March 24, 2024 - 8:00am
The Biden administration remains committed in its attempts to have its cake and eat it too. At least, that’s the best way to understand the newest pollution standards issued for non-electric cars this week. The regulation introduced on Wednesday is a more moderate version of the measures suggested last April, which were retracted due to opposition from the automotive sector. Nonetheless, it stands as the most assertive plan against internal combustion engines by any nation globally.
Joe Biden now finds himself between a rock and a hard place. He must placate the Left wing of his party, which wants to move away from fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine as soon as possible, but he also depends on the unionised sector of the car manufacturing industry — and these unions and their workers are more sceptical when it comes to the transition to electric vehicles. In fact, unions contributed $45,000 to the Republican National Committee last month, marking a notable shift for movements which have predominantly backed Democrats, and providing embarrassment for a president who likes to present himself as an advocate for workers’ rights.
While unions have not yet openly broken with the Democratic Party, donating money to the Republicans is a clear warning shot that Biden cannot take their support for granted. They have been burned before, as when the current administration cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline. This pipeline was supposed to transport Canadian crude to US refineries, and would have created jobs both in the construction and the oil processing sector.
Unions will also remain vigilant when it comes to Biden’s attempt to pause the construction of new LNG export terminals along the Gulf Coast. On Thursday Texas, accompanied by fifteen other states, initiated legal action against the Biden administration’s decision to halt approvals for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects. Leading the charge as the top producer of oil and natural gas in the US, Texas, along with the cohort of Republican-leaning states, took its grievances to a federal court in Louisiana to contest the ruling.
This moratorium on new LNG export permits comes after long-running demonstrations from environmental advocates, who have raised concerns that establishing new and augmenting current export infrastructures would require committing to several more decades of greenhouse gas emissions.
That the interests of workers and environmentalists are not always aligned is becoming more obvious as the Biden administration moves ahead with its ambitious goals on climate change. Alienating the once solidly Democratic labour unions is no longer out of the question. Donald Trump is already targeting workers in the American Rust Belt, warning that another Biden term would be a “bloodbath” for the auto industry. He could not sway them in 2020 but, as things stand, there could be a very different outcome in 2024.
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SubscribeForcing EV’s on everyone is not actually better for the environment and it will also make people very hostile to an environmental agenda in general. EV’s are a niche product that are best for commuters in temperate climates who have their own chargers. They make no sense in very cold environments, for rural areas, or for people who routinely take longer road trips. There is literally not enough electrical power generation to switch to EVs in most countries (including the US and Canada) so it isn’t going to happen. Which raises the question of why they are pushing for something that is literally impossible.
Cars create freedom of movement. We can’t have the rabble just going anywhere they want now can we?
Well, and let’s not forget the simple practicalities of this…
The US power grid cannot support the transition and it will take decades and trillions of dollars to get it to a point that it could
The current generating capacity is not nearly enough to support current loads, plus all the data centers coming online, plus EV’s, plus phasing out gas stoves, water heaters, and heating systems. There is just not enough juice in the system.
A WHOLE lot of EV manufacturers are in financial trouble. Even the suppliers are in trouble financially. Rivian, Lucid, you name it. The OEMs are losing their shirts on EVs and dealers are seeing them pile up on lots.
American’s do not want EVs. They offer no new utility, just a different drive train. Unless you are a climate emergency believer, of which there are seemingly fewer every day based on the polling, there is ZERO new utility to an EV. In fact, it has a negative utility due to the hassles associated with charging, the fact that even minor accidents seem to result in insurance companies totaling them due to concerns about the battery which is ultimately going to lead to higher insurance premiums for EVs.
Charging stations are money losers without subsidies too. Even with subsidies, putting them in in remote or exurban locations is prohibitively expensive both to install and to operate.
Well stated. I live in the Pacific NW, and even with the blessing of abundant, relatively inexpensive hydroelectric power, the infrastructure for supporting a significantly larger EV fleet just doesn’t exist. Down in California, they have brownouts and a laughably small number of public charging stations for the population. At least hybrids and PHEVs offer protection against range anxiety and battery issues in cold weather, which is a real concern for a lot of areas in the US. And then there’s the sophistry of presenting a vehicle with a huge battery that requires strip mining strategic minerals overseas and recharging via fossil fuel-generated electricity as “good for the environment.”
