“Fumes Never Smelled So Sweet”

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Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow enthused about receiving her new electric car (EV) by saying in a June 7 Senate hearing, “I got it [EV] and drove it from Michigan to here [Washington DC] this last weekend and went by every single gas station, and it didn’t matter how high it was.” Adding, “And so I’m looking forward to the opportunity for us to move to vehicles that aren’t going to be dependent on the whims of the oil companies and the international markets.” Well, the Wall Street Journal had eight of its reporters in four countries, most in the U.S., spend three weeks of their lives in reliance on an EV as their principal mode of personal transportation (watch below). One main conclusion: Don’t underestimate the ability of partisan ideology to cloud a senator’s mature judgment. Either that, or she’s lying.

Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan, speaks during a hearing in Washington, D.C., US, on Tuesday, June 7, 2022. (Photographer: Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Here’s some takeaways from WSJ’s experiment. First, some of the people with power in the corporate boardroom are looney. Take GM’s Rick Spina, VP of EV Infrastructure. He details three reasons for the shift to EV’s in the industry: (1) “public opinion, public awareness of climate change”; (2) “there’s legislation around the world supporting the move”; and (3) “in the long run, electric vehicles are going to be cheaper to own and operate”. Two of the three reasons are political, not empirical, in nature. The highly touted wave of climate change concern might show in opinion polls, but it hasn’t translated into a rush to the showroom to buy them. Why? They’re impractical . . . as you will see.

Spina’s claim of the supposed rise of “public awareness” in climate change ranks a fourth-place tie with health care behind the economy, immigration, and abortion in a recent University of Massachusetts Amherst survey. And “awareness” doesn’t mean a broad public embrace of the EV as the solution. The public is simply not buying them in sustainable numbers. The climate change concern could just as easily translate into greater support for the increased use of natural gas and nuclear power than a willingness to pay a $10,000-$20,000 premium on a car of limited practicality. GM is making a bet on something that isn’t a clean match with the so-called “awareness”.

#2 in his rationale is purely political. Legislation is politics pure and simple. Politics has never been shown to bring the greatest good to the greatest number. When politics becomes the arbiter to separate winners from losers, life quickly becomes a zero-sum game: some people win only at the expense of others. Boat loads of subsidies, cash, capital, tax preferences, and punishments for making the politically incorrect decision deprive resources to other pleasant and more appealing alternatives. The economic concepts of opportunity costs and tradeoffs explain the reality. People are herded like cattle down the wrong chute, or the chute that they wouldn’t take voluntarily. Free markets do that – operate on voluntarism, that is – but people like Stabenow and her colleagues want to substitute their judgment for ours. The result is the Soviet world of central planning, queuing up, shortages, and junk nobody wants, and no amelioration of “climate change”.

The last of Spina’s justifications is based on hope, the wishful thinking that the things will be cheaper . . . in the future. They might be more affordable if we sink enough government coercion and largesse into them, but remember, you’ll never realize the things that you gave up (after all, the government aborted them before they were allowed to be real) as gazillions are pumped into making the EV work. It’s like taking one step forward and then three steps back in terms of prosperity.

Enough of Spina. Back to the real world. Notice the appearance of “range anxiety”, the worry that you’re running low on juice and may be stranded before you get to a charging station? It’s much more than a shortage of charging stations. It’s the whole technology. More charging stations means more opportunities to wait hours. It might mean spending a Michigan winter night in the car waiting for a station to free up and charge the batteries so you can get to safety. Speaking of those outside temperatures below freezing, those lithium-ion batteries don’t like the cold. They take even longer to charge. And don’t forget, the batteries that power the wheels energize the heater element and blower to keep you and your kids from hypothermia. More anxiety. A 10-hour trip quickly became 30-hour one.

Which brings up another matter: “gaming” the technology to get more range out of it. What does that mean? You’ve got to turn off all systems to free up more power to the wheels making for an interesting experience driving from LA to Las Vegas in 100+ degree weather on Interstate 15, not to mention a winter drive up the MIchigan peninsula. Range anxiety is instantly transformed into survival anxiety.

Another interesting aside is the identification of EV success with tyrannical regimes, like Red China, the only place with fewer complaints in the test. It makes sense for a system whose stock-and-trade is social engineering. The politburo can simply order an all-EV existence, no great surprise for a Big Brother regime controlling individual conscience, religion, massive surveillance of the population, and genocide, with a gargantuan secret police to make it all happen. Pushing EV’s is small potatoes. But still, if you watch closely, the air is filthy as an American auto exec in China is driven around Shanghai or Beijing. The totalitarians may be shoving their people out of gas cars, but they aren’t so deluded as to think that windmills and solar panels will be sufficient to charge the all-electric things. They are a prime customer for American coal. Imagine, if you will, EV traffic jams in polluted air basins. Has anything about climate really changed?

The WSJ report proved that the EV is almost purely an urban artifact. They’re great for people who live their lives within the city limits running errands. Get out on the open road and range and survival anxiety overhangs the excursion. Plus, unsurprisingly, the published 250–300-mile range is a fantasy. Due to weather and the use of the car’s other system’s such as cabin climate and entertainment, the purported range evaporates. All of this doesn’t matter to a person whose idea of a road trip is to the airport. The EV is a car for a strictly urban life. Outside of that, life is riskier in it.

That’s why some participants in the test suggested a gas-powered car to supplement the EV. So, in Stabenow’s version of the proper life, a one-car purchase is suddenly a two-car purchase. For a family struggling to make ends meet in an existence crafted by Stabenow’s policies, a $40,000 compact EV requires an additional $30,000 fossil fuel sedan if the family wants to have a vacation and family visits beyond the city limits. Maybe in the millionaires’ club called the U.S. Senate, living in domiciles with multi-car garages, having two SUV’s in both modes is pro forma. For the rest of us reeling from inflation, crime, high taxes, rampant homelessness, skyrocketing housing costs, spikes in utility costs, poor schools, and transgenderism threatening to change the lives of our kids forever, an additional car purchase to make the first one practical is lunacy.

That’s why one of the reporters exclaimed in a sigh of relief after the test that “Fumes never smelled so sweet.” First, watch the video if you’re inclined to heed the advice of Gavin Newsom. Don’t say that you haven’t been warned.

RogerG

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