BIDEN’S EPA PUTTING EV CART BEFORE THE HORSE
I am willing to believe that electric cars are the future. And that future can’t come too soon: America’s vast fleet of gas-powered vehicles emits noxious combustion byproducts that not only contribute to global warming but also can be hazardous to human health.
Naturally, the Biden administration wants to race toward that future. And just as naturally, there are better and worse ways to make that happen. And with its new tailpipe emissions rules, which would require more than half of all new cars to be electric by 2032, the administration has chosen one of the worse ones.
The only way to reach that future is in EVs that are undeniably more appealing than the gas guzzlers they’re meant to replace. For one thing, most American drivers are also American voters, who can unelect any politician who foists an unwanted EV on them.
More important, most of the drivers who will steer the future aren’t Americans at all: They’re the billions of people living in poorer countries who would like to adopt a more comfortable, higher-carbon lifestyle. They want to emit more carbon for the same reasons you live in a home filled with electric lights and appliances, perhaps vacation in far-flung places, and might drive to the grocery store instead of walking.
We’re rich enough that we’re often willing to pay something extra to make those choices cleaner and greener. But most of us aren’t that willing, which is why even Democratic politicians are frantic to keep gas prices from rising too high. Poorer people in other countries are likely to be even less willing to make those sorts of sacrifices for the sake of the environment.
So the best way to get everyone into electric cars is to invest in research and development for the technologies that will make them the clearly superior choice: better batteries, better materials, cheaper production methods. The second-best way is to build infrastructure, such as charging stations, that will make it easier for consumers to choose EVs — and therefore for companies to invest in designing and building them.
The worst way is to just mandate that companies sell them, which is what the Environmental Protection Agency is doing with its new emissions standards.
It risks a political backlash that actually slows the pace of adoption, if consumers revolt against a technology that’s not ready for prime time.
It turns out there’s a big difference between selling an EV to a gung-ho early adopter and getting everyone else to make the switch from gas. Early adopters tend to be affluent and thus can afford the higher sticker price and insurance costs. So affluent, in fact, that they also own a gaspowered vehicle, which helps allay one of the most pressing concerns people have about buying an EV: “How do I charge it?”
Charging is a snap if you own a single-family home with a garage, can afford to have a fast home charger installed and rarely drive farther than an EV can go on a single charge. But if you live in an apartment or have to park on the street, you are suddenly exposed to the maddening world of public charging.
To its credit, the Biden administration has been trying to address the charging shortage; the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included $7.5 billion to build 500,000 public chargers across the country by 2030. That said, that’s less than half of what McKinsey estimates will be needed to handle a scenario in which half of all new cars are EVs. Also, by December, we had only built … zero of them.
This hardly inspires confidence that we’ll have the infrastructure necessary to entice most consumers to choose an electric car for their primary vehicle. Mandating that change before you’ve got the infrastructure in place is putting the cart before the horse. Which is what some Americans could end up driving if they can’t figure out where to charge an EV.