Tag: electric cars

Carrots & Sticks: Colorado Expands Electric Vehicle Incentives

As electric vehicle demand plummets across the nation, Colorado officials are extending another carrot. From the Colorado Sun:

“Colorado is boosting its popular cash-for-clunkers EV buying support by nearly 60% with a $9 million fund for 2024-25, after retiring more old, dirtier cars than expected off the road during the first year. 

The state exhausted $5.7 million for the first year of the fund, which helps income-qualified buyers with an extra $6,000 rebate at the cash register if they turn in an older car when buying a new EV. Turning in an old car and buying a used EV can bring an exchange rebate of up to $4,000. 

Stacked with other federal, state and utility EV rebates, the extra state boost can cut the cost of some EVs by far more than half.”

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Electric Vehicles for the Impoverished

Dear Readers: everyday we are bombarded with stranger than fiction news regarding “green energy”, “global warming”, and EVs.

Sorting through all the absurdities takes time, so for your convenience, here I present a specially curated nugget.

In my ramblings and basura sorting, I recently identified an exotic niche EV curiosity: a Washington State program that promotes and subsidizes EVs for folks at or below poverty level, defined as a 4 person household that brings in less than $93,000/year, or per guidelines below:

The million dollar question: why does a person at the poverty level need an EV?
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these less than fortunate people don’t need or want an EV, but would instead better benefit from a reliable ICE car or hybrid that gets decent mileage, right?

Is the EVs for the Impoverished Program a ploy to get rid of EVs sitting moribund at dealerships with no takers?

Or perhaps the program is yet another example of white-guilt virtue signaling per this report: “Most US car owners would benefit from EV switch, but lowest-income Americans could be left behind: study”

Whatever the case, the hit to taxpayers is quite significant, as backed out of the data shown below.

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In Bid to Bribe Voters Biden Admin Gives $1.7B of Taxpayer Cash to EV Companies in Swing States

The Biden administration’s latest move in its ambitious climate agenda has raised eyebrows across the automotive industry and beyond.

In a sweeping announcement, the Department of Energy (DOE) revealed plans to inject nearly $1.7 billion of taxpayer money into transforming traditional auto manufacturing facilities into electric vehicle (EV) production hubs. This decision comes despite questionable consumer demand and infrastructure readiness for a widespread EV transition.

At the forefront of this initiative are General Motors (GM) and Stellantis, set to receive a whopping $1.1 billion in federal funding.

The DOE claims this investment will modernize 11 plants across eight states, potentially safeguarding 15,000 existing jobs and creating 3,000 new positions.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm framed the grants as a “hallmark of the Biden administration’s industrial strategy,” aimed at revitalizing historical auto manufacturing facilities.

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Former CIA operations officer warns: EVs and the climate agenda threaten NATIONAL SECURITY

According to a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operations officer, electric vehicles (EVs) and the climate agenda undermine America’s national security.

Bryan Dean Wright, the host of “The Wright Report” podcast and a former CIA operations officer, disclosed this to Fox News Digital. According to him, EVs pose environmental problems, national security issues and driver safety concerns. These setbacks, he continued, make EVs a less than desirable alternative to gas-powered cars they are ostensibly to replace.

Wright added that one of the most important things to consider when buying an EV is whether it is actually “green.” He believes that these supposedly “green” EVs are actually quite “dirty” – starting with their batteries.

The former CIA staffer explained that thousands of pounds of minerals – including cobalt, lithium and nickel – from all around the world have to first be extracted. Seventy percent of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and a third of that come from miners who are “mostly kids,” he said. (Related: America IGNORING human rights, child labor abuses in the DRC to secure supplies of METALS for EV batteries.)

“That is a horrific thing, imagining these child miners pulling this stuff out of the ground to make our green cars go – but that is true. Also, we know about the 19 cobalt mines in the [DRC]. Fifteen of them are controlled by the Chinese government or a Chinese entity.”

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Pete Buttigieg Given Brutal Reality Check After Using Faulty Analogy to Mock Americans for Refusing to Buy Electric Vehicles

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg this week used a faulty analogy on Fox News to taunt Americans for refusing to buy overpriced, environmentally damaging electric vehicles. But Americans on social media gave the inept and elitist Buttigieg a brutal reality check afterward.

Buttigieg was a guest on “America’s Newsroom” with John Roberts and Sandra Smith when he embarrassed himself. Roberts opened by telling Buttigieg about the collapsing Tesla sales and auto companies laying off large chunks of their workforces at electric plants.

