The left likes to treat skeptics of electric cars as if they were Luddites. Truth is, making an existing product less efficient but more expensive doesn’t really meet the definition of innovation.
Even the purported amenities and technological advances EV makers like to brag about in their ads have been a regular feature of gas-powered vehicles going back generations. At best, EVs, if they fulfill their promise, are a lateral technology.
Which is why there is no real “emerging market” for EVs in the United States as much as there’s an industrial policy in place that props up EVs with government purchases, propaganda, state subsidies, cronyism, taxpayer-backed loans, and edicts. The green “revolution” is an elite-driven, top-down technocratic project.
And it’s increasingly clear that the only reason giant rent-seeking carmakers are so heavily invested in EV development is that government is promising to artificially limit the production of gas-powered cars.
In August 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to set a target for half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 to be zero-emission. California claims it is banning combustion engines in all new cars in about 10 years. So, carmakers adopt business models to deal with these distorted incentives and contrived theoretical markets of the future.
In today’s real-world economy, Ford projects it’s going to lose $3 billion on electric vehicles in 2023, bringing its EV losses to $5.1 billion over two years. In 2021, Ford reportedly lost $34,000 on every EV it made. This year, it was losing more than $58,000 on every EV. In a normal world, Ford would be dramatically scaling back EV production, not expanding it. Remember that next time we need to bail out Detroit.
Then again, we’re already bailing them out, I suppose. Last week, the U.S. Energy Department lent Ford — again, a company that loses tens of thousands of dollars on every EV it sells — another $9.2 billion in taxpayer dollars for a South Korean battery project. One imagines no sane bank would do it. The cost of EV batteries has gone up, not down, over the past few years.
Ford says these upfront losses are part of a “start-up mentality.” We’re still pretending EVs are a new idea rather than an inferior one. But scaremongering about climate and a misplaced romanticizing of “manufacturing” jobs have softened up the public for this kind of waste.
In the real world, there is Lordstown. In 2019, after General Motors — which also loses money on every EV sold — shut down a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, then-President Donald Trump made a big deal of publicly pressuring the auto giant to rectify the situation. CEO Mary Barra lent Lordstown Motors, a new EV outfit, $40 million to retrofit the plant. Ohio also gave GM another $60 million.
You may remember the widespread glowing coverage of Lordstown. After Biden signed his “Buy American” executive order, promising to replace the entire U.S. federal fleet with EVs, Lordstown’s stock shot up.
By the start of this year, Lordstown had manufactured 31 vehicles total. Six had been sold to actual consumers. (Most of them would be recalled.) The stock was trading at barely a dollar. Tech-funding giant Foxconn was pulling its $170 million. And this week, the company filed for bankruptcy.
Without massive state help, EVs are a niche market for rich virtue signalers. And, come to think of it, that’s sort of what they are now, even with the help. A recent University of California at Berkeley study found that 90% of tax credits for EVs go to people in the top income strata. Most EVs are bought by high earners who like the look and feel of a Tesla. And that’s fine. I don’t want to stop anyone from owning the car they prefer. I just don’t want to help pay for it.
Really, why would a middle-class family shun a perfectly good gas-powered car that can be fueled (most of the time) cheaply and driven virtually any distance, in any environment, and any time of the year? We don’t need lithium. We have the most efficient, affordable, portable and useful form of energy. We have centuries’ worth of it waiting in the ground.
Climate alarmists might believe EVs are necessary to save the planet. That’s fine. Using their standard, however, a bike is an innovation. Because even on their terms, the usefulness of EVs is highly debatable. Most of the energy that powers them is derived from fossil fuels. The manufacturing of an EV has a negligible positive benefit for the environment, if any.
And the fact is that if EVs were more efficient and saved us money, as enviros and politicians claim, consumers wouldn’t have to be compelled into using them and companies wouldn’t have to be bribed into producing them.
David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books – the most recent, “Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent.” His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi.
COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM
It’s not just EVs that are a scam, but rather the entire “the world is going to end in X years if we don’t do Y immediately” narrative that is a scam. The whole global warming, global cooling, and now expressly vague “climate change” has to be the largest, most well organized and multi-national financial scam that has ever been perpetrated on the world’s population in the entire history of mankind. Literally hundreds of trillions of dollars and being planned to be redistributed over the next 10 to 20 years, even after the world has already wasted several trillion dollars on this scam over the last 50 years. It is truly amazing what can be accomplished with absolutely no verifiable scientific proof that any of the proposed solutions will alter the expected global climate more than 0.2 degrees over the next 100 years. This planet has been around for over 4 billion years and it has experienced far wider temperature swings during that timeframe long before mankind walked the earth.
