wants people reliant on mass transportation. Which of course necessitates the elimination of affordability in the private automotive transportation space. Of course, the American people shouldn’t be just rolling over and accepting all this nonsense, but that subject has been discussed to death and a lot of Americans seems content enough to just accept whatever the Biden administration and the Democrats mandate.
I have a perfectly usable, paid for, gasoline-powered vehicle. Why, at my age, would I want to go into debt for an EV? Especially with Bidenomics eating into my fixed income more every day. These vehicles are NOT carbon-neutral, they increase the pressure on our already stressed power grid, they use very expensive and poisonous elements in their batteries, they rely on foreign countries like China for materials like graphite and on and on.
Gasoline taxes, both Federal and State, pay for building, updating, and repairing our roads, bridges, and Interstate highways. Since EVs use no gasoline, they pay no tax if they are charged at home. IDK what a charging station costs, or if any tax is part of the cost. Plus, an EV is heavier than an equivalent gas-powered vehicle, so road damage (potholes, resurfacing) is greater.
Finally, we cannot completely cut the Crude oil cord. The idiots who destroyed a priceless painting shouting “No more oil” were wearing clothes derived from crude. Almost all plastics come from crude. The battery cases for the EVs are made of plastic, as are a great deal of the vehicle’s parts. Synthetic rubber, necessary for the production of tires, comes from crude. Even the asphalt roadways that the EVs drive on is a product of crude.
Do you REALLY want to be “Carbon neutral”? Get a bicycle! Just don’t exhale, because that is carbon dioxide coming out of your lungs!
EVs: The solution that doesn’t work for a problem that doesn’t exist.
Ms Jackson is right on why these less than optimal electric cars are being shoved down our throats. It is a matter of control. Just another insane policy from a corrupt and incompetent administration. They have not done even one thing since they took control that makes sense. Their fixation on “climate change” is destroying this country. We need to clean out the rats nest!
Democrats across America at ALL levels of government are failing families…
Another side of this EV farce I didn’t think of … more hardship on the less fortunate. Please remember though …”If you don’t vote for me… you ain’t black”! WAKE UP!
The green agenda is not about helping families, the environment, climate change or population. the green agenda is about what obama, soros, clinton, biden, schumer, nedlar, pelosi, gates, and zuckerberg have invested in.
The leftism religion followers are just the pawns the democrats use to get rich.
as will all investing if you win others have to lose and in this case all of america looses with a few hundred top democrats win.
Ev’s are tremendous burden on all except the upper middle class and the RICH! The real cost of owning an EV is being hidden by the Government and the Media. Surprise, Surprise!!! The manufacturers have already LOST $$$Billions on this folly. Don’t know when they are going to wake up??? At least three of them have announced building Multi-Billion dollar battery plants. And, most of the material used in the actual batteries has to come from China. Therein LIES the reason for the entire FOLLY!!!
Excellent article, but I believe that the agenda goes beyond taking away private car ownership form low income families. It appears that the goal is to reduce or eliminate private car ownership at all levels.
Your point about Bettigieg’s advisory committee brings to mind the saying that “nothing is impossible for the people who do not have to do it.” In other words, “it won’t affect me, so why should I care?” That attitude seems to be very prevalent in the current administration.
EV =CONTROL it was never about the environment.
I could not add, subtract, multiply or divide a thing in Ms. Jackson’s article. Thankfully, nobody wants to manufacture them because they’re losing their shirts on them.
I think Democrats have lost their minds!!! They think they can mandate their agenda on the American public and most Americans don’t necessarily like being told what to do!! This whole EV thing is being pushed too soon, the vehicles themselves are not ready for prime time because of the original cost, the cost of the chargers, the battery costs and the repair costs!!! There is also the functionality for extreme weather driving that has been shown to be a problem!! I’m not sure the electric power grid is ready for this surge of mandated vehicles!! They constantly put the cart before the horse – they should have been beefing up the power plants, building new ones years before the EV was mandated!!!
Then there are all the lies that these environmentalists have told us concerning the lithium and how it is mined and the recyclability of any of the parts of the EV!!!
I used to work for an oil company and my opinion is that this Democrat run government doesn’t care about cars, the climate, pollution or anything else except they want to put the oil companies out of business!! These EVs aren’t going to take care of any of those problems anyway!! They have intentionally overblown the whole climate issue to begin with!! lThe sad fact is that most people have no clue how many of the products in their homes come, at least in part, from petroleum products!! And if they aren’t after the oil companies, then my theory is that the elite environmentalists and in Washington have invested in the companies that are set to profit from these EVs and their accessories!!!
