‘A Lot Of Government Coercion’: Study Slams ‘Forced Transition’ To EVs Consumers Don’t Seem To Want

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

The push for electric vehicle (EV) adoption is largely premised on misleading claims, and could bring enormous costs for U.S. consumers and the economy, a new meta-study shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation found.

Federal regulators and multinational corporations have attempted to push EVs on the American public in recent years, with the Biden-Harris administration introducing strict tailpipe emissions standards, and major automakers implementing lofty electric production targets. However, widespread EV adoption may not be as feasible as lawmakers and auto executives once claimed, with a new meta-analysis from the Institute for Energy Research (IER) noting EVs can have a variety of drawbacks for consumers when compared to their gas-powered counterparts, including elevated upfront costs, lower resale values, limited driving range and a lack of charging infrastructure.

“We argue the EV transition is going to take a lot of government coercion to make happen,” Kenny Stein, vice president of policy at IER and the study’s lead author, told the DCNF. “It is a very difficult process, and it is not a very desirable process to force.”

When Government Chooses Your Car Study; Institute for Energy Research (IER)

Much of the reason a U.S. EV transition will not occur without government force, according to the study, is cost. The price of an average EV in the first quarter of 2024 was $53,048, compared to just $35,722 for conventional vehicles, according to car shopping guide Edmunds, meaning many EVs continue to be less affordable than their gas-powered counterparts even with the U.S. Treasury Department’s $7,500 tax credit.

The IER study also cites elevated depreciation as a constraint on EV adoption, noting that the average five-year depreciation for an electric car is $43,515 compared to $27,883 for a gas-powered vehicle, according to vehicle valuation company Kelley Blue Book. The rapid depreciation is largely driven by battery replacement costs, which range from $7,000 to as much as $30,000.

In addition to sheer cost, the study found “range anxiety” — the concern among drivers that they will run out of charge before reaching their destination or a charging station — is a major source of consumer reluctance to purchase EVs. While “range anxiety” can be reduced by increasing mileage, expanding an EV’s range requires a larger battery, which in turn drives up vehicle cost and creates a difficult tradeoff for consumers.

A lack of charging infrastructure also contributes to range concerns, and has proven difficult to fix despite ample government funding, the study found. For example, the bipartisan infrastructure bill of 2021 allotted $7.5 billion to subsidize thousands of new EV charging stations, but only seven stations in four states had been built as of April.

The combination of range issues and high costs has helped drive a slackening in EV demand, with EV sales growing 50% in the first half of 2023 and 31% in the first half of 2024, less than the 71% increase in the first half of 2022. Moreover, a June poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute found 46% of respondents were “unlikely” or “very unlikely” to purchase an EV, while just 21% were “very” or “extremely” likely to make the change.

If thousands of new charging stations are built and demand rises due to the alleviation of range concerns, the transition would create a variety of new infrastructural challenges, namely that it would reduce the reliability of an already constrained U.S. power grid.

“Up until two years ago or so, electricity demand in the United States was flat so nobody worried about running out of electricity. But with the data center boom and AI [artificial intelligence], there’s been a sudden spike in demand for electricity, and demand is expected to continue growing,” Stein told the DCNF. “Now you’re suddenly talking about not having enough electricity to supply everyday use at the same time we are trying to force pre-existing transportation systems to run on electricity. When you combine that EVs are more expensive and less flexible with the possibility we may be running out of electricity to keep homes cool and to operate industrial facilities, the logic of pursuing [the EV transition] gets even worse.”

Electricity demand has grown by 1.3% annually for the past three years — more than double the average growth rate from 2010 to 2019, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. The surge has been driven largely by a boom in artificial intelligence and data centers, with commercial electricity accounting for 60% of growth in total U.S. power demand between 2021 and 2023.

On the supply side, the Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has pushed to reshape the power grid by effectively requiring America’s existing coal plants will have to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to control 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032 if they want to stay running past 2039, and certain new natural gas plants will have to cut their emissions by 90% by 2032. The EPA rule “leaves coal-heavy regions, like the one covered by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, vulnerable to reliability problems in the near future,” Isaac Orr, a policy fellow for the Center of the American Experiment who specializes in grid analysis, previously told the DCNF.

Grid reliability is already wavering, with hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of experiencing power shortages this winter if weather conditions are harsh, according to power grid watchdog the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).

The IER study also identifies a set of “myths fueling electric vehicle policy,” including that EVs are necessarily better for the environment.

“One of the biggest sources of emissions from vehicles is tire wear, because tires are made primarily from oil, and as your tires roll along the ground, they degrade and release particulates into the air,” Stein told the DCNF. “Electric vehicles are much heavier than gas-powered cars due to their batteries, which requires them to have heavier tires that wear faster, so EVs actually have much higher particulate emissions than comparable internal combustion engine vehicles.”

A 2020 study from environmental engineering consultancy Emissions Analytics found particulate wear emissions were 1,000 times worse than exhaust emissions, with later research conducted by the consulting firm finding a Tesla Model Y produced 26% more tire emissions than a comparable hybrid vehicle.

Additionally, the IER study notes EVs require six times the mineral inputs of conventional cars, which in turn calls for emissions-intensive mining processes that produce toxic waste.

“For average Americans, the tradeoff calculation obviously is not working,” the study’s authors wrote. “This is not due to misinformation; indeed… there is plenty of pro-EV misinformation. It is simply that…there are negative tradeoffs to EVs. In designing policy, these negative factors must be considered rather than simply ignored.”

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America’s EV Industry Must Now Compete On A Level Playing Field

Published on July 10, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

America’s carmakers face an uncertain future in the wake of President Donald Trump’s signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law on July 4.

