EVs Have Lost Spark with Public

A recent letter to the Biden administration signed by nearly 4,000 auto dealers tells the story.

It says, “Last year, there was a lot of hope and hype about EVs [and] early adopters formed an initial line and were ready to buy these vehicles as soon as we had them to sell.”

Later harsh reality struck, as the letter continued, “But that enthusiasm has stalled. Today, the supply of unsold BEVs [battery electric vehicles] is surging, as they are not selling as fast as they are arriving at our dealerships — even with deep price cuts, manufacturer incentives, and generous government incentives.”

“With each passing day,” the dealers lament, “it becomes more apparent that this attempted electric vehicle mandate is unrealistic, based on current and forecasted customer demand.”

Here they point out, “Mr. President, no government agency, no think tank, and no polling firm knows more about the automobile customer than us. We talk to customers every day.”

The sellers conclude with a plea, “Mr. President, it is time to tap the brakes on the unrealistic government electric vehicle mandate.”

The mandate they refer to weaponizes the EPA and DOT to impose punitively tough regulations on CO2 tailpipe emissions for gasoline carmakers to force 50% of all new vehicle sales by 2030 to be EVs, and about two-thirds of new car and truck fleets be zero-emission by 2032.

As reported in The Wall Street Journal, despite huge government and dealer incentives, since September, dealers on average took more than two months to sell an EV, compared with 40 days for all vehicles.

For reference, according to a report by Cox Automotive, EVs accounted for 7.9% of cars sold in the third quarter, up from 6.1% during the same period last year.

An October Texas Public Policy Foundation report titled “Unmasking the True Costs of Electric Vehicles” details how actual EV costs are obscured by “socialized” subsidies, money transfers, and other expenses that are passed on to the public-at-large.

This central planning government control takeover of the automotive marketplace also features taxpayer-funded and federal and state taxpayer gifted subsidies for construction of EV manufacturing plants with Americans currently chipping in an estimated $48,000 for each of those vehicles sold at an average current sticker price of about $53,000.

Utility companies are also encouraged to invest in providing those charging stations, passing the costs on to customers in the form of higher electricity bills.

Carmakers who take a profitability hit on each EV produced also pass those losses on to purchasers of vehicles they want.

Ford reportedly lost $62,016 on each plug-in sold during the third quarter of this year, while its EV division posted a $1.33 billion quarterly loss in addition to a $1.0 billion bleed in the previous quarter.

GM’s EV division lost $1.5 billion this quarter.

Only 19% of respondents to a February poll by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute said they were “very” or “extremely” likely to buy an EV, with about half citing reasons for not purchasing one due to high cost, limited range and worries about not being able to reliably recharge them.

Despite all the purchase perks, EVs also remain too expensive for many to purchase and operate, especially for those who don’t have access to garages for recharging them or access to public charging stations.

Most owners are wealthy enough to purchase EVs as second cars, with an average income of about $150,000 — double the $75,000 American median household income.

According to a 2022 J.D. Power survey, nearly three-quarters of those buyers are male millennials with average credit scores of 788, with only 28.5% women.

Most purchasers are also sticking with gasoline and hybrid electric models that don’t depend upon plug-ins to an electric grid due to concerns about limited driving ranges between long recharges, most particularly in cold and hot climate seasons.

Rural and cross-country trucks are especially impacted by range reductions where delivery time is crucial.

There are also big questions regarding where all that recharging energy for millions more EVs will come from. According to the North American Electricity Reliability Corp. (NERC), charging one EV requires as much electricity as 2.5 home HVAC units, a demand that peaks in summer when air condition units run full tilt.

Having fewer parts, one might imagine — wrongly — that EVs would have reliability and low maintenance cost advantages.

Instead, a November Consumer Reports study revealed that many EVs from 2000 to 2023 model years are less reliable than internal combustion or hybrid vehicles, incurring special problems associated with malfunctioning electric motors, EV/hybrid batteries, and EV charging systems.

By comparison, EVs were found to have 79% more problems than gasoline-powered vehicles and are also much more expensive to repair if in an accident, in turn causing them to be 23% more expensive to insure.

As escalating cost and diminishing market consequences, major vehicle makers are peddling back production.

Ford has announced plans to put production of its electric Mustang Mach-E on hold while pausing a planned $12 billion investment in new EV production.

Likewise, GM’s CEO Mary Barra has announced that her company is backing off from former production targets of 500,000 EVs over the next 12 months.

As Mercedes CFO Harald Wilhelm stated on Oct. 26, the EV market is “a pretty brutal space.”

Let’s hope that a 2024 White House leadership change opens that space and the American public to a friendlier free market.