It would appear that the EV is pretty much dead.
Glenn Reynolds points to a Manhattan Contrarian article that does a fairly decent job of describing the bursting of the EV bubble:
It was less than three years ago — early 2023 — that I was writing about the then-universal government and industry line that electric vehicles (EVs) would soon be taking over the American car market. In April 2022 the Biden Administration had adopted aggressive vehicle mileage standards intended to be achievable only through rapid transition to EVs. Our “climate leader” states, California and New York, had then adopted regulations in August and September 2022, respectively, mandating a phase-out of sales of combustion vehicles, to culminate in 2035, after which only EVs would be allowed. In a post in January 2023, I linked to the websites of Ford and GM, where they both touted their grand plans for rapid conversion of their companies to the manufacture of mostly or entirely EVs. At that time, Ford was claiming that it would “lead America’s shift to EVs,” and would achieve 50% of its sales in that category by 2030. GM bragged about its “path to an all-electric future” by 2035.
In a post on February 23, 2023, I expressed skepticism.
Francis Menton goes on to correctly point out that, as a general rule, there is a wisdom in betting against government central planning, while also expressing amazement at the speed with which the EV bubble has popped.
Frankly, I can’t say I share his surprise. As this bubble was growing back in 2021, I related a conversation with someone who worked for the power company. Asked how the EV revolution was going, he laughed. Once he settled down, he got serious:
If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, you have to face certain realities.
For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded. This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load.
Indeed.
Let’s take California as a prime example. That state has very little in the way of generating capacity — far below what’s required to support itself. As a result, it has to import electricity from out of state, just as it will soon need to import gasoline, as I pointed out a few days ago. It also has just barely enough in the way of electric infrastructure to get by with under normal conditions at the moment. If I recall correctly, the last generating station in California was built in 1974. They’re in a very fragile situation due to this mismanagement, as demonstrated by the blackouts in the Bay Area yesterday. Brownouts and the state government instructing people not to charge their cars have become the way of things. Apparently, there’s not enough unicorn farts to go around.
You do realize, don’t you, that the lack of support for modern infrastructure is exactly why the Camp Fire of 2018 happened? PG&E had been trying for years to get government approval to upgrade the system, but the Democrat-run state refused to allow it. The result? An entire town was wiped out.
On top of that, the failure to clear brush in those areas—which only fueled the fire—made the situation even worse. In the end, both the ignition and the reason the fire became uncontrollable trace back to a left-run government being, unsurprisingly, downright stupid. And this is the same system they want to rely on to power the future of our transportation?
So, as our genius elected officials promoted this nonsense, not only were we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive new windmills and solar cells, but we would also have to renovate our entire delivery system on every street in America just to allow for the electric car push. As the impracticality of these things became obvious, and the reality has dawned on the American public, the people left holding the bag are both the makers and early adopters of these electric go-karts with delusions of carhood—and, of course, the taxpayer.
If you actually intended to break our auto manufacturing ability, how would you act differently?
Now, the carmakers were pretty quick to recognize that there was a proverbial cliff in front of them, and did a hard swerve to the right the moment the government removed the green boot from their necks. (Thank you, President Trump!)
But what did all this cost them, and us? Ford, as an example, reports a $19.5 billion write-off. That’s in addition to a reported $13 billion that Ford lost trying to accommodate the left’s utopian dreams, despite the massive piles of government money in the form of subsidies that are not reported in these write-offs.
GM is reporting losses that are not quite as great, but still large. Tesla as well.
Soaking carmakers was always part of the plan… and taxpayer money? “Who cares” seems to have always been the attitude. All under the guise of saving the planet, of course. The Democrats who have been pushing this nonsense have been telling us all those expensive subsidies were supposed to level the playing field to allow electric transportation to flourish. I’ve always maintained that if something is a good idea, it will flourish on its own, assuming a free market. Of course, where Democrats are concerned, a free market is outside the realm of the possible. I've always maintained also that if something is not a good idea, as electric cars certainly are not, that idea will never fly, regardless of any government backing.
Honestly, I have to say that every time I see an EV, I imagine the owner running out of electricity halfway through his trip, his temper finally taking over, walking to the nearest gas station to buy a gas can full of gas, pouring it into the interior of his vehicle, and dropping a match. Of course, given the way those things tend to spectacularly torch themselves, maybe we don’t actually need gasoline to put them out of our misery.
All of this was a solution to a problem that has always been fantasy on fantasy on fantasy. Global warming is the first; the illusion that electricity can be generated in industrial amounts by solar and wind is the second; and the belief that electric infrastructure can deliver such power as needed to charge the batteries is the third—all of which ignores the logistics involved with the batteries themselves. It's like any other socialist idea: it's great until you actually have to live with it.
However that may be, what seems clear is that the EV bubble has finally burst and we are returning to a more sane approach to transportation. This was caused by the American people recognizing reality and reacting to it, even when our government refused to.
The early 2000s will forever be regarded in our history books as the time when we tried, at the behest of a leftist government, to give up what actually works in favor of what sounded good to them at the time.
