Intended Consequences
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By C. Boyden Gray
Jan. 25, 2021 5:35 pm ET
President Biden can’t mandate that we all drive electric cars, but he’s opening the gates to an electric Trojan horse. In a day-one executive order, Mr. Biden began the process of rescinding a Trump administration rule, the first step toward greenlighting California’s electric car agenda. California and like-minded states plan to impose electric cars through production quotas—whether drivers want the cars or not.California regulators call it a “zero-emissions vehicle” standard, but green propaganda shouldn’t obscure what’s really going on. Start with federal law. It requires the transportation secretary to set national average fuel-economy performance standards for car makers at the “maximum feasible” level without restricting consumer choice. Instead of mandating a given technology, federal fuel-economy standards allow car makers the freedom to decide how best to improve fuel economy at the lowest cost.
To promote efficiency, federal law broadly forbids state regulations “related to fuel economy standards.” Courts have held that this law forbids electric car quotas and similarly meddlesome command-and-control policies that seek to dictate how car makers should meet federal performance standards. The Golden State argues that a special exception made for California regulations in the Clean Air Act should also be read into the federal fuel-economy law. But that law’s text says no. It forbids fuel-economy regulation by any state—no exceptions.
Next, the policy. Congress pre-empted state laws in 1975 because sprinkling policies like state electric car quotas on top of federal fuel-economy standards makes no sense. An electric car quota in California would force car makers to meet national fuel-economy standards using one of the most expensive fuel-efficiency technologies, undermining consumer choice and increasing costs. One study from 2019 estimates that state electric car quotas will cost an extra $400 for every new car nationwide by 2025.
Those costs won’t be distributed equally. The zero-emission vehicle standard is in effect a hidden regressive tax paid by ordinary car buyers to subsidize luxury cars for the wealthy. It takes $400 from the wallets of low- and moderate-income car buyers and hands it over primarily to six-figure-income electric car buyers, who enjoy many other subsidies, too.I
For the rest: https://www.wsj.com/articles/electric-car-quotas-have-a-high-cost-11611614105
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
Mr. Bidet did say he was going to stamp out COVID.
Although, he did change his timeframe quite a bit during his press conference.
Speaking of, I wonder what the press would have had to say if Trump had assigned who would be called on before the press conference started, like Joe did?
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Gas and diesel power vehicles will be around for a long long long long long time. There are always regulations involved with transportation. Not only in the US but other governments do the same thing. From things such as the lead in gasoline, to mileage, to sulfur in diesel, to safety standards.
For right now, I don’t see this as being too crazy. I am sure it will be modified and compromised
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If China didn't exist - I'd be less concerned on the "green energy" front.
China doesn't have oil - it's in its strategic interest to get away from oil.
China is investing insane amount of money in battery tech and electric cars. China is a leader in battery manufacturing right now.
We can make a strategic decisions as the U.S. to cede non-oil based energy to them, or we can decide we want government investment in the green-sector for strategic reasons.
The real question is - will we be driving electric or gas cars 50 years from now? And then work backwards.
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Everybody believing in large scale electric vehicles is ignoring the giant lithium elephant in the room.
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@lufins-dad said in Intended Consequences:
Everybody believing in large scale electric vehicles is ignoring the giant lithium elephant in the room.
Battery tech is game of physics and material economics.
Different types of materials deliver on different dimensions (charge rate, energy density, etc.).
Car batteries have very different requirements and limitations than electronic device batteries. Large-scale storage has different requirements and limitations again (i.e., when space isn't an issue).
There are lots of different types of batteries in the works - the issue is that we don't yet have scale on use-cases.
Cost-efficient manufacturing of any battery tech requires a gargantuan-scale investment into supply chain and infrastructure.
Without certainty on the end-user application (like we have in electronic device tech) - people can't reliably make money.
TLDR: there are alternatives to lithium, but there are chicken and egg problems to overcome.
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@jolly said in Intended Consequences:
The Golden State argues that a special exception made for California regulations in the Clean Air Act should also be read into the federal fuel-economy law. But that law’s text says no.
If he’s right then it’ll get stopped in court anyway.
