The “Transition” to Electric Vehicles is Not Happening...and has Now Been Mandated

The war on personal ownership of practical and affordable transportation has peaked. Can the government break our love affair with the automobile?

Enjoy your last road trip, America

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently issued new rules for mileage and tailpipe emissions for gas-powered cars as well as a requirement that 70 percent of new car sales by 2032 must be battery powered. Never mind that the EPA has no authority to dictate how your vehicle is powered…it is doing it anyway.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan is quoted as stating that the aggressive tailpipe emissions rules, effectively limiting gas-powered vehicles to 29 percent of all vehicle sales by 2032, “will slash over 7 billion tons of climate pollution, improve air quality in overburdened communities, and give drivers more clean vehicle choices while saving them money.”

I have learned that anyone making absurd and unprovable statements such as this should not be believed. But this is the world we live in today – a world where reality is ignored, facts don’t matter, and your preferences as a consumer are not even considered.

Tell me how to live, Daddy

Perhaps there are people around the world that are comfortable with being told how to live. Maybe there are folks that actually want instruction on what to eat, where to live, how to speak, and what to drive.

But I’m not one of them. And I’m not alone.

Americans love their cars and trucks, and most of them understand that EVs are not suited for a bitter cold winter in Montana, or hauling construction materials to a job site a hundred miles away. Their lifestyle requires transportation that delivers distance and towing capabilities for boating, hunting, camping, hauling, off-roading, and countless other outdoor activities. EVs cannot deliver reliable transportation in this manner, yet that is what is being mandated.

This backdoor ban on gas-powered vehicles is the perfect summation of our government’s radicalism against affordable and reliable energy and mobility. It is the foundation of the desire of a very small group of control freaks to tell everyone else how to live - how we should cook our food, how we should heat our homes, how we should generate our energy. And they are now coming for something we truly adore: Our cars and trucks.

It’s not a “transition,” it’s a ban

You can talk all you want about what this will do to the auto industry, or to the ability of low-income families to afford transportation, or to the electrical grid that cannot possibly handle the charging requirements of millions of newly mandated EVs on the road, or all of the other challenges of replacing a product that works quite well with one that does not. That has all been discussed at length and without any credible refute.

But now we’re talking about a ban on our cars and trucks in eight years. Today, 84 percent of vehicle sales are gas-powered. A gas-powered vehicle sales cap of 29 percent by 2032 amounts to a ban because the demand for the remaining few gas-powered vehicles will drive up prices to the point where only the very wealthy can afford them, leaving everyone else walking or taking the bus. It is economic malpractice for sure, in that it will severely damage the auto industry and eliminate countless jobs (it is already killing thousands of jobs with EVs representing only 8 percent of annual auto sales).

What is striking here is a new revelation: The attack on our American lifestyle, our freedom of movement and choice, our ability to live our best lives.

This is what American car culture is all about. Being able to go where we want, when we want. The job site we choose, the supermarket we prefer, the friendly visit we desire. Our choice of leisure is being threatened, our need to move our families from place to place is being prohibited, what we choose to do for a living is being curtailed.

This is a ban on cars and trucks. There is no other way to put it.

The auto industry is sleepwalking off a cliff

The National Automotive Dealers Association (NADA) said that they “urge the (Biden) administration to track actual EV sales versus projections and make necessary adjustments to its requirements to reflect actual consumer demand.” What NADA seems to ignore is that the EPA and the executive branch of the U.S. government has no authority at all to “require” anyone to purchase something that has no demand, never mind “adjustments.”

2023 represented the peak sales year for EVs, which still account for less than ten percent of all annual vehicle sales. Most people up to now had very little experience with the cost and hassles of EV ownership, however that has changed and folks are becoming clued in to the realities of slow charging, range anxiety, tire wear, insurance costs, cold weather drive performance, inability of towing, near-zero resale value, and a host of other considerations we never had with our gas-powered vehicles.

Yet, the auto industry appears to view these new EPA emissions rules as having “good intentions.” Sure, if the intention is to eliminate private ownership of cars and trucks and the hundreds of thousands of jobs in support of those vehicles. Does that sound like “good intentions” to you?

It looks like NADA is counting on a bailout, or a technological breakthrough in battery development, or a miracle, or something. Because it cannot rely on market conditions to boost the sale of EVs in their current format, as people simply do not want them. Unstoppable force, meet immovable object.

The disease of driving

Given these new EPA tailpipe emissions rules, it seems like what the people want does not matter. The people will not have a choice in the car or truck they want – in eight years, the people will either buy a battery-operated vehicle or no vehicle at all.

You know, it sure seems like our government is intent on getting us out of our cars and trucks. Like, we should not be driving anything. Like, we should not have any freedom of movement except on foot or on a bicycle, if that. Maybe the bus will take me to my destination of choice. Maybe not.

The maniacal drive into “zero emissions” vehicles is bordering now on superstition, that EVs are some kind of magical elixir that provides a cure for the disease of driving.

If you consider that there are those among us that view driving as some kind of evil act, you can then understand the real intention of the EPA and its supporters. Which is to get us out of our cars and trucks.

Rarely are our leaders so baldly open with their intentions.