The new law ends the $7,500 credit for new electric vehicles ($4,000 for used units) which was enacted as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act as of September 30, seven years earlier than originally planned.

The promise of that big credit lasting for a full decade did not just improve finances for Tesla and other pure-play EV companies: It also served as a major motivator for integrated carmakers like Ford, GM, and Stellantis to invest billions of dollars in capital into new, EV-specific plants, equipment, and supply chains, and expand their EV model offerings. But now, with the big subsidy about to expire, the question becomes whether the U.S. EV business can survive in an unsubsidized market? Carmakers across the EV spectrum are about to find out, and the outlook for most will not be rosy.

These carmakers will be entering into a brave new world in which the market for their cars had already turned somewhat sour even with the subsidies in place. Sales of EVs stalled during the fourth quarter of 2024 and then collapsed by more than 18% from December to January. Tesla, already negatively impacted by founder and CEO Elon Musk’s increased political activities in addition to the stagnant market, decided to slash prices in an attempt to maintain sales momentum, forcing its competitors to follow suit.

But the record number of EV-specific incentives now being offered by U.S. dealers has done little to halt the drop in sales, as the Wall Street Journal reports that the most recent data shows EV sales falling in each of the three months from April through June. Ford said its own sales had fallen by more than 30% across those three months, with Hyundai and Kia also reporting big drops. GM was the big winner in the second quarter, overtaking Ford and moving into 2nd place behind Tesla in total sales. But its ability to continue such growth absent the big subsidy edge over traditional ICE cars now falls into doubt.

The removal of the per-unit subsidies also calls into question whether the buildout of new public charging infrastructure, which has accelerated dramatically in the past three years, will continue as the market moves into a time of uncertainty. Recognizing that consumer concern, Ford, Hyundai, BMW and others included free home charging kits as part of their current suites of incentives. But of course, that only works if the buyer owns a home with a garage and is willing to pay the higher cost of insurance that now often comes with parking an EV inside.

Decisions, decisions.

As the year dawned, few really expected the narrow Republican congressional majorities would show the political will and unity to move so aggressively to cancel the big IRA EV subsidies. But, as awareness rose in Congress about the true magnitude of the budgetary cost of those provisions over the next 10 years, the benefit of getting rid of them ultimately subsumed concerns about the possible political cost of doing so.

So now, here we are, with an EV industry that seems largely unprepared to survive in a market with a levelized playing field. Even Tesla, which remains far and away the leader in total EV sales despite its recent struggles, seems caught more than a little off-guard despite Musk’s having been heavily involved in the early months of the second Trump presidency.

Musk’s response to his disapproval of the OBBBA was to announce the creation of a third political party he dubbed the American Party. It seems doubtful this new vanity project was the response to a looming challenge that members of Tesla’s board of directors would have preferred. But it does seem appropriately emblematic of an industry that is undeniably limping into uncharted territory with no clear plan for how to escape from existential danger.

We do live in interesting times.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

Automotive

Federal government should swiftly axe foolish EV mandate

Published on July 9, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

Two recent events exemplify the fundamental irrationality that is Canada’s electric vehicle (EV) policy.

First, the Carney government re-committed to Justin Trudeau’s EV transition mandate that by 2035 all (that’s 100 per cent) of new car sales in Canada consist of “zero emission vehicles” including battery EVs, plug-in hybrid EVs and fuel-cell powered vehicles (which are virtually non-existent in today’s market). This policy has been a foolish idea since inception. The mass of car-buyers in Canada showed little desire to buy them in 2022, when the government announced the plan, and they still don’t want them.

Second, President Trump’s “Big Beautiful” budget bill has slashed taxpayer subsidies for buying new and used EVs, ended federal support for EV charging stations, and limited the ability of states to use fuel standards to force EVs onto the sales lot. Of course, Canada should not craft policy to simply match U.S. policy, but in light of policy changes south of the border Canadian policymakers would be wise to give their own EV policies a rethink.

And in this case, a rethink—that is, scrapping Ottawa’s mandate—would only benefit most Canadians. Indeed, most Canadians disapprove of the mandate; most do not want to buy EVs; most can’t afford to buy EVs (which are more expensive than traditional internal combustion vehicles and more expensive to insure and repair); and if they do manage to swing the cost of an EV, most will likely find it difficult to find public charging stations.

Also, consider this. Globally, the mining sector likely lacks the ability to keep up with the supply of metals needed to produce EVs and satisfy government mandates like we have in Canada, potentially further driving up production costs and ultimately sticker prices.

Finally, if you’re worried about losing the climate and environmental benefits of an EV transition, you should, well, not worry that much. The benefits of vehicle electrification for climate/environmental risk reduction have been oversold. In some circumstances EVs can help reduce GHG emissions—in others, they can make them worse. It depends on the fuel used to generate electricity used to charge them. And EVs have environmental negatives of their own—their fancy tires cause a lot of fine particulate pollution, one of the more harmful types of air pollution that can affect our health. And when they burst into flames (which they do with disturbing regularity) they spew toxic metals and plastics into the air with abandon.

So, to sum up in point form. Prime Minister Carney’s government has re-upped its commitment to the Trudeau-era 2035 EV mandate even while Canadians have shown for years that most don’t want to buy them. EVs don’t provide meaningful environmental benefits. They represent the worst of public policy (picking winning or losing technologies in mass markets). They are unjust (tax-robbing people who can’t afford them to subsidize those who can). And taxpayer-funded “investments” in EVs and EV-battery technology will likely be wasted in light of the diminishing U.S. market for Canadian EV tech.

If ever there was a policy so justifiably axed on its failed merits, it’s Ottawa’s EV mandate. Hopefully, the pragmatists we’ve heard much about since Carney’s election victory will acknowledge EV reality.