After Covid, I am less likely to accept any mandate from the government!! That really soured me to the government telling me what to do, when to do it, how to do it and who to do it with!!! I want smaller, less intrusive government that allows me the freedoms afforded me by the Constitution – those very freedoms that Democrats are constantly trying to take away!!!
A very good article by my friend and colleague at Project21. She lays it out in plain English and debunks the Progressives myths that EV”s are the vehicle of the future. Energy is plentiful in America, and there is no need to limit America’s ability to use oil. The left has an agenda behind such a move, and that agenda will make our country more dependent and less able to progress. This move will also severely impact America’s most vulnerable citizens in a negative way.
Wake up my fellow citizens and get involved in the process to keep America free.
Since when did Biden admin give a dry fig about the family?
As I recall at the time, while steam engines were still in their infancy, sail power continued to be the transportation mainstay on the high seas. Likewise, when engines were being developed for land transportation, horses, oxen, mules, water buffalo, goats, dogs, llamas, ostriches, and other beasts of burden were utilized simultaneously for a variety of transportation modes. Time, experimentation and applications created an evolution of means, manners and utilization. What’s all the hurry about this evolving technology being crammed down the public throat? One video of the power source for these vehicles revealed very difficult fires to extinguish. Slow down. Get it right..
Bravo Ms. Jackson. I could not agree more.
Wonderful article Ms. Jackson. It’s a good feeling knowing that someone out there knows the truth and is willing to say it—out loud!
Ms. Jackson’s last paragraph, “This goes to show that their primary goal is to take away private car ownership from low-income families and trap them in their communities. Rather than encouraging economic freedom for low-income families, this is only leading to government-imposed dependence and de-facto segregation.” is spot on. I would add that it borders on enslavement.
Amen to the good responses and to a great article! Yes, control, not fake climate change, is the end goal, just as control was the goal to the COVID plandemic. It goes even beyond control, however; it includes the destruction of America and its freedoms to satisfy the agenda of the elite who control the WEF, the WHO, etc. and who never practice what they preach as they all own several private jets and several large mansions. We need to return to energy independence, and not be dependent upon our enemies for both the fuel for our vehicles and the batteries for our EVs. But even more, we need to get out the truth to the masses who are being indoctrinated in our schools and colleges and who continue to vote in our elections for the communistic progressive left who are convincing them that climate change and having children will kill their future. As for control- Gates and China are also buying up our farmland and will soon control who eats and what they eat. Let’s found some good conservative colleges and take our children out of schools that want to indoctrinate our children in leftist lies. The left convinced parents in Ohio just this week, and now their children can be mutilated without parental consent. Let’s not remain indoors and keep our ideas only to our own group. Let’s find ways to spread the truth before our next election as we see our young people ( who are both our future and our new voters ) protest in the street along with Hamas for the destruction of an entire nation. Let’s pray for our new speaker of the house! As for me, I say no both to EVs and vaccines, as well as to having bugs as my main course.
Right on target! The marxist democrat party cares NOTHING about the gained effects of THEIR policies,regulations and wish lists!
They care about THEMSELVES, their criminal cohorts donor base, money and power.
People are an inconvenient pain in the butt who they lie too,exploit and use.
When will people they EXPLOIT wake up and say HELL NO.
Stop supporting this self serving,immoral,corrupt group of theives!
Great article by Donna Jackson. It further points out the inequities of the EV agenda. Like most well intended government programs the EV and Green Energy agenda fail when faced with reality. I do hope that the Black voters remember this when it is time to vote. I’ve had to cancel two popular car magazines, Car & Driver & Motor Trend due to their blind acceptance of EV’s. Now Ford, GM, Chrysler and other car manufacturers have shelved their EV programs after losing so much money and are going back to their traditional gas powered vehicles to stay in business.
Great article, Ms. Jackson. Hopefully some progressives will read your common sense analysis and ease up of the electric accelerator pedal. Pun intended.
Let’s see who should I vote for in 2024 #1 Donald Trump, a gifted strategist or #2 Joe Biden, a dementia ridden failure? I think I’ll choose the same person I voted for in 2020, #1 Donald Trump.
Great Article! Along with the prohibitive price and long charging times,there’s also inadequate number of charging stations. AND THIS IS A BIGGIE!! How does and where does someone take the battery from the car when it’s at the end of life and won’t charge any more to environmentally dispose of it?
Google 2050 Project they want the majority of people living in 17 Urban/Suburban clusters, few people will live in R1 zoning as they force people to abandon the American Dream, you will use public transportation. They have also stated that air transportation will be limited to 4 trips in your lifetime!
This is driven by the World Economic Forum that eventually wants the world population at 800 million!
