I & I Editorial BoardWhen President Joe Biden issued regulations that he and his side of the political aisle hoped would eventually lead to electric vehicles replacing automobiles that burn gasoline and diesel fuel, it was regarded as a glorious moment. The backtracking, however, has begun, a welcome development we didn’t believe was possible from the man who once irresponsibly promised “to end fossil fuel.”
Unfortunately, it’s being done for the wrong reasons.
The New York Times reported over the weekend that the “administration intends to relax elements of one of its most ambitious strategies to combat climate change, limits on tailpipe emissions that are designed to get Americans to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles.” The Times calls it a “concession to automakers and labor unions.”
We would have preferred a concession to science and the limits a president should have on the lives of everyday folks. For now, though, we take what we can get: Biden is merely giving the industry more time to meet the targets that he, not Congress through the constitutional lawmaking process, set.
While there is plenty of conjecture and speculation, there is no science that says replacing fossil-fuel powered vehicles with EVs will have a salutary effect on the climate. The EV manufacturing chain is one long line of carbon-dioxide emissions. From the extraction of raw materials using equipment that burns fossil fuels, to the assembly process, to the charging, operating, and then eventual disposal of EVs, their environmental impact is far from benign. The truth is they are as dirty, if not more so, than conventional automobiles.
EV mandates, including those in California and in a few copycat states, are straight up abuses of power. Yet there is never an acknowledgment from the progressive left that consumers’ choices are being taken from them. As we have asked before, where do government officials, both elected and unelected, derive the authority to tell Americans what vehicles they cannot own and what vehicles they must own? And as we have answered before, there is none.
At the same time, there is no Democrat, activist, mainstream media reporter, editor or talking head who will admit that a growing EV regime will: cause power shortages and send rising future electricity prices even higher; financially overload the poor and middle classes; and accelerate street and highway damage.
The market is already saturated with EVs even though there are only about 2.5 million of them. Outside the virtue-signaling enclaves of wealth along California’s coast and in a few other blue political zones, Americans have largely rejected them.
They’re acutely aware of hassles of charging, the financial headaches of the costly repairs, the long, hot fires they can burst into, the steep insurance premiums, the shocking sticker prices. They’ve seen how cold weather renders the EVs as so much dead metal abandoned on the side of the road, the scenes reminiscent of German roadways littered with unreliable communist-built Trabants that had been abandoned by their owners who “traded” them for Western cars after East Germany collapsed.
If Biden is reelected, he won’t back down. He might take things slower than he originally planned, but the overall objective will remain the same. So would any other Democrat who might take his place in the 2024 campaign. The best – though not the only – way to cut the cord entirely is to elect the Republican opponent. Never Trumpers in the Republican Party need to remember this in November.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
See Also:
‘Climate Change’ Puts Biden’s EV Mandate On Thin Ice
Collapse Of Used EV Market Spells Doom For Biden’s Electric Car Dreams
EVs Aren’t The Edsel Of The 21st Century — They’re Far Worse
It’s Time To Admit It: EVs Are EVIL
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
First, carbon dioxide is not pollution!!! It is plant food – commercial greenhouse growers pump it into their greenhouses because it makes plants grow faster, more lush, and produced more crops – because it’s plant food!!! The source that calls CO2 a “pollutant” is the crooked and biased and lying Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is a UN agency.
Second, how do you not know by now that Trump is not the solution!!! He is one of them, just like almost all DC legislators – there are only a handful that even approach true conservativism, and one of them ain’t Trump. Here’s just the latest revelation about him – https://thewashingtonstandard.com/catherine-austin-fitts-president-unconstitutionally-spent-10-billion-on-us-depopulation-it-wasnt-biden/
Your comment about CO2 is a homerun. The one about Trump is a foul ball
I agree with everything in the article except one point: These are NOT electric vehicles; they are electronic vehicles. While the initials are the same, the power is different.
Electric items receive their power from alternating current; electronic items receive their power from direct current. This was described by Edison and Westinghouse in the 1900’s. The only time an EV is electric is when it is charging, never when it’s operating. If they were true electric vehicles, the cord would stay plugged in while it was being driven.
So let’s keep stigmatizing them by referring to them by the proper description: Electronic vehicles.
The headline should have read, Biden pulls plug on EVs till he is re-elected. Then plus is reattached in a nano second!
First, “climate change” has to be understood more honestly. Is it caused by automobile exhaust? Probably not. Does exhaust contribute to it? Possibly but only in a tiny way. What is called “climate change” is much more likely the regular cycles of solar radiation output. The Sun goes through periods (often decades long) of being slightly warmer, then slightly cooler, etc.
Politicians latch onto it and make proclimations to “change all of life” because, well, politicians always need something “to do” in order to feel important, make money and go down in history as someone who “did something”.
Well written.
I’d add a simplifying heuristic – if an EV weights 500 or 1000 pounds more, it is unlikely to beat the lighter ICE car when the entire life-cycle is calculated, in fact it is likely to add more CO2 and consume more energy pretty much in proportion to the weight difference.
That is all.
Joe Biden’s crocked government is falling apart.
Maga
Again
Trump 2024
A quick transition to EVs means throwing away our accumulated experience building IC cars. I can think of no better way to help China capture the market and drive what remains of the US auto industry into oblivion.
“If Biden is reelected” There is no IF here; this is exactly what will happen. There’a a massive disconnect. The left is busy throttling freedom at every turn, and the optics are that the republican response is to pounce on… IVF. As long as the republicans let the evangelicals drive the abortion bus, the left will remain in control.
A few enviro-activists, in the private sector, will speak truth. One of the truths is that they are not forcing Americans to drive EVs. The real truth is that they prefer that Americans don’t drive anything at all, and mostly stay home. If need be get about on foot or bicycle. Fewer Americans would also be good.
The Greens and Environmental Activists have been told every argument against their vision and still insist on it. For some they believe in it like a religion. I think the rest have seen all the environmental damage done by using fossil fuels (and nuclear) and have set their minds to purging those BAD things and the BAD ways Americans live their lives from the world.