Climate change, measured over multiple millennia not a few decades as some enviros suggest, is driven by the activities on the surface of the sun and the planet’s orbital variances in rotation around the sun. Good luck trying to tax and spend astrophysics to suit the whims of some scientifically illiterate idiots who happen to be in positions of power and have decided they could each become very wealthy through bilking the public with this scheme.
Finally! This info has been neglected far too long. If an EV catches fire the firemen are in danger of poison from the smoke. The batteries are too costly (from china) to replace. Thank you for telling the truth.
EV Issues:
battery fires
charging time
No national charging network
Range
Insurance
replace battery pack
No AAA road service
hacking
Lack commercial charging centers
EV Services
Electric cars and “climate change” are proven frauds. One look at the clowns that perpetuate this B.S. should be enough to convince you that the public has been lied to.
NEVER, EVER TRUST A liberal, they ARE THE ENEMY OF OUR NATION
Note to buying customers: Electric cars are NOTTTTTTT to be confused with microwave ovens when they first came out! Totally different product! Elec cars are a drain on society and people’s purses!
don’t want an ev now or ever!
Is there even one thing pushed promoted and foisted on us by government that is no a scam?
ALL CLIMATE CHANGE CRAP IS A MONEY MAKING SCHEME FOR LEFTISTS, LIBERAL, MARXIST, DEMONCRATS, AND ELITISTS, THIS ARTICLE MENTIONS MIDDLE CLASS, WHAT MIDDLE CLASS? EVER SINCE THE BIDEN/OBAMA TERM BEGAN (WHEN THEY STOLE THE ELECTION) THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN ON A FAST TRACK TO HELL (CHINA’S SUB-STATE) AND THE MIDDLE CLASS IS ALL BUT GONE. ITS ELITISTS FILTH AND THE POOR AND THE VERY POOR WHICH IS THE WAY THEY WANT IT.
YOU TALK ABOUT SLAVERY, THIS IS THE NEW SLAVERY AS THEY CONTROL EVERYONE (JUST SHUT UP AND DO AS YOUR TOLD)
FUTURE ELECTIONS ARE A JOKE AND A SCAM, THEY WILL NEVER BE FAIR AGAIN, MARK MY WORDS, COME 2024 THE FILTH (DEMONCRATS) WILL HAVE THE PRESIDENCY AND ALL OF CONGRESS AND WITHIN 90 DAYS WILL CONTROL THE SUPREME COURT (THE US CONSTITUTION WILL BE DESTROYED)
Let’s stop using “climate change” as an excuse to support (political) agendas. Look up “Milankovitch cycles” if you want the truth on the way temperatures and climate changes on the earth (and has since it’s formation 4.5 billion years ago).
Batteries do not have enough energy density. Gasoline does. Continue developing E-cars, but realize it’s not today’s answer.
Remember that Nazi Germany did not start with gas chambers. First, the uni-party had to lie, repeat the lie loud and long to their cooperating press which suppressed the truth. Then demonization of their political enemies and getting their followers to harass the political enemies. Meanwhile, good people stood by and did nothing.
Do not swallow the bilge coming out of this administration, any of it.
If the federal and state governments were not strongly subsidizing the EV market, it would self destruct. This is Biden’ dream scheme to make all of us more dependent on the government. Don’t fall for it! The compromise from I.C.E to EV is a gas/electric hybrid car. I owned one and it reliably gave 36. MPG. Had it over 10 years. Bought the same model only with an I.C.E engine 10 years later. Gave the same MPG. So we are making progress in I.C.E. efficiency. And hybrid efficiency. Now envision yourselves stranded on an interstate in January in 10 degree weather. How long will that EV power plant keep you warm? Want to walk to the nearest charging station and get a 5 gallon can of electricity?
To you EV owners: where do you think the power comes from when you plug your car in at night? Tell me you don’t know that coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy provide about 85% of the energy to power your homes and EV stations. If you don’t, and I suspect you don’t, then you would not have bought an EV in the first place.
When you plug it in at night, think about all the children in the Congo under the auspices of China digging the lithium to make your batteries. And BTW, as I understand it on top of that, there is no safe environmental way to dispose of the batteries. And woe it anybody close to them when they catch fire.
I sure don’t want my family to be in a EV on a freeway during an ice storm and stranded for 24 or more hours. When the battery goes dead, maybe you will looking at the same end. I hate the cold and would not like to freeze to death. That’s why I live down south. Give me some water and a fan (a manual one) and I will survive. Its darn hot right now, but I will survive. My family did not grow up with AC’s and we all did OK.
