Folks’ wagon
Ladies and gentlemen, the Beetles!
By now, you’ve probably heard most, if not all, of the good and bad in the story of electric vehicles (EVs). What a long, strange trip it’s been.
We know the environmental benefits of EVs are real, or will be eventually. Their impact on climate change is solely dependent upon the fuel source used to generate electricity for the vehicles, and you’ve probably read about the trouble EVs had operating in single-digit temperatures this winter.
None of that should have come as a surprise to any duck hunter who knows how much faster cellphone batteries drain in the cold. We also know the rare-Earth minerals required to make batteries simply shift one eco-challenge (climate change) to others (related to mining, water and in some cases, Indigenous peoples’ rights).
Given the fact that gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles carry along with them many of these issues, including problems operating in extreme cold, it’s okay to call it nearly a wash. But the environmental edge goes to EVs—because the world is shifting away from coal-fired electricity to cleaner natural gas as well as even cleaner wind and solar.
Every year that the percentage of electricity comes from the sun and the wind, the better electric cars look. And the better we can all breathe. In more ways than one.
In horse racing terms, EVs are better for the environment by more than a nose—maybe a length—but not as much as the advertised furlong.
None of that seems to matter to Volkswagen. That car company is aiming to gain market share in the United States to bring North American operations more in line with what it’s doing in Europe, and the company aims to do that by bringing the past into the future.
Volkswagen’s hope is to revive its iconic Microbus, like you might see a bunch of deadheads piling into after a concert. (Our favorite Microbus was the one that Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones tooled around in midway through “Field of Dreams.”) The difference, obviously, is that Volkswagen plans to power the new van/bus/nostalgia ride by electricity rather than gasoline.
Further, they see the Microbus, along with the Beetle, as a way to upset the apple cart in the U.S. car market.
“This market is turning electric, and everybody’s starting from scratch,” said Arno Antlitz, CFO of VW. “This is our unique opportunity to grow.”
The company, which owns a paltry 4 percent of the U.S. market for all vehicles, is looking to double that by the end of the decade.
U.S. automakers should take note. Regardless of politics. (Donald Trump wants to end Joe Biden’s EV incentives.) The last time U.S. automakers let politics scare them, we were left with the Reliant K Car as a way to meet higher corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards put in place in the 1970s. (A Reliant? We’d rather have an Edsel. An Edsel would be cooler.)
The result of that was Honda and Toyota leaving U.S. automakers in the dust with models like the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, which got the same or better gas mileage, and allowed the eco-conscious motorist to drive a well-made vehicle that, importantly, didn’t embarrass them.
The Microbus? That might work. So would, we’d wager, bringing back the Beetle again.