He then pivoted to asking why the Biden regime continued to try to shove EVs down everyone’s throats. Buttigieg responded by spinning EV statistics before mocking Americans resistant to EVs being stuck in the past, comparing the situation to people who resisted the cell phone revolution in the early 2000s and wanted landline phones forever instead.

Relevant transcript:

Roberts: Tesla sales fell 8.5% in the first quarter of this year. Ford this week is laying off two-thirds of its workforce at the F-150 electric lighting plant. It’s also scaling back a battery production facility because of sagging sales.

EV sales are nowhere near what this president wanted or expected, yet the administration continues to shove them down consumers’ throats. Why?

Buttigieg: Let’s be clear that the automotive sector is moving toward EVs, and we can’t pretend otherwise. Sometimes, when these debates happen, I feel like it’s the early 2000s, and I’m talking to some people who think that we can just have landline phones forever.

Social media users quickly jumped on the flaws in Buttigieg’s arguments. There were reasons why cell phones were better than landlines, whereas EVs have several drawbacks compared to gas-powered cars and the only way for EVs to be “competitive” is to crack down on traditional vehicles.

Moreover, landlines cost almost nothing compared to electric cars, and many Americans still use them.

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Eight States Officially Agree to Ban the Sale of Gas-Powered Vehicles

President Joe Biden made headlines last week by unveiling the most radical environmental regulations in U.S. history, aimed at phasing out gasoline-powered vehicles and mandating the adoption of electric cars. Now, a recent report shows that the push to eliminate gas-powered automobiles is gaining momentum in eight states.

According to a report from The Daily Mail on Tuesday, the regulations being implemented in these states outline that only zero-emission vehicles, such as electric cars and specific plug-in hybrids, will be permitted for sale starting from the 2035 model year. This directive is known as the Advanced Clean Cars II rule.

Eight states, including California, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington, have committed to mandating the use of “environmentally friendly” electric vehicles among their residents. Additionally, the District of Columbia has endorsed this initiative.

Predictably, California was the frontrunner in implementing the regulation. They aim to ensure that 35% of new vehicle sales produce zero emissions within two years, with plans to raise this target to an impressive 68% by 2030.

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You Can’t Make This Up: Biden Regime Designates Martha’s Vineyard as “Low-Income” Community to Qualify for Federal EV Charger Tax Credits

In an unexpected twist to the Biden regime’s environmental policy, affluent areas, including Martha’s Vineyard, Montauk, and parts of Nantucket, have been designated as “low-income” communities, making them eligible for federal tax credits for electric vehicle (EV) charger installations, Daily Caller reported.

As part of its efforts to encourage the adoption of EVs, the administration has extended a subsidy program, which was initially targeted at increasing access to EV chargers in underserved communities.

The White House recently announced the initiative, promising “up to 30% off the cost of the charger to individuals and businesses in low-income communities and non-urban areas.”

“The Department of Treasury and the Department of Energy are releasing intended definitions for eligible census tracts that will confirm that the Inflation Reduction Act’s 30C EV charging tax credit is available to approximately two-thirds of Americans. This tax credit provides up to 30% off the cost of the charger to individuals and businesses in low-income communities and non-urban areas, making it more affordable to install EV charging infrastructure and increasing access to EV charging in underserved communities,” the White House announced last month.

However, this move has unexpectedly benefited some of the nation’s wealthiest enclaves, where median home prices significantly exceed the national average.

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Feds To Spend Hundreds of Millions of Dollars on E.V. Chargers in ‘Disadvantaged Communities’

Last week, the White House announced that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) would issue $623 million in grants for states to build chargers for electric vehicles (E.V.s). The money comes from the Charging and Fuel Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program, a $2.5 billion fund established as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. According to the announcement, the project “will fund 47 EV charging and alternative-fueling infrastructure projects in 22 states and Puerto Rico, including construction of approximately 7,500 EV charging ports.”

Unfortunately, that money is unlikely to go as far as it would have in private hands. “The CFI Program advances President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which set a goal that 40% of the overall benefits of federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution,” bragged the FHWA press release. “More than 70% of the CFI funding announced today will support project sites in disadvantaged communities.”

As an example, it notes “$1.4 million to the Chilkoot Indian Association, an Alaska Native Tribe, to build an EV charging station in Haines, a rural and disadvantaged community where there are no publicly available EV charging stations.”

Haines is in Haines Borough, Alaska, which has a population of just over 2,000 people.