Just my nickel’s worth. Have a blessed day!!!!!
A virtue signaling friend of mine recently drove his brand new Tesla from Orlando Florida to Anaheim California, a distance of approximately 2,500 miles. When asked, he told me the drive wasn’t much different than if made in his old gasoline powered vehicle. He had only a few more required stops to make to power up, but at just penny’s on the dollar compared to gasoline, and it wasn’t much of an inconvenience at all. I love my friend, but to that, I say B.S.! Among thier many other devilish accomplishments, the Left has gotten very good at getting sane people to lie to themselves, and others as well, as in the case of my erstwhile accomplished & intelligent friend, who should know better than to buy into & promulgate the lie. This, my dear fellow travelers, is but one illustration of what’s wrong today in America. Like proverbial lemmings, to many of our fellow Americans are jumping off the cliff to the death of the nation!
Biden’s demands are absolutely ruining our economy. How much longer are we going to follow his authoritative dictation (dictator). He is not the one to make the laws, just to sign a congressional bill or veto it. Why are our Congress people allowing his over reaching authority to continue?
The way things are going we are being ruled like Russia or China. This is not the USA I was born in during WWII.
PLEASE GOD HELP OUR COUNTRY!
Electric vehicles are a scam promoted by Joe Biden and John Kerry that has cost us our energy independence.
EV’s have been a scam for the start. when fisker karma was being produced it was the prefect example of what the electric car industry is.
It was cool looking because all leftists are desperate to be cool. it was not fast and it has very little range. it was designed as a status symbol for the virtue signalling leftist. The testa s was the same way.
EV’s are the same as wearing a mask in 2022. they are to tell other people you are a hardcore leftist.
I travel on business allot and today after I dropped off the rental. I asked the manager on duty about how many EV gets rented per day? His reply was, “One to zero. Closer to ZERO!” How many do you have to rent? “Around 30 plus or take. I have even offered to customers half piece EV rental when low on gas powered cars and still no thank.”
A dentist friend was to get a Tesla a few years ago. I told him you need to get the equipment to charge it. He went ahead and got it. After freezing in the Tesla while charging it at a parking lot. He took it back!
Than my brother-in-law that lives in Orlando. Got a Tesla last year. After less than a year he traded it in. “Why, Jorge?” His anxiety while driving and fearing he will run out of juice was driving him nuts!
All the hype about electric cars don’t take into consideration the pollution and other problems in manufacturing them plus all the other things mentioned in the comments. Did this with ethonal too. All the machinery to harvest and produce ethanol caueses more pollution than making gas. A person has to research well!!
oh sure, I believe John Kerry when he says “I only flew on a private jet once”. what a meathead
When great ideas are converted into desirable products, there is no need for government to get involved in promoting them. No one had to bribe or force me to ditch my film cameras for digital cameras. I remember buying my first digital camera for a trip to Antarctica in 2004. I took both my 35 mm and the new digital. On my next trip, I took only the digital. When government tells me that in order to save the planet I need to ditch my internal combustion powered auto, gas range and gas furnace, I know I am a sacrifice to the Liberal God of Power and Control. China and India are building new coal fired plants to serve their growing economies, and without those nations being on board with saving the planet, Biden’s executive orders and the EPA’s fiats are not going to make a dent in CO2 emissions.
EVs aren’t close to being ready for realm world use. The batteries used in
these vehicles are the next great pollution problem.
When the first Fords, and others, were being mast produced, can anyone remember reading about the federal WE government helping set up service (fuel) stations? Why should WE federal government set up charging stations?
Whether to own an EV or not should be a marketplace decision and not a political one. The EVs are okay for urban commuters perhaps, but my old Saturn wagon that I purchased used for $1600 over ten years ago has racked up an additional 100K miles reliably and gets 30+ MPG. Now that is cheap transportation.
The vast majority of EV’s are sold to wealthy people for short trips as a second car while virtue signaling. And it makes me really mad to think it’s been done with our middle class, hard earned, tax dollars.
The BIGGEST SCAM ever perpetrated on the American People IS CLIMATE CHANGE!!! The World is Going to End bullcrap! Sure, but only it’s Creator will decide that and God’s NOT revealed it yet!
Why doesn’t Biden get an all ‘electric’ plane to replace Air Force One..and Two???? Their jets make more crap in the environment than our cars. And the idiot wants to get rid of gas stoves. The power grids cannot even take care of what we have now….what would happen if eveything was electric?? Plus climate has been changing since God created the earth and it’s going to keep changing until He decides to end it.
Everything this corrupt government does is a scam, all designed to harm us and bring our country down.
