Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm’s four-day publicity tour for electric vehicles was always intended to draw attention — and it did, just not the kind she’d hoped for. Granholm and her caravan acted as ambassadors for President Joe Biden’s support for green energy and clean cars. But it’s hard to spend four days on the road without showcasing the downsides of electric vehicles.
Outside of Augusta, Georgia, Granholm and her team bumped up against a common limitation: too few EV chargers. Ahead of her arrival, Granholm’s advance team realized that they would have to wait in line. One charger was broken, leaving only three that worked.
To reserve a spot for Granholm, a Department of Energy staffer parked his gas-powered vehicle by one of the working chargers. The staffer blocked other vehicles from accessing the charger, including a family in an electric car with a young baby — so the family called the police.
The incident didn’t generate the kind of media attention that Granholm had wanted for the tour. Even the NPR reporter who rode along with the secretary concluded that “EVs that aren’t Teslas have a road trip problem.” From the inconvenience of finding a charging station to waiting in line to access a charger — not to mention the time actually spent charging — electric vehicles just don’t fit into the American way of life.
New Emission Limits Force Transition to Electric Cars
Consumers have shown that they don’t want electric vehicles, in part due to the substantial technical and logistical baggage they entail. But that hasn’t stopped Biden. This Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a regulation that will ensure that a majority of the new cars sold in America will be electric or hybrid by 2032 — whether or not Americans want to drive them.
Described by the New York Times as “one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history,” Biden’s new policy is set to transform the American automotive industry over the next eight years by forcing car manufacturers to comply with restrictive emissions limits. Though the regulation does not stipulate how manufacturers must meet those emissions limits, it effectively requires auto makers to shift production largely toward electric or hybrid vehicles. By 2032, more than half of the new cars sold in the United States are predicted to be “zero-emissions” vehicles.
As fast as this eight-year transformation is, Biden’s original plan was even more dramatic. Auto manufacturers complained that earlier versions of this policy attempted to implement the transition too rapidly, which resulted in a slight edit. The final EPA rule gradually increases the pace of compliance with new emissions limits until 2030, when the compliance rate will “ramp[] up sharply.”
Forcing Supply Without Demand
Writing a regulation is one thing; getting Americans on board is another thing entirely. Even with heavy subsidies, electric vehicle sales made up 7.6 percent of total U.S. car sales last year, falling far short of the EPA’s new 56 percent target. And though last year’s sales were a record high for electric cars, the rate of growth in sales is slowing. (RELATED: Car Wars and Other Progressive Fantasies)
Excitement for Ford’s all-electric F-150 Lightning seemed promising at its introduction in 2022. But as concerns about battery reliability and range arose following the truck’s release, demand evaporated. Only 24,000 F-150 Lightnings were sold last year — a mere fraction of the 150,000 sales anticipated by Ford or the truck’s initial 200,000 person waitlist.
Across the board, American drivers are concerned about limited driving ranges, higher costs, and unpredictable charging options when it comes to switching to electric cars. According to the North American Auto Dealers Association, the five-year cost of owning an average gas-powered car is $76,500, compared to more than $92,000 to own an electric vehicle.
America will need more than two million chargers by 2030 to keep pace with the EPA’s forced transition. Road trips won’t only grow longer due to charging time; they also will require meticulous planning to ensure that the vehicle can charge throughout the trip. Already, nearly one in four chargers near major city centers is in need of repair, making charging stations even more unreliable.
But where genuine demand for electric vehicles remains lackluster, Biden has decided to create artificial demand. “If EVs are as popular as Joe Biden claims, he wouldn’t have to force them through executive fiat or prop them up with taxpayer subsidies,” said Daniel Turner, founder of Power the Future. “The Biden Administration is using executive orders to push this EV mandate because he knows Congress won’t pass it and because the American people don’t support it.”
Biden’s Plan Hurts American Auto Manufacturing
This massive shift toward electric vehicles won’t be without economic consequences. In particular, American auto workers face a real threat to their livelihoods. Electric vehicles have fewer parts and require fewer workers, which has led major manufacturers to eliminate thousands of jobs in recent years. Unionized auto workers are also concerned that new plants constructed to manufacture electric vehicles aren’t being constructed in states that support union labor.
Despite the increasingly powerful progressive wing of the Democrat Party, Biden has made a concerted effort to appeal to union power. But loyalty to unions is starting to bump up against the Left’s ascendent climate fanaticism. Union-heavy swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania will factor heavily in November’s election, and Biden’s electric vehicle policy may prove to be a liability.
Already, Donald Trump has zeroed in on the regulations, promising to eliminate Biden’s climate policies should he win the presidency. It’s easier said than done, but opposition to federal meddling in auto manufacturing might be enough to sway some crucial votes.
And, in the end, the courts could clean up Biden’s mess for Trump. The new regulation is expected to face “immediate legal challenge,” with the New York Times predicting that the lawsuits will ascend to the Supreme Court.
Either way, the “bloodbath” Trump predicted in auto manufacturing is already upon us. Once a symbol of American freedom, cars are now vehicles for Biden’s progressive policies.
Mary Frances Myler is a writer from Northern Michigan now living in Washington, D.C. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.
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