IF YOU DON’T MIND BIG GOVERNMENT
COUNTERPOINT
MComment y l ast t est drive of a General Motors vehicle was in 2009, a blazing yellow Camaro, the classic muscle car. It cranked out between 295 and 427 horsepower, depending on the model, and l ooked l ike it would eat kittens on sight. Still on the market, the Camaro is a car manufactured mostly for men with egos that are either too big or too small, depending on your psychoanalyst.
As I wrote then, the Camaro is a symbol of the greatness of the internal combustion engine that will continue to blow away the namby-pamby green electric cars of the fantasy future.
Of the coming all- electric GM Volt, I scoffed: “The Camaro will be more a part of the ( auto industry) recovery than pipe dreams about Volt sand lithium batteries and electricity fillup locations.” The Volt was one of those “green things that might never make it to 60 miles per hour.”
Well, that was 2009. Let me tell you about my latest test drive, a blazing metallic orange GM Bolt, the auto giant’s 2017 follow-up to the Volt. It may not be Camaro furious, but it is fast, with 286 foot- pounds of torque and snappy acceleration that can take the Bolt to 60 miles per hour in about 6.5 seconds. Varoooom. Or rather, no varoom. Silence, practically. The Bolt is no muscle car, but its allelectric carbon- free system smoothly produces power that can deliver enough pep and speed to triumph over any street and expressway. It feels cool to drive, has a digital dash with all the data, an impressive infotainment system along with a four- door spread that contains plenty of back seat room and SUVlike space behind.
It is clear that electric vehicle ( EV) technology is evolving quickly and that many of today’s apparent limitations – range is still a major issue – may be overcome tomorrow. As global manufacturers compete with new models and battery technology there will be a growing market for EVs. Even by today’s standard, the Bolt is a great car and I may buy one – even though the campaign for electric vehicles makes no economic sense.
Nobody should believe that fun-filled EVs are going to blow away the internal combustion engine over the next couple of decades. Nor should anybody accept the idea that electric vehicles are a great liberating technology that will rescue us from the alleged stranglehold of big oil and big government authoritarianism. The EV is not going to drive us into clean freedom and individual selfdetermination.
From top to bottom, the global e- car movement is a state- managed attempt to reshape the global economy away from fossil- fuel based internal combustion power toward electricity- based power.
The very existence of electric vehicles is a product of the biggest big government intervention scheme since Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward into agriculture collectivism in China and C. D. Howe’s Wartime Industries Control Board in 1940 to take over most of the Canadian economy to defeat Hitler. Now we have a war on carbon instead.
According to plan, by 2040, or some such date, the dirty carbon- based internal combustion engine will be outlawed and replaced by the clean and cheap electric motor.
There’s 150 years of history leading up to the Bolts, Teslas and e- Golfs of today. In his 2001 book, The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History, economics professor David Kirsch documents the brief rise and fall of the U. S. Electric Vehicle Company, an EV pioneer that failed more than 100 years ago. If failed for the simple reason that it could not compete with fossil- fuel engines or overcome electricity hook- up and supply problems. No big- government dictated the winner in the battle to replace horses. “Public policy was not an important component of the process that produced the internal combustion- powered automobile,” concludes Kirsch, “but it will likely be instrumental in the transition away from gasoline.”
That’s an understatement. Behind the Bolt, the e- Golf and other EVs is the hand of big government – from development costs to the retail price of the car to the supply and price of electricity and on into the future need for massive expansion of electricity generation. How many new mega- hydro dams or nuclear plants will it take to go electric?
In Ontario, GM prices a basic Bolt at $ 44,000 – but if I buy one the province will give me a subsidy of $ 14,000. That comes on t op of whatever aid GM received from U. S. governments.
And then there’s the elect r i city. The government will pay for half the price of a new fast power charger. Otherwise, e-cars can be charged more slowly on 120v or 240v outlets. The murky pricing of electricity creates misleading beliefs about the cheapness of filling up batteries for maybe $2.50.
By my calculations, filli ng up the Bolt with 60 kilowatt/ hours of Ontario power will cost somewhere between $ 5.50 during offpeak overnight hours or $ 11 during peak hours. For that I should able to drive 250 to 300 kilometres. To get 250 kilometres out of a Chevy Cruz ( rated at 100 kilo- metres on six litres of gas) would cost $ 17. So there are savings.
But wait. About one third of the gasoline price is taxes, worth billions to governments that use the funds to help build roads. So when a driver who switches to electricity says he’s savi ng hundreds of dollars a month, at l east a third of the savings i s avoided taxes, essentially another EV subsidy.
More subsidies and mandates are going to be needed to install electric fill- up stations and new hydro distribution systems, l ocally, provincially and nationally. In Norway, the government’s e- car subsidy regime – including exemption from 25 per cent taxes, t oll- f ree driving on t oll routes, free public parking, free use of public transport lanes – is costing the government so much the plans are to be phased out.
As for power supply, at least big oil is a competitive industry. Instead of freedom, EVs promise to deliver us into the hands of government electricity monopolies run by politicians. In many provinces, electricity is a shambles of policy and pricing. The transition to electric transportation will expand their central planning grip over the economy.
Longer term, the great EV l eap forward will require massive new investments in electricity generation. Ottawa’s long- term anti- carbon energy plan says that by 2050 Canada will need 278 terrawatts (a trillion watts) of new electricity capacity just to cover the forecast demand for electric transportation. Vancouver energy consultant Aldyen Donnelly says that would mean building at least 40 new hydro projects similar to British Columbia’s Site C dam project between 2020 and 2050. That implies 1.3 new, large dams each and every year – at a capital cost of at least $ 16 billion per year includi ng related transmission infrastructure costs.
Improbability is no deterrent to e- car planners. Every day there are calls for more. Electric Mobility Canada, backed by industry and others, wants Ottawa to budget in 2018 for an EV exemption from the GST and funding for a national network of charging stations.
It may seem a great leap to go from admiring and even buying a GM Bolt to damning t he concept of electric vehicles as a biggovernment intrusion. My take is that EVs are an expensive niche market that could develop over time.
Meanwhile, if everybody wants to subsidize my Bolt, who am I to argue? It’s a great car. Great drive. As for energy use per kilometre, I drove 62 kilometres, but the range indicator on the flashy dash said I had used up 100k. It was hot and the air conditioner seems to have burned up more than a t hird of kilowatt consumption. The cold-weather heater would do the same. Maybe there’ ll soon be a special subsidy for EV climate control systems.
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, THE GLOBAL E- CAR MOVEMENT IS A STATE-MANAGED ATTEMPT TO RESHAPE THE GLOBAL ECONOMY AWAY FROM FOSSIL-FUEL BASED INTERNAL COMBUSTION POWER TOWARD ELECTRICITY-BASED POWER. — CORCORAN NO BIG GOVERNMENT DICTATED THE WINNER IN THE BATTLE TO REPLACE HORSES.