Why Electric Vehicles Will Have No Future at Scale in the U.S.
The current media and auto industry obsession over electric vehicles is a fad that is motivated completely by government regulation, and Americans aren't buying what they're selling.
Image: Carzilla
Consumer spending in the U.S. accounts for roughly 70% of the economic activity generated every year. With that much economic clout, consumer spending is a fairly solid indicator of the preferences of the market.
With the non-stop media blitz and auto industry proclamations over the past two decades that the future of transportation will be electrified, you would think by now that electric vehicles (EVs) would have accounted for a much higher percentage of total vehicle sales among consumers, currently sitting at 5.8 percent of all vehicle sales in the U.S. Mysterious, right?
Not really. The consumer verdict on EVs has been in for nearly a century, as some of the earliest cars available were battery-powered. Those early EVs lost out to gasoline-powered cars (such as the Model T) that were less expensive, more efficient, and much more reliable. The market chose a better mobility option without the need for subsidies, saturation advertising or government mandates.
Whether it’s on the basis of price, efficiency, reliability, or lower (but not ZERO) emissions, consumers have access to affordable EVs for years. So why is it that these vehicles have been widely available for years but their market share continues to float at single-digit?
It’s very simple: The consumer market for EVs is extremely small and weighted mostly at the high-end where $100,000+ price tags are common. Even though we have plenty of Chevy Bolts, Nissan Leafs and Mini Cooper SEs, all under $30,000, EV sales are taking place mostly at the luxury trim levels well into the six-digit price tags. (Tesla currently has a 64 percent market share of all EVs, down from around 70 percent two years ago but still quite dominant, proving that the market is predominately upscale).
Anyone paying attention to this would probably conclude that the future of personal transportation is not going to look like a massive transition out of gasoline-powered cars and into battery-powered luxury SUVs and oversized electrified golf carts with airbags.
“On my watch, the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified,” declared President Biden in late January, from behind the wheel of an electric H3 Hummer ($108,700 base price). I don’t know who posted that tweet for Mr. Biden, but there is not a shred of reality contained in that verbiage.
This statement assumes we will have an energy grid capable of charging hundreds of thousands of additional EVs on the road when we clearly will not under current energy generation development plans. And this assumes the U.S. will have access to triple the amount of lithium currently produced for the entire global EV battery market. For these two reasons alone, the premise of supporting EVs at scale on American roads completely falls apart.
But back to consumer demand. What can explain the rush by Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda and all other automakers to offer EVs throughout their model lineups when it is clear that consumers are simply not buying them? Operating within a heavily regulated industry, these automakers are responding to demands from government and not from consumers.
Consumers are not asking for vehicles that are 40 percent more expensive than their gas-powered equivalents, that are more expensive per mile to operate than their gas-powered equivalents, that deliver about 50 percent less driving range than their gas-powered equivalents, that are around 1,000 pounds heavier than their gas-powered equivalents, that require at least eight hours to fully recharge at home versus five minutes to fully refuel at the corner gas station, and have extremely poor resale value after even moderate usage.
When an arbitrary regulatory policy mandating that all vehicle sales will be electric-only by 2035, irrespective of whether consumer demand or the laws of engineering and physics can make this happen, you must wonder what the real intention is here.
Could it be that the real goal of EV policy is to end private ownership of cars and trucks? It sure looks like it.
Let’s see: Lousy retained value, poor range performance, high probability of catching fire, no charging stations in many areas, inability to haul a boat or a camper more than 100 miles without a recharge, a really toxic and environmentally damaging battery that you might need to replace in less than ten years for up to $20,000…could you dream up a more destructive scenario for car and truck ownership?
That is why EVs are not the future of the “great American road trip.” Mandating a more expensive product that is clearly inferior to what is already available isn’t going to achieve market dominance. The American consumer will never play this game; it is not in our human nature to purposely sabotage our mobility and financial circumstances to satisfy a pipe dream mandated by unaccountable bureaucrats.
The EV push will reach a break point where automakers have lost too much money, where the mass-mining of lithium will become unsustainable, where the electric grid will be unable to charge EVs at utility scale, where the average pricing of these EVs will far exceed the reach of most Americans, and the mobility needs of families to maintain their quality of life exceeds the boutique obsessions of those who would force-feed EVs into the market supposedly to achieve nebulous climate goals that are impossible using today’s technologies.
Those who wish to move on past the obvious drawbacks of EV ownership and buy one anyway can do so, with my blessing. But the dishonest hype, the overreaching mandates and the ignorance of the engineering and technology shortcomings of the EV movement…all of this is being noticed by the consumer markets and people are making their purchase choices accordingly.
Let’s face it: The market has spoken. EVs have no future in the U.S. at scale until the core technologies are ready for prime time, the power generation capabilities in the U.S. can match the demand, and the total cost of ownership of EVs can make sense for everyone, not just the wealthy with money to waste.
We’re just not there yet, folks.
Yes Richard, they are a good option because there is actually market demand for them. The reasons are that both Plug-ins and standard hybrids deliver better mileage and impressive range over comparable gas-powered vehicles, so they fill a market need for people looking for such performance. Interesting that there is hardly any push for hybrids even though they have a proven track record for sales, fuel economy and reliability. Nope, it's all-in on all-electric. That's what I think is completely unsustainable.
Do you think hybrids are good option? Plug-in's or standard hybrids?