Electric cars need to become a litmus test for any Republican in office. Any Republican who supports any scintilla of tendentious treatment toward electric vehicles in the form of a single regulation, mandate, or subsidy is facilitating the demise of the American automobile and is ushering in Agenda 2030. It’s not just a cost and freedom issue; it’s a safety issue.
What happens when you replace normal cars with heavyweight electric vehicles? As Axios reports, the 2023 GMC Hummer EV weighs more than 9,000 pounds. Just the battery alone is 2,900 pounds, which is heavier than most compact cars. What does that do in terms of increased fatalities in car crashes and pedestrian accidents? What about the wear and tear on roads, bridges, overpasses, and car garages?
According to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the “baseline fatality probability” increases 47% for every 1,000 additional pounds in the vehicle. Given that the left is trying to eliminate gas-powered cars, and GOP governors are helping grease the skids for the “transition to EVs,” that’s a hell of a lot more pounds added to the roads, ergo many more fatalities.
“Since we’re seeing pedestrian and roadway fatalities at record levels, the introduction of more weight into crashes via EVs will complicate any attempts to reduce the ongoing fatality crisis that has showed no signs of abating,” acting executive director Michael Brooks of the Center for Auto Safety told Axios. “Unless we see incredibly rapid advances in battery design and vehicle designs, and taking smart steps like using battery energy density gains to save weight rather than extend range, or opening the doors to battery swapping, we are likely to see many additional deaths and injuries attributable solely to the added weight of EV batteries.”
Then there is the issue of parking garages. According to the U.K. Telegraph, the British Parking Association’s structures group is working on new recommendations for multi-floor parking garages that will require load-bearing for concrete floors to be able to hold three kilonewtons per square meter, a 20% increase from the current recommendations.
What about roads and bridges? Again, if leftists achieve their dream of replacing all cars with EVs, one can only imagine the cost to our entire network of infrastructure. These are all massive hidden costs aside from the insane number of charging stations, upgrades to the electric grid, and cost of electricity, which is now more than the cost of gas in many places.
The point is that when it comes to safety, efficacy, efficiency, and rationale for a product, in the past, we’ve relied on the free market to sort it out. But what happens when the boot of government monopolizes the town square and makes it clear governments alone have the will and the power to end gas vehicles by hook or by crook? Then they subsidize and market EVs to the Nth degree. It creates a false market that is shielded from typical natural and practical forces that constrain the success of a product to the bounds of safety and efficiency.
This is why it is no longer enough for GOP governors to suggest that they support an “all of the above approach” to energy. By offering any special accommodation, funding, or treatment for EVs, they are giving tailwinds to an agenda that will eventually box out normal cars. With governors like Oklahoma’s Kevin Stitt obsessively funding more charging stations, Republicans in red states are enabling an agenda that on the front end would never get off the ground in the free market and on the back end will create so many unintended (or intended) consequences that normal market forces would have vetted up front at the investment stage.
For example, what happens after you shame, coerce, and subsidize people into paying more for an EV, and the dog catches the car, allowing you to achieve universal EV ownership? Well, for one, after paying all that cost up front, the cost of charging them will be more than the cost of fueling traditional cars. But then what happens over time? Typically, cars depreciate in value, but with the scarcity of used cars, the rate of depreciation is pretty slow. That’s not the case with EVs. According to a new analysis from ChooseMyCar.com, EVs on average will lose 51% of their value from 2020 to 2023, compared to just 37% for normal vehicles.
The leftists pushing this agenda are not stupid. They know few people can afford this, and they know it’s unfeasible. So like the frog giving the scorpion a ride across the river, midway they will sting us and say, “Oops, I guess you will have to live with no car at all.”
So why are Republican governors stupidly allowing this Trojan horse carrying Agenda 2030? Just to make a buck off tax revenue from these crony EV companies? We cannot rely on market forces to stop this agenda, which is why governors must withdraw all state support for EVs. They should also form an interstate compact to invite companies to build traditional vehicles in case they are banned elsewhere in the country.
Republicans cannot continue to profess support to maintain our quality of life but at the same time lend support to the Trojan horse of green energy, carbon reduction, or any other premise of the climate lie. They might not support the end result of these policies, but they will help us get there. A recent paper funded by the U.K. government led by Cambridge engineering professor Julian Allwood explained the goal of the war on carbon is essentially a war on humanity. They hope to “minimize new construction,” allowing for “denser living and reduced transport needs.” Which is why they are so hell-bent on getting rid of cars. They want to ban bricks, cement, and glass for construction, eliminate meat for food, and make only 60% of energy available to cook food and heat homes.
The anti-humanists have already succeeded in transforming our lifestyle, making every vital product more expensive, and often scarce or less effective, and they are just getting started. Perhaps we should take them seriously. That begins in red states, which have been colonized for green energy scams. There is no middle ground on this. You are either on the side of humanity or on the side of destroying our humane quality of life.