This article is correct. Electric cars are a scam, and I say that having driven one for 10 years. Pure electric cars are a scam. Plug in hybrids are not.
I bought a Chevy Volt when it first came out in 2011 and upgraded each time it was improved, owning a total of 4 (and receiving $7,500 tax credits each time for a total of $30,000, essentially equal to a free car). The Volt was my beloved daily driver until I moved out of the US in 2021.
The Volt was the perfect electric vehicle and has never been equaled. Although I loved it and believe it was the best car ever made, I will never own a “pure” electric vehicle. Why?Because they don’t provide the intended function of reliable transportation except in consistently warm and relatively flat regions.
I discovered that the first winter I had my Volt. The car had a stated electric range of 35 miles. However, the actual range varied drastically depending on air temperature. When the temperature in Ohio got down to 10 degrees F, the range fell to 12 miles. Why? Because batteries obey the laws of physicals and provide much less power as temperature falls. In addition, during cold weather you have to use the heater — which runs off of the battery and reduces driving range. In addition, cold weather days are shorter, so you use the headlights, which run off the battery and further reduce driving range.
Extremely cold weather is also when, if you get stranded due to running out of electricity in a “pure” electric vehicle, you can get frostbite or freeze to death.
This is why the only practical electric vehicle that can be used for its intended purpose, reliable transportation, must have a back up gasoline motor like the Volt had.
As the article points out, an electric vehicle only reduces air pollution if it is charged with an alternative source of energy. I was able to do that using solar produced electricity, making the car a solar powered vehicle. But if an electric vehicle is charged with electricity produced by burning oil, coal, or natural gas, there is no environmental benefit.
Another reason a pure electric vehicle is not practicable is the lack of recharging stations and the amount of time required to recharge. I drove my Volt from Ohio to California and back, and found that many charging stations listed on official US web sites were not where they were supposed to be, were not yet operational or had been removed by retailers when they remodeled stores or parking lots. The web sites were inaccurate. If you depended on them driving a pure electric car, with no backup source of power and a long distance to an alternative charging station, you would be stranded. If you came to a charging station where a car was being charged for hours, you would have to wait until they were finished and then spend hours charging your vehicle. It’s an incredible amount of down time.
Those are the facts of the real world. The government and car companies are making a big bet on vehicles whose only market is California and southern states. GM will find out soon enough it’s making vehicles no one wants, after scrapping the one that worked.
It is funny that the EV people never tell you the following:
How long it takes to recharge your vehicle and the cost
Who can work on your EV if there is a problem
Cost of battery and other parts
Where are the charging stations and how they get their power
Insurance on an EV
Where do old lithium batteries go and how safe are they
Warning! Warning! Will Robinson. Another Government backed scam is in progress. Warning! Warning!
Yes, ev’s, green energy policy, just more rip-off plans from the marxist democrat party!
Wake up People it’s about ending your freedom and taking what you’ve earned.
These scum are America’s worst enemy by far
THROW THEM OUT
This whole EV idea is to make America go broke.
if they spent as much money on creating safe fossil fuel engines or hydrocarbon engines we would be saving the planet, if it needs saving. Gates and the elites have ruined the climate with their cloud seeding and chem trails.
Now Gates wants to put a chemical curtain around the world to block out the sun. Stop it Gates you are not a scientist, at best you are a computer hack. Gates has been sterilizing children in India and several African countries under the guise of polio vaccine. Now he has big business in cultivating bugs and meatless food production. He and China are buying up all our farmland to create famine so we will all buy his bugs and meatless food products that have no food value. Or we will be ordered to eat this food. We have not evolved to this food. But it is a great method to curtail the population.
If we all go on bikes will we not put out to much CO2? Didn’t the mayor of New York tell the kids in school to breath hard for 5 minutes every day and climate change scientists said that is dangerous because of more CO2 in the environment. Aren’t we exchanging fossil fuel gasses for more CO2? This is not about the environment. We didn’t create the environment of today, although they like to blame us. The Industrial Revolution and government mandates created it. Only now, we need to change everything overnight. Only that is not what they want it is all about having power over the people from cradle to grave.
Th EV is not workable. We are going to run out of rare metals to make the batteries before they can make a SAFE, efficient electric car. And why do we as tax payers pay for those cars for the elites to drive.
Henry Ford made a car for the average American and see how successful Ford was only when the government started to meddle with emission standards started the auto industry loosing money.
