The people, through the market, did not demand Obamacare. And they do not demand mandated electric vehicles.
Something that continues to surprise me is how intelligent and capable people in the private sector have such faith in the public sector. They actually believe that a government bureau can handle ridiculously complex functions like health care more efficiently than the private sector. Have they never gone to get a driver’s license?
In a discussion with a high school friend of mine (Mike owns a small electronics firm), I explained how Obamacare was designed as the bridge to single payer. He then said something that really shocked me, “I would love single payer health care.” I explained to Mike he has never had to deal with it. His retort was, “I can handle that but I’m tired of people having to have fund raisers for health care like Hokie Gajan!”
Hokie Gajan was a New Orleans Saints fullback in the mid 80s who career was unfortunately cut short by a knee injury. Tragically his life was cut short by liposarcoma, a very powerful form of cancer with limited treatment options. Hokie attempted to raise money for alternative treatments, but passed before he could be treated. Mike is sure single payer health care would have treated him, regardless of the cost or likelihood of medical success. He obviously never heard of the King family or the Evans family in England, where the National Health Service refused treatment for their severely ill children, and forbid them to go overseas for treatment. Granted, the treatments were experimental, but the kids were dying and the parents were paying. However the NHS said it had final word on the treatment of the children, not the parents.
Anyone see an issue with this?
Fast forward, now we have the federal government helping us again. Taking his que from the man-child he served as assassination insurance for, Joe “The Thingy” Biden decrees within 9 years, 2/3 of the vehicles purchased in this country will be electric. What could go wrong?
Biden’s Draconian Electric-Car Mandate
The EPA announced new emissions requirements aimed at having 67 percent of cars sold in the U.S. with zero tailpipe emissions by 2032. About a year and a half ago, the Biden administration said it wanted 50 percent to meet that mark by 2030.
It’s one thing to want an outcome. It’s another to mandate it, without saying how to get there, or making it any easier to get there.
The EPA’s mandate gives carmakers freedom to meet the emissions targets in any way they see fit. On the one hand, that’s better than attempting to micromanage corporate decision-making from Washington, D.C. But on the other hand, it perfectly illustrates the progressive delusion that government can, merely by speaking, create better outcomes in the economy with no unintended consequences.
Oh, have any of these idiots in the EPA explained how we would transport large cargo over great distance or over rugged terrain? My first thought was how much torque would an electric motor produce. But in speaking with friend who is a long-haul truck driver and has some experience with electric truck rigs, the vehicles do generate force. They do not, however, have amps. Scott drove a heavy load over the Rocky Mountains and as he said, “Mike, with a diesel I was burning through fuel, two miles a gallon. But there were stations along the way and I can refuel in ten minutes.”
Anyone really believe an electric rig will make it over such a load? From what I’ve seen, no. When Ford introduced the F-150 Lightening, they touted the range of approximately 240 miles. In other words, under perfect conditions, I can barely make it from Houston to Dallas (239 miles), cannot make it Fort Worth (262 miles), nor Houston to Fort Stockton (511 miles) or (New Orleans LA 347 miles). Someone I know with a Tesla drove from Houston to Baton Rough last summer and had to recharge twice.
Remember, the ranges of these vehicles are under ideal conditions. There are never ideal conditions. Last summer (high 90s) I took an Uber and the driver drove a Testa. I asked him about how it was handing the heat and he said, “I can barley get 100 miles out of it a day.” I spoke with a friend who used a Chevy Volt in Denver CO. She said heating would eat the battery. In other words, normal conditions of life will degrade the battery.
This new standard, the EPA tells us, will propel the U.S. to utopia. Four years’ worth of carbon-dioxide emissions would vanish, the average consumer would save $12,000 over the life of a vehicle, and the benefits would outweigh the costs by $1 trillion. Premature deaths, heart attacks, respiratory illness, and cancer would decline.
All that and more will occur if only the EPA publishes the right words in the Federal Register, the Biden administration wants us to believe. If the benefits are so huge and so obvious, no government mandate would be necessary. Of course, reality is more complicated.
And the evidence of improved health, especially cancer, is where? Also, poorer people don’t have the money to purchase a 60K-75K car when they have trouble enough making ends on less than that a year. The average hourly wage is the US is $27.50, showing annual income of $57, 616. How much car can you afford on that? From one web site, the monthly note $416.00 from someone making 50K a year. The monthly payment of a 60K car (5 years at 6%) is $773.00. Thanks for your help there, Joe.
Now we can go over how mandating this disaster means a fortune to the Chinese (they have the largest stock of rare earth minerals needed for EV batteries). Conveniently for Beijing Biden, by executive order, put 225k acres of American land with these minerals off limits to mining just when we need them (you think Hunter and “the Big Guy” were in for a cut). Or the fact these actions will have serious consequences, such as exploding the cost of transportation for passengers and cargo.
From the article, the issue of minerals will likely lead us to “obtain them from developing countries with more child labor involved.” Also, EV manufacturing requires “less skilled labor, so China will continue to dominate in electric vehicle production.” The issue of chargers is far from over, the lies of the “Inflation Reduction Act” (snicker) notwithstanding. Fast chargers can take 30 minutes, slow chargers much longer. Battery and charger technology is nowhere near being ready for fielding, but why let reality get in the way.
Not to mention the extra electricity required to manufacture and charge these vehicles has to come from somewhere. With the EPA and environmentalist trying to stop cheap and efficient (coal and natural gas) sources of energy, have shuttered and de-assembled multiple hydro electric facilities, and having stopped the development of more nuclear power, where is the new power coming from? The dream of solar and wind not withstanding, it would seem logical to take this transition in baby steps, not jump off a cliff.
With automakers being forced to accept an all-electric fleet, there is one question. Will people want to buy them with paying a much higher initial cost? Some idiot said the market is driving Detroit to change, but it’s nothing but the market. It’s the iron fist of the bureaucracy using carrot (e.g., tax credits for auto purchases, funding vehicle chargers) and now the stick (mandated sales quotas, artificially inflated fuel prices, etc.).
The National Review article speaks often of unintended consequences. I must respectfully disagree with Bill Buckley’s news magazine. The consequences are intentional. In Obamacare, it is to force tax-payer funded bureaucratically controlled health care on this nation. On the push for electric vehicles is to control people’s physical mobility and hamper their financial futures. No election gives the government that mandate, and no bureaucracy has that power. It is time for the Congress (Kevin McCarthy, are you listening) to start restraining and gutting these agencies before it is too late.
Michael A. Thiac is a retired Army intelligence officer, with over 23 years experience, including serving in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. He is also a retired police patrol sergeant, with over 22 years’ service, and over ten year’s experience in field training of newly assigned officers. He has been published at The American Thinker, PoliceOne.com, and on his personal blog, A Cop’s Watch.
Opinions expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of current or former employers.
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