Readers can be forgiven if they think news stories sometimes run at cross-purposes. Consider a couple of recent stories about electric cars, pollution mandates, and the Biden administration, and watch the crack-up unfold.
We begin with the slightly older story, and one that’s had legs for a few months: EV sales are slowing. Not ending, Not cratering. But they most definitely aren’t living up to the hype Detroit automakers, green activists, and Team Biden spread far and wide (and created a wad of taxpayer-funded incentives for, too).
Replacing the hype: the “EV euphoria is dead” storyline. Or “How EVs became such a massive disappointment.”
Ouch. A disappointment? To those who were feeding the hype, yes it is. What replaced the hype? As CNBC notes, an old-fashioned idea is called “consumer choice.” With an assurance, bordering on hope, that EVs are inevitable:
The broad return to a more mixed offering of vehicles — with lineups of gas-powered vehicles alongside hybrids and fully-electric options — still assumes an all-electric future, eventually, but at a much slower pace of adoption than previously expected.
We shall see. Honest observers of the hype surrounding EVs would have pointed out that once early adopters got their new electric toys, the market would cool down. It would take far more time, and much more effort, to get everyone else interested in the idea. If they ever did.
And lo and behold, one of those honest observers is also a car maker: Toyota…
Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor’s chairman, has never been a huge fan of battery electric vehicles. Last October, as global sales of EVs starting to slow down amid macroeconomic uncertainty, Toyoda crowed that people are “finally seeing reality” on EVs. Now, the auto executive is doubling-down on his bearish predictions, boldly predicting that just three in ten cars on the road will be powered by a battery.
Toyota puts its chips on hybrids, using them as a bridge to other alternative-fuel vehicles.
And that’s where the EV narrative stood. Cars were still selling, but the EV hype machine was sitting in a cloud of smoke at the side of the road. It would take much more time, effort, and choice before the majority of buyers were ready to give up their internal combustion engines.
Cue the Biden administration, which is in full campaign mode and desperate to show off its green bona fides to progressives while trying to avoid alienating its more important labor union constituency. The result is a hash of policy that attempts to placate both sides but, in the end, please no one while also managing to stick it to consumers. The Wall Street Journal writes:
EPA claims the rule preserves “consumer choice” because hybrids and plug-in hybrids can help meet the standards in the early years. But auto makers will have no choice but to limit gas-powered, and increase EV, production to meet the mandates. The only “choice” Americans will have in the future is electric.
This is a case study in politicians seeking to mandate what markets have rejected. However, market signals mean little to politicians like Mr. Biden, who will do whatever they think is necessary to get their supporters off the couch and into the voting booth in November.
It’s crass political theater.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of The Republican Standard. It first appeared in American Liberty News.