Bailouts kept them afloat for awhile. Which is what will happen again with the EVs and the whole auto industry is bankrupt. Exactly where the dems want america to be. We won’t be able to go where we want, the government loves that. Every Holiday air travel is laying still. Why? Oh the weather. No it is just to stop everyone from flying. People see the chaos at the airports are not going to travel next holiday. It is all about control. Only nobody sees it. The truth is too hard to face
I have a 2006 honda! It’s great on gas ans I haven’t had ONE problem with it. Gas efficient cars can be made right here in the USA!!
I can hardly wait till biden is impeached, dies, committed, or tried for treason!
Yep it is all a scam…Do I like my battery weed eater? Love it!!! why? because I do not know how to keep my old weed eater going. Mixing the gas and blah blah blah. My husband did and he died. I went to battery. Well not my car. I will go to a car man for that. battery cars are way too stupid and the waste of the battery of a car is way too dangerous.
It is all about controlling the people and getting rich.
I haven’t seen any comments yet about the power grid and neighborhood electric capacity. If even 1/2 of the people in a neighborhood had an EV with the stage 2 charging system (typical 220v service), there would not be enough electrical capacity to charge the vehicles at night. Plus, unless you get the stage 3 charging system, you would not be able to charge a completely drained battery over night.
And yet, the Biden Administration wants to force everyone into an EV, which unless the electrical grid is updated, will leave people unable to charge their vehicles and cramp their electrical use at home.
I have a 2010 Sonata 4 speed overdrive. Very gas efficient and we keep her in great shape. She is truly a gem.
Most of us have suspected for years now that the battery cars were more hype than hope. Common sense is out the window. Marketing has proved that you can really sell sand to desert people. WE are all in big trouble if we don’t speak up against this madness.Warn your family and friends before they spend their hard earned money on fools gold.
This should be headlines in every city, town and county! The elites think we are all so ignorant that we can’t see the long term ridiculous outcome of this nonsense!
Bribes are not the energy on which to run a country
We, as a society, have been lied to for decades over global warming, global cooling and the all encompassing climate change scam. The government has no business in using our hard earned tax dollars to perpetuate this scam. What happens when a common sense President comes in and removes Biden’s Executive Order? The marketplace should determine what kind of cars, SUVs and trucks we buy based on styling, performance and fuel economy. Many middle income Americans are priced out of the new car market with the average price for a new car averaging close to $48,000. And the used car market isn’t offering any great bargains either as manufacturers have cut production to maintain higher prices. We are a minimum of 25 years away from making electric cars as convenient as the current gas powered cars we have today. Eliminate government subsidies and tax breaks, which most people can’t use anyway, and we’ll see how much of a market there is for electric cars.
FINALLY, someone said the truth about EVs……Thank You David
Numerous articles have been written that proves that end-to-end EV are far worse for the environment than ICE vehicle.
It is a giant scam that seems to be working. I always encourage people to look at history, when back in the 1960’s there was a coming ice age, then in the ’70’s global warming with new and more dire predictions every year. Remember when AlGore told us when the world was going to end, it did not. AOC says the world is going to end, in what, 12 years, it will still be here. These snake oil salesmen keep convincing a new generation of the direness of the world.
These people will never be happy until we are back living in caves and they control our whole lives. They attack every modern convenience and try to eliminate it, now it is gas stoves…Most importantly, they are NEVER satisfied…cars used to get 6-8 miles per gallon, now they get 25-35 or more…NOT GOOD ENOUGH you serfs.
I purchased a new 2019 Chevy Volt and I am completely satisfied. I replace the generator oil once a year and had no problems at all with the excellent engineered car. Unfortunately, GM has discontinued this Hybrid vehicle and I am not sold on a all electric car.
Above all, EVs are just not practical. I live 30 miles from a large grocery store. In this rural area many people drive an hour or more to work. There are only a few electric vehicles here. Not a winning option.
But – but -but, Slippery Joe, the Snake on the Take, likes them. They must be good. I’ll bet even Hunter will buy one (with taxpayer money.)
I do NOT believe in Global Warming. But anyone who does not believe EVS will take over the world THIS YEAR is an ignorant fool. There are NO FACTS that suggest otherwise.
Insanity now rules in America. The crazier the idea or proposal, the faster it becomes policy. Soon thereafter, it is illegal to question the policy, and if you do, you are arrested for spreading dis-misinformation. No one seems to make a distinction anymore between those two words, because the lines have been blurred. Words have no meaning. They mean whatever the individual wants them to mean. January 6th was an insurrection. Men can become women. There is no inflation, but if there is, it’s Putin’s fault. Lies become truth, and don’t argue or else! Each individual is his own god and therefore creates his own reality. The spirit of the Antichrist is alive and well in America. If you are feeling uneasy, now you know why.