President Trump has talked about many of these plans, they are slowly becoming reality. My town homes are on large lots and cost from $500,000 to $3 million but the Federal government want low income housing and is offering Federal dollars to push multi family buildings.
I’m 74 so I’ll be gone but my children and your children and grand children will see and feel the results.
This is not a new all part of the lefties plan.They want us to stay in the 15 minute cities. That is why kill switches in all cars was proposed by the White House. They want total control over the people. Ostracize the ones they can’t and mutilate the rest.Ole Joe is working with smoke and mirrors that is why he has trouble exiting the stage, He sees his reflection through all that smoke and scares himself, who is this creep, he thinks it is Corn Pop
Billion$ wasted on an agenda based upon fake science. Then there is the wa$ted $$$ spent by the citizens on double/triple energy costs. All to satisfy the fake science- and- of course- to destroy the economy and take down the Constitution. It’s The Democrat Way
The entire “plan” behind this budding dictatorship laughingly called an “administration” is to destroy this once Constitutional Republic. Hussein Obama in his (?) first attack on our presidency claimed “I’m going to fundamentally change America”…and the sheep applauded. He was the first one to obliterate our border. His “protege” was the second. Obama sent 6 Billion in cash to Iran, a terrorist nation, on a Fed Ex plane, fast forward: Biden sends 6 Billion to Palestine. I’ve learned not to focus on one incident and instead to focus on putting together seemingly “unrelated” incidences. As soon as Obama’s pet goat was illegally installed in the White House, he was “visiting” often…he is carrying out his threat and the demorats and the rinos are co-conspirators. In the last almost 3 years under this current “administration” more “random” shootings almost as if on a schedule…more “laws” on law abiding gun owners…IE: budding dictators can’t abide an armed citizenry…a weakened and pathetic “criminal justice system”…there are some on the right side warning there could be a horrific terrorist attack on our nation with all the unknowns flooding across our border and “disappearing” into the country…an attack that could make 9/11 look like a practice run…think about it, this nation is more vulnerable now than in it’s almost 250 years…George Bush Sr. presidential acceptance speech; “We must usher in the New World Order.” One may still find videos of him extolling the wonders of the NWO. This is more than about EV’s, inflation, skyrocketing prices on everything, schools that have been turned into indoctrination centers, colleges turning out America haters and on and on…We the people have been too busy pursuing the “American dream” to monitor what elected “politicians” are doing in the back rooms…the fraud, the lies, the “promises”…add to that a lamestream “media” dutifully spewing out the propaganda.
Obama in his first (gack) book said: “Should the winds change I will stand with the Muslims.”
“The party must not become a servant of the masses, but their master. The unity of a nation’s spirit and will are worth far more than the freedoms of the spirit and will of an individual. And that the higher interests involved in the life of the whole must here set the limits and lay down the duties of the interest of the individual.” Adolph Hitler
“The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.” Vladimir Lenin.
We have precious few news sources, one being Amac, another Newsmax, and One America News. Nothing happening in this nation is by chance and We The People best be alert, looking at the big picture and most of all Prepared!
We have electric airplanes taxis coming soon. WHAT CAN GO WRONG?
Ms. Jackson is right on the money with her assessment of Electric Vehicles. Additionally,, the negative aspects of EVs far outweigh the positives: They are very expensive; their batteries don’t like cold weather; they are much heavier than gas cars; their advertised travel ranges are grossly overstated; because of their weight, they require specially rated tires, i.e., more expensive to replace; when their batteries wear out, replacements will generally cost more than the value of the vehicle; their fire risk has caused some insurance companies to not write homeowner’s insurance on homes where EV’s are parked in a garage or garages that are under the house. EV’s are a passing fad.
The electric car agenda is not failing me. I refuse to buy that crap. I will be the last EV buyer on the face if the earth.
Great Article!
Electric cars, besides being outrageously expensive,are not environment friendly and in some cases, not parking structure friendly because of their weight.
Far left ideology always proves itself to be irrational and destructivre.
RIck
The goal is take away private transportation from everyone. Even the wealthy won’t be able to drive if governments can also limit or stop coal and oil production.
glad to read her words of wisdom.
But yet this same bunch will vote democratic. They just cant let go of the hand that feeds them. All you Blacks stay with Biden. Mule and wagon for everybody. Kyle L.
Not going to be stuck on the Democrats Plantation! Many Black men see through this like Donna does. And Hispanic friends of mine say that they are voting for Trump and Republicans. Welcome, friends, to the Anti-Marxist side!
