The goal is for half of new automobiles running off electricity by 2030, but Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says that is happening in a country where 93% of our automobiles depend on gasoline.
The new, zero-omission automobiles known as “EVs” include battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric, and fuel cell electric vehicles.
"Now that doesn't mean there is no future for EVs, because Tesla has found a way to make an electric car that people want. And high-end buyers love those cars,” Matthews observes. “But when you talk about those who are not able to afford a Tesla, and that's the vast majority of us, that market has just not expanded very much."
Polls vary on whether the American public wants to give up its gasoline for electricity but one often-mentioned issue is a lack of charging stations for consumers who get behind the wheel of a new EV.
President Biden laid out his goal for EVs in an executive order that vowed his administration is pushing “long-term fuel efficiency and emissions standards to save consumers money, cut pollution, boost public health, advance environmental justice, and tackle the climate crisis."
"I have no problem with people buying electric cars if the manufacturers are making something people want and they're willing to go out and spend their own money for that," says Matthews. "The problem is the government deciding, This is the car you are going to drive.”
The current administration is, after all, an ally of end-of-the-world environmentalists and a foe of fossil fuels and Big Oil.
And that is why the EV push will fail, at least in the short term, Matthews predicts.
"Markets that are driven by the government,” he warns, “typically always fail."
