The Push for EVs Is Big Brother Tightening His Grip

Gentle readers are directed to Townhall.com today to an article by David Harsanyi entitled Electric Cars Are a Scam. EVs are also an example of propaganda being expertly weilded by the "elites." In this case, they have provided a misdirection through propaganda so most do not realize the real reason for EVs. Supposedly EVs will "save the planet" while the real reason is to limit our movements.  Harsanyi points to a number of issues with electic vehicles that make them impractical in real life situations, but the most telling reason is at the end of the article:

Climate alarmists might believe EVs are necessary to save the planet. That's fine. Using their standard, however, a bike is an innovation. Because even on their terms, the usefulness of EVs is highly debatable. Most of the energy that powers them is derived from fossil fuels. The manufacturing of an EV has a negligible positive benefit for the environment, if any.

And the fact is that if EVs were more efficient and saved us money, as enviros and politicians claim, consumers wouldn't have to be compelled into using them, and companies wouldn't have to be bribed into producing them.

You, of course, instinctively understand this to be true. In most things, people do not have to be led by our "betters" to find our own  self interests. We can do that all by ourselves, thank you. Rather, the push for EVs as part of a "climate solution" is entirely orchestrated by globalist leaders to usher in the "glorious Utopian paradise on earth." But let's go back for a minute and look at some of the reasons Harsanyi cites in detail.

The left likes to treat skeptics of electrical cars as if they were Luddites. Truth is, making an existing product less efficient but more expensive doesn't really meet the definition of innovation.

Even the purported amenities and technological advances EV makers like to brag about in their ads have been a regular feature of gas-powered vehicles going back generations. At best, EVs, if they fulfill their promise, are a lateral technology.

This is why there is no real "emerging market" for EVs in the United States as much as there's an industrial policy in place that props up EVs with government purchases, propaganda, state subsidies, cronyism, taxpayer-backed loans, and edicts. The green "revolution" is an elite-driven, top-down technocratic project.

And it's increasingly clear that the only reason giant rent-seeking carmakers are so heavily invested in EV development is that the government is promising to limit the production of gas-powered cars artificially.

The problem with gas powered cars, you see, is that you and I, the unwashed masses, can drive any distance we like, whenever we like, without asking permission from anyone. The Horror! Things like the 15 minute walking cities, the digital currency, and of course EVs are intended to severely limit our ability to move about. Here on beautiful PolyKahr estates, a 15 minute walk wouldn't get us out of the neighborhood, let alone to a store, a restaurant, or a job. And what of people like construction workers?  Or repairmen such as plummers and electrical repair?  How would they get around?  What if a person in one 15 minte segment of a city married a person from another 15 minute segment. Would they have to seek permission to move into one segment or the other? What about people with job transfers? Everything can not be done by skype of face time. The Left paints these things in glowing colors but has not thought out the details. The "elites" are not truly our betters, they just delude themselves that they are.

In today's real-world economy, Ford projects it will lose $3 billion on electric vehicles in 2023, bringing its EV losses to $5.1 billion over two years. In 2021, Ford reportedly lost $34,000 on every EV it made. This year, it was losing more than $58,000 on every EV. In a normal world, Ford would be dramatically scaling back EV production, not expanding it. Remember that next time; we need to bail out Detroit.

Then again, we're already bailing them out, I suppose. Last week, the U.S. Energy Department lent Ford -- again, a company that loses tens of thousands of dollars on every EV it sells -- another $9.2 billion in taxpayer dollars for a South Korean battery project. One imagines no sane bank would do it. The cost of EV batteries has gone up, not down, over the past few years.

...snip...

Without massive state help, EVs are a niche market for rich virtue signalers. And, come to think of it, that's sort of what they are now, even with the help. A recent University of California at Berkeley study found that 90% of tax credits for EVs go to people in the top income strata. Most EVs are bought by high earners who like the look and feel of a Tesla. And that's fine. I don't want to stop anyone from owning the car they prefer. I just don't want to help pay for it.

Have you ever had a nosy neighbor who constantly watches to see if you are doing something they don't approve of, and calling the authorities whenever they think they have caught you at it? That instinct that drives your nosy neighbor is what drove the Puritans. The notion that someone, somewhere might be breaking a Commandment drove these people nuts. The Left is like that, without the Ten Commandments, meaning that their list of offenses is ever changing. But they are no less committed to the offences de jure. In Big Brother fashion, they want to keep an eye on everyone at all times. And by limiting your movements, they hope to do just that. They have not begun to address the ability of those who seek to get around their ever tightening grip.