Very well thought out and expressed critique. Another big issue with EV’s is the cost of replacing the battery. I visited my local GM dealership yesterday and inquired about the warranty on the Blazers battery. It was for 8 years. So, after 8 years you would pay the full cost of installing a new EV battery. How much would that cost 8 years from now? $20,000 -$30,00? Would you buy a new ICE car if you were told you would have to buy a new engine in 8 years? I don’t think so.
The political deep State socialist globalist wealthy elite tyrants have their money invested in this solar/electric crap. All based on pushing a climate warming theory, carbon HOAX! The elite stand to reap a virtual fortune forcing all of us (especially the lower and middle class) into it. Forcing us by law into one energy source (solar/electric) is a MONOPOLY! Monopolies violate ANTI-TRUST LAWS. Why hasn’t there been any law suits? As constitutionally free Americans we should be able to move around where ever we want and FREELY choose from MANY different energy sources, at a reasonable price. NOT just ONE energy source! That’s FREEDOM! Our electric grid is old and outdated. It cannot handle all this purposed solar/electric b.s. Wake up friends! We The People Are The Government and Sovereign!
Who, in their right mind, didn’t see this from the very beginning ?
Very good article!!
These EVs have a long way to go to be a dependable form of transportation especially for rural America. The American auto industry are losing there shirts & China is getting richer on our backs. Im a bus driver for our local school system in northern n.y. & can’t imagine depending on an EV school bus to get my kids to school. They will end up being giant paper weights that taxpayers paid for. It simply isn’t going to work.
Great article you’re right Donna, this is Socialism!!!..Open the XL pipeline so we can be Energy Independent Trump was Right again, the smart people were Happy , then the Wuhan virus came and the Fraudulent Election. Chose BIDEN and his Policies? the World was relatively peaceful and the Dem policies are causing Chaos, starting with Obama’s lies and his stupid VP Biden, they reversed Trumps Policies, you can’t negotiate with a country that says “Death to America” Open Borders?..these people can’t assimilate the our way of living!!.
EV Issues:
Insurance
No AAA Road service
battery fires
stalling midway on road
Lockedin/Out of car
Range
Charging time
Lack public charging network
Energy for Grid
The administration of joe and the idiots he has put into power all sum up his push for EVs. It amazes me how poorly the concept of EVs came about. Unlike gas powered vehicles EVs have no battery charging system to recharge the massive battery they come with. In freezing temperatures they don’t work.
joe and his preference of idiots that he has chosen for his administration should put fear to anyone. obama started the true downfall of America and now old joe is putting obama to shame with his continuation of that endeavor. How anyone with a brain in their head would ever consider voting demorat after all of this – well doesn’t have a brain in their head. In watching it all even many demorats are cringing at all that is happening. And old joe comes back with, “God save the queen – how about get out of politics along with all that are on the same page with you joe and maybe God will save America!!!!
Many people of all races are unable to purchase the electrical cars due to high prices and need for a charging station. It is sad that we are being shoved to this position as a movement toward stopping climate change. All the mining of minerals, the manufacture of special engines and batteries, creation of charging stations, creation of electricity to run these things and our houses and, and, and. Seems like just a short time ago we were experiencing black-outs of our electricity due to too many users at one time. Hmmmm!!!
Wow! This appears to be a racist article. “higher than the average Black household income of $46,400 annually” – You were doing ok referring to low income, but you had to single out black people as if all black people are low income. Lots of other race people can’t afford a new car. Please! No more race based articles – there are already too many from the left.
I won’t park next to an EV! It could decide to explode and kill me. Just look at our already over worked, under loved, under paid firefighters. They had to spend time, energy and funds to create a procedure to puff out the EV fires. They have better things to do.
Have read widely on this subject and the ‘ actual stated agenda’ is to engineer on many fronts to deprive ALL of us from owning and operating private vehicles. The globalist elites would have all of us take public transportation, rent rides, bicycle and walk. Those in rural and suburban areas would have no practical transportation. Wow- the vaunted Chinese model- everyone living in high rise small apartments in large urban centers. These demonic lunatics live in another world. Control of populace is the goal.
“Still, now they are willing to sacrifice them for the sake of the climate agenda, of which EVs are an integral part”.
No! This is precisely the problem! People need to understand that the lower and middle classes are getting screwed exactly for the sake of keeping them down! Climate change is just the main vehicle to facilitate that! Climate change is just the next “crisis” the Dem’s won’t allow to go to waste in order to achieve the power and control that they lust for! Remember Rahm Emanuel? “Never let a good crisis go to waste”! If a natural crisis doesn’t come along, simple…invent one!
No one is rationally addressing what electric vehicles are going to do to the environment as batteries continue to pile up.