The electric vehicle revolution heralded by the Biden-Harris administration is in shambles.
Resistance is growing to throwing more taxpayer money into a black hole.
And John Kennedy asked one question about electric vehicles that left Kamala Harris seething.
The Biden-Harris administration’s electric vehicle agenda is a bust
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris came into office with grand plans of ushering in a mass transition to electric vehicles.
The administration spent more than $100 billion trying to boost them with tax credits for buyers, subsidies for automakers, and the construction of a public chagrining network.
Biden was the salesman in chief for his Bidenmobiles by promoting them at public events.
“Look, the future of the auto industry is electric. There’s no turning back,” Biden said in 2021 after touring a Ford assembly plant for the F-150 Lightning electric truck in 2021.
Now, the clock is winding down on his lone term in the White House and automakers are scrambling to reduce their ambitious electric vehicle goals because of weak demand.
Ford reported that it lost more than $130,000 on every electric vehicle it sold in the first quarter of 2024.
John Kennedy stumps witnesses about subsidizing electric vehicles
U.S. Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) asked a simple question that left supporters of the industry flummoxed at a Senate Budget Committee hearing.
“If electric cars are so swell, how come we have to pay people to drive them?” Kennedy asked.
Princeton University professor Jesse Jenkins admitted that the average electric vehicle costs about $10,000 more than gas-powered vehicles but predicted that costs would eventually fall.
This almost certainly won’t happen because automakers can’t create an economy of scale with them by manufacturing enough of them to bring down costs.
Drivers don’t want to make the switch to a vehicle that costs more money and has more problems associated with ownership.
The other witnesses on the panel tried to sell Kennedy how great electric vehicles were but they still couldn’t answer his question.
Kennedy had a chart that showed most of the ownership of electric vehicles was concentrated in California and the West Coast.
“Everybody else is kind of lukewarm, and I’m trying to understand why,” Kennedy said.
A witness noted that 1.6% of the nearly 300 million vehicles in the country are electric.
“When people drive a car, they like it to run, and when it runs out of electricity, it stops,” Kennedy explained. “And they can’t find a place to charge them.”
Kennedy asked the witnesses what the cost would be to the country to switch everyone to electric vehicles.
None of them had a firm answer.
“There are tradeoffs in all of this,” Kennedy stated. “Despite what the Princeton professor thinks, we don’t have unlimited money.”
The 2024 Election could decide whether the electric vehicle goes the way of the junkyard of history.
Former President Donald Trump has vowed to repeal electric vehicle mandates and claw back the taxpayer money spent subsidizing the industry.
The industry is on life support with the Biden-Harris administration spending billions propping it up.
Trump in the White House could be game over for the Left’s plan to put everyone behind the wheel of a Bidenmobile.
Informed American will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
