Research crony capitalism for more than 30 years, and you begin to believe that you can no longer be outraged over aid to dependent corporations.
Then a new study comes along, and proves you wrong.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s “Overcharged Expectations: Unmasking the True Costs of Electric Vehicles” documents, to a meticulous degree, all the ways that taxpayers, drivers of gasoline/diesel automobiles, and ratepayers fund the “energy transition” targeting America’s roads. Authors Brent Bennett and Jason Isaac examined three categories of hidden expenditures, and concluded that the “average EV accrues $48,698 in subsidies and $4,569 in extra charging and electricity costs over a 10-year period, for a total cost of $53,267, or $16.12 per equivalent gallon of gasoline.”
“Overcharged Expectations” starts its survey of green-car madness with regulation. Two mandates imposed by The Swamp account for the bulk of this category. Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards have been in place since the 1970s — the decade in which D.C. lost its mind over energy — but the EPA’s control over “greenhouse gases” is rather new. Applied “on a fleetwide basis,” the rules “allow for the trading of regulatory credits, the costs of which are passed on to buyers of gasoline and diesel vehicles.” In addition to environmentally unnecessary and enormously costly, the red tape is marked by a process that’s seriously shady:
Companies are not required to report the cost of the regulatory credits that EV manufacturers sell to automakers that fall below the standards, and companies may even trade or waive the credits for non-cash compensation. The complexity and lack of transparency of these regulatory regimes obscures the true costs of each EV, reducing accountability to the public for the costs and attendant negative consequences.
Giveaway Category No. 2 covers the “direct subsidies paid out by the federal government and many state governments.” Washington’s $7,500 tax credit is the chief culprit. And it’s no longer restricted to personal autos — “commercial electric vehicles” are now eligible, thanks to the “Inflation Reduction Act.”
Finally, EVs benefit from “indirect subsidies, most notably avoided state and federal fuel taxes.” Nationally, the total levy placed on a gallon of gasoline averages 57.1¢, and the comparable tax for diesel is 64.6¢. Yes, some states “are adding fees to EVs,” to inject a bit of fairness into their transportation budgets. But the charges “generally fall far short of accounting for the full tax avoided,” and the feds are completely AWOL on the matter.
Depressed yet? It gets worse. The hidden-cost tally of $53,267 excludes several policy atrocities that certainly make the actual sum much greater. For example, states, counties, and municipalities are falling over each other in a race to make battery factories a key component of their schemes for “economic development.” EVs get preferential treatment in freeway lanes, as well as parking spaces at “public” facilities. Transit bureaucracies have become big customers of electric buses. Since EVs are heavier than autos with internal-combustion engines, they induce “[d]isproportionately higher road damage.” And the “scrappage rate” for EVs “is substantially higher than that of gasoline vehicles” — what obligations will “public” entities have in “battery replacement or disposal”?
Many NPR-totebag-bearing owners of Teslas, as they whir down to the local grower’s market, have convinced themselves that while their virtue-signaling comes at tremendous expense to others today, things are bound to change. EVs won’t need any largesse in a couple of years, given all the cost reductions sure to blossom from technological breakthroughs — right? Bennett and Isaac counsel skepticism:
[T]here is no Moore’s law for batteries, which are a fundamentally different technology than semiconductors. The benefits of economies of scale have largely been reached by most lithium-ion battery manufacturers, costs for those batteries have largely ended their downward trend of the past decade, and additional cost improvements will be hard won. Lithium prices are nearly quadruple what they were in 2019, and fluctuations in raw materials costs will play a significant role in the cost of EV batteries going forward.
“Overcharged Expectations” saves its sharpest criticism for the very end. Toyota estimates “that the amount of materials to make one EV battery can be used to make 90 hybrid batteries and that those 90 hybrids will result in 37 times more emissions reductions over their lifetime than one EV.”
Sigh. As is the case with nearly every crusade embraced by “green” activists and their lickspittle pols, EV enthusiasm is unjustifiable, on any level. In policymaking, feelings replaced facts long ago. But the monstrosities described in “Overcharged Expectations” are so egregious, even a hoary wonk can barely believe what he read.
Key Points
• The cost of producing electric
vehicles (EVs) is far higher than
the prices they are being sold for .
Nearly $22 billion in federal and
state subsidies and regulatory
credits suppressed the retail price
of EVs in 2021 by an average of
almost $50,000 .
• Thanks to an unlawful multiplier,
EVs receive nearly seven times
more credits under federal fuel
efficiency programs than they
provide in actual fuel economy
benefits .
• Regulatory credits with bonus
EV multipliers from federal fuel
efficiency and greenhouse gas
emissions standards and state
EV sales mandates provide an
average of $27,881 in benefits per
vehicle for producers of EVs .
• Home and public charging sta
tions used by EVs put a significant
strain on the electric grid, result
ing in an average of $11,833 in
socialized costs per EV over 10
years, which are shouldered by
utility ratepayers and taxpayers .
• Direct state and federal subsidies
for EVs average $8,984 per vehicle
over 10 years
We keep showing how everything the Biden Administration does is wrong and harmful to Americans. My evaluation is that everything the Biden Administration is doing is on purpose in order to DESTROY America. Marxism works its magic the best when there is complete chaos, which is what we’re seeing on every level these days. We need to stop trying to reason through all the atrocities and simply realize that the Marxist are taking over the country!! Just wait until 2024 when Biden starts WWIII and proclaims we can’t have an election this year while the World is on fire!!