The EV Graveyard
https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/24/the-ev-graveyard/
Last week, the House approved a resolution to block the Biden administration’s emissions rule that would require more than half of the automobiles sold in the new-car market to be electric by 2032. The 215 representatives who voted for the bill, including eight Democrats, are far more in tune with most of the country than the White House. The “deplorables” and “bitter” clingers of the industrialized world are rejecting electric vehicles.
Nationwide, the inventory of unsold EVs had grown by nearly 350% over the first half of 2024, creating “a 92-day supply — roughly three months’ worth of EVs, and nearly twice the industry average,” says Axios, which is 54 days for gasoline-powered vehicles.
Ford, which lost nearly $73,000 on each EV it sold in the second quarter of 2023, continues to yield to reality, now ditching its plans to build a large electric SUV. This “course change,” says Just the News, “comes amid lower-than-expected demand for electric vehicles.”
The company has also “pushed back to 2027” plans for “another electric vehicle project for a pickup truck.”
“Based on where the market is and where the customer is, we will pivot and adjust and make those tough decisions,” said John Lawler, Ford’s chief financial officer.
And here’s the market’s message:
“Of the U.S. consumers planning on purchasing a new vehicle in the next 24 months, only 34% intend to purchase an EV, down 14% from 48% in the 2023,” says Ernst & Young’s Mobility Consumer Index, “a global survey of almost 20,000 consumers from 28 countries.”
The story is much the same in Britain. EVs “are losing value at an ‘unsustainable’ rate as a slowdown in consumer demand sends used car prices tumbling,” the Telegraph reported last week. Meanwhile in France, “the EU’s second largest market for battery electric vehicles behind Germany,” deliveries have fallen by a third.
Germans are likewise losing interest, as the country has “suffered a ‘spectacular’ drop in electric car sales as the European Union faces growing calls to delay its net zero vehicle targets,” the Telegraph said in a separate story.
National Public Radio, which speaks to and for the political left, argues that “EVs are better for the environment than gas cars,” and laments that more Americans have doubts about electric vehicles’ eco-integrity. EVs, says NPR, “are caught up in the culture wars.”
There might be some truth there. Many Americans are fed up with elected and unelected officials forcing their preferences on them. It’s a culture of independence at war with a culture of coercion.
We also venture to say that a significant number in this country disfavor EVs because they don’t want to be seen as virtue signalers putting their green cred on display. They see the shallow exhibitions of eco-activism every day and they don’t want to be lumped into that crowd.
There are other reasons, of course: EVs’ steep sticker prices, their short ranges and extended charging times (when a working charger can be found), the high costs of insuring and repairing them, their drain on the grid, and their bogus reputation (they’re not zero-emission vehicles). There should no astonishment that, as documented by Wired, EVs are losing as much as half of their value in a year, with “some electric car brands … hemorrhaging value, with the worst losing as much as $600 a day.”
It’s not within the government’s limited range of authority to tell Americans what they can and cannot drive based on cars’ various energy sources. Yet policymakers issue mandates with no regard for the short leashes that should hold them back. Maybe consumer backlash, followed inevitably by voter backlash, will encourage them to rethink their agenda.
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