I didn’t really have much faith that his EV ideas would get past the auto makers anyway. They are so resistant to making EVs because they think people don’t want them, when the truth is that dealerships either don’t have them or won’t sell them.
Sixty-six percent of US car dealers don’t have any EVs to sell, and 45% said they wouldn’t sell them no matter what, according to a new report from Sierra Club about the EV shopping experience in the US.
https://electrek.co/2023/05/09/us-car-dealers-evs/
The EV bottleneck is the dealers. Laws in many states don’t even allow you to buy a car unless it’s from a dealer. And unless Biden does something about that, which he probably can’t since they’ve successfully lobbied a lot of this on the state level, the bottleneck will continue.
There’s also a chicken-and-egg problem here. EVs are hard to sell because the infrastructure to support them at scale isn’t there. The infrastructure won’t scale up until there’s sufficient demand to make capital investments in that infrastructure profitable.
This isn’t a problem you can stimulus your way out of, either. Better or worse, there’s enough distrust in EV reliability and longevity that it throws cold water on the whole proposition. Gas works. I pass a half dozen gas stations and repair shops on my short.commute to work. None of those places have chargers, or will touch an EV if I have it towed there for service. Not being contrary, that’s just reality.
And forget the negative propagada being pushed by people invested in the current paradigm.
We’re just not there yet. I don’t know that there’s enough time left even to get there before it doesn’t even matter anymore, and I say this as an HEV owner.
There’s also a chicken-and-egg problem here. EVs are hard to sell because the infrastructure to support them at scale isn’t there. The infrastructure won’t scale up until there’s sufficient demand to make capital investments in that infrastructure profitable.
A couple years ago, sure, but this just isn’t true anymore. Sure, not everyone’s living situation is ideal for an EV, but let’s take just homeowners. ~60% of Americans own a home, I’d wager a significant percentage of that 60% would either do fine with a standard 120V outlet or add an EV charger in their garage. That’s still a big market.
(I’m a BEV owner who rents and has to use a standard wall outlet)
I’m willing to bet the bigger issue the Biden admin needs to balance is keeping the unions happy, the automakers happy, and not tanking the US automotive industry by nudging them forward.
A shift to EVs means there’s going to be a loss of manufacturing jobs. I can’t imagine the unions being too happy about this, especially going into an election year. That needs to be balanced with the increasing interest in foreign automakers wanting to build factories in Mexico to import vehicles here cheaply.
~60% of Americans own a home, I’d wager a significant percentage of that 60% would either do fine with a standard 120V outlet or add an EV charger in their garage. That’s still a big market.
You make some good points but you are making some really broad assumptions about driving profiles that probably wouldn’t verify against actual practices. Sure, many people’s daily round trip commute falls within the the range of an EV, perhaps even outside ideal drive conditions. Mine does, easily. I also drive a lot of.long distance travel for work and for pleasure. Public chargers are available in my area but they are frequently in use, and are generally not convenient to my travel routes. Also, charging takes time-- more time than gassing up-- which extends my travel times considerably.
Further, counter to your point, home chargers are not infrastructure. Its an available receptacle in a garage or on a driveway. We charge our HEV on a 120v 15A utility receptacle on my driveway that happens to have been there. When I say infrastructure, I mean rapid chargers as common as gas pumps, and the power distribution network that supports them.
Extending the infrastructure argument, I would.also include maintenance facilities and qualified techs who can work on vehicles. Right now EV service is practically a vendor lock-in since most service is performed at dealerships. Not many 3rd party or independent shops at getting theirntecjs certified on these systems yet.
These limitations are still very real.l, and can’t be dismissed because theres a convenient place to plug in where you happen to park your car at night.
Lest you walk away feeling I’ve completely dismissed your argument: that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I wholeheartedly agree with your points about the UAW, election year politics and resistance in the automotive manufacturing and retail sectors have likely had an outsized impact in holding back EV adoption, and the growth of those support sectors. It would have been a tough sell in any other era. Its just about impossible to sell it in such a polarized market for all of the reasons we’re discussing.
Ah, anyway. We’ll get there when we’ve run out of all the other.options, just like we always do.
Cheers.