It’s hard to imagine that “disadvantaged” communities would buy E.V.s if only there were public charging stations available. A November survey from S&P Global Mobility showed that potential buyers cite high E.V. prices as their primary concern, higher than concerns about range or charging infrastructure. And while E.V. prices have declined in recent years, the average new electric vehicle still costs around $50,000.

Not that this is the first instance of poorly planned government spending on E.V. infrastructure. Last month, Reason reported that even though the federal government had dispensed $2 billion out of the $7.5 billion apportioned by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to build public charging stations, no chargers funded by the cash had come online. Speaking to Politico‘s James Bikales, state and E.V. industry officials blamed “the difficulties state agencies and charging companies face in meeting a complex set of contracting requirements and minimum operating standards for the federally-funded chargers.”

“The barrier isn’t technological,” The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board noted this week. “It took Tesla less time to install 80 chargers at its Harris Ranch station in northern California.” Rather, “the bureaucrats are getting in their own way.”

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Philadelphia Relies on Private Sector Chargers To Charge City-Owned E.V.s

Last week, Philadelphia’s NBC10 reported that city-owned electric vehicles frequently queue up at public charging stations along with everyday motorists, causing longer wait times for all. Reporters visited charging stations numerous times during work hours and routinely found city employees either waiting in line for a charger or waiting for their vehicle to finish charging, which can take up to an hour.

Some city employees told NBC10’s Claudia Vargas that they used the downtime to catch up on paperwork, while others sat in their cars apparently watching videos on their phones. Inspectors with Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) spend their workdays going to buildings and job sites, and any time spent waiting to charge is wasted.

Motorists complained about having to wait in line along with workers drawing a city salary, with one noting that city vehicles should “have a way to charge overnight in like their own facility.”

“It turns out they do,” Vargas reported. Philadelphia has 107 chargers to serve its fleet of 261 electric vehicles, but the chargers are poorly apportioned. NBC10 found that many of the city’s chargers are located at city-owned repair facilities, while others are installed at police departments and prison complexes that have no electric vehicles.

L&I has 115 E.V.s—more than any other department in the city—yet it has no chargers at any of its buildings or facilities. Instead, the city contracts with EVgo, a private company that operates charging stations across the country. The result: city employees spending a portion of each workday sitting in their cars, making other motorists wait longer.

Worse, charging during the workday means the city pays peak charging rates. If the fleet were able to charge overnight at city facilities, rates would be lower as there is less demand for electricity.

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Ford E.V. Battery Plant in Michigan Named Worst Economic Development Deal of 2023

Each year since 2018, the Center for Economic Accountability (CEA)—a nonpartisan think tank opposed to corporate welfare—has named its Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year, a dishonor awarded to the most egregious misuse of taxpayer funds nominally intended to spur economic growth.

This year, the ignoble honor goes to Michigan, which has awarded over $1.75 billion to Ford Motor Co. and Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL), a Chinese battery manufacturer. The two companies are jointly developing a factory in Marshall, Michigan, that would build lithium iron phosphate batteries for the automaker’s electric vehicle (E.V.) lineup.

In its announcement, the CEA breaks down what the state has pledged so far, which includes $630 million worth of road paving and site development; grants from various state funds of $210 million, $120 million, and $36 million; and a 15-year tax abatement valued at $772 million. Other estimates have put the total amount at $2.2 billion.

Last month, facing strong economic headwinds, Ford announced it was “re-timing and resizing some investments.” While the Michigan plant was originally intended to create 2,500 jobs, Ford changed its pledge to 1,700 jobs and lowered its potential output by 40 percent, estimated to shrink the company’s financial investment by $1 billion or more.

Since Ford originally pledged $3.5 billion, Michigan’s contribution to the project could be nearly as much as what Ford plans to spend on its own factory. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, told reporters that Michigan’s investment may be “resized” as well, and “as Ford has had to make some changes…the state’s role will change as well.”

Of course, the deal’s merits were questionable from the start. When the project was first announced, Whitmer’s office claimed it would have “an employment multiplier of 4.38, which means that an additional 4.38 jobs in Michigan’s economy are anticipated to be created for every new direct job.”

This is a fanciful notion. Tim Bartik of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research has estimated that a more typical multiplier on a local or state level is between 1.5 and 2. Last month, Bartik calculated the estimated benefits of Michigan’s proposed investment; while he was broadly positive, he noted that a 4.38 multiplier was “very high,” and “if the Ford project had a more typical multiplier—2.5 rather than 4.38—the project’s gross benefits would be less than the incentive costs.”

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