This is a microcosm of the party realignment driving all our politics right now.
The Democrats, formerly the party of the working class, have now gone all-in for the wealthy and college-educated. The Party thought it could hold onto poor minorities, but working class Asians and Hispanics don’t have a lot in common with the professional managerial class. Blacks are still sticking with the D’s, but the others are starting to shift. And the Dems have completely lost working class whites. Josh Hawley may have been a few years early with his “the GOP is a working class party now” comment, but he wasn’t off the mark.
The Democrats thought they could hold their coalition together on racial and sexual grievances and identities. But it turns out those pale compared to class resentment. What’s amazing is that the party of unions and strikes and welfare and social security, somehow forgot that class matters.
Spot on. I like the cut of your jib, sir.
Global warming has been a real killer this year in England. It has been freezing and raining since October. Still p***ing it down today! I see the weather forecasters are predicting below zero temps next week. Where’s the bloody warming?
It sounds like consumers are just spectators. But they will have the last say since no one can make them buy electric cars. And if no new gasoline powered cars are available, they can keep their old ones a long, long time.
Cuba has led the way in showing how long old cars can run if people have no alternative.
Buddy of mine has a large farm in FL.
He is buying up used ICEs and he is storing some new F350s on the idea that they will skyrocket in value if EVs are mandated.
Notice too that the EU was talking about banning the repair of ICEs after some point, probably for just the reason you mentioned.
I suspect Biden and the democrats will try the same thing in the US at some point.
Left to their own devices, clowns like Biden will destroy the economy. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that we have a political class stupid and arrogant enough to think it can reorder the entire damn economy. At least they have an alternative in the US. In Britain, the climate loons are running the show in both parties.
Maybe it’s time you got with the program rather than allowing your non functional biasses to run the show.
In what way specifically Robbie? I have repeatedly stated that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is warming the planet. EVs are useless if the grid is powered by fossil fuels, which still account for 80% of energy production across the globe, a rate that hasn’t changed in 20 years. If you could simply list one electric grid anywhere in the world fueled by wind and solar we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I support nuclear energy as well, but no one is building those either.
Embrace the end of the world Robbie. None of this net zero nonsense will reduce global CO2 emissions.
China are already doing so with renewables.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/29/china-wind-solar-power-global-renewable-energy-leader
EV’s are part of the puzzle, it obviously can’t be done overnight with one fell swoop. We will still need fossil fuels for some time to come, but yes, nuclear is also essential.
I think you know China is building more coal plants than the rest of the world combined. The problem isn’t EVs – it EV mandates. I believe US automakers are required to reach a target of 37% of their production being EVs or hybrids by next year. Maybe it’s 2027. If they don’t reach those goals – and they won’t – they have to buy emissions offsets from EV producers like Tesla, which raises the prices of all vehicles:
You didn’t ask about coal plants, you asked about renewables.
Manufacturers have to have targets with these policies to drive incentive to change.
It’s obviously escaped you and many others, but this is kind of urgent. Quite likely too late even.
We’ve been hearing dire warnings about the danger we’re all in, from slightly warmer weather, for several decades now.
20 years of warnings and you are still in denial?
It’s actually been 35 years of catastrophic predictions. And yet the world keeps churning along – no collapse of food production, overwhelming sea rise, widespread species extinction etc etc etc.
You need to open your eyes, your denials are just ridiculous.
You assume that we believe the warnings or that we find the sources of those warnings to be credible.
I do not.
Simply put, EVERY SINGLE model, EVERY SINGLE prediction has been wrong. The world was going to reach unsustainable something for 60 yrs and it is always 10 yrs away.
Jesus Robbie, they cannot even get the models to predict what has already happened but we trust them to project 50 yrs into the future? For real?
There are a lot of people with vested interests in the “climate emergency”. Scientists get grants to prove climate change. In other words….their livelihoods depend on it and a few brave some of them have said as much. Politicians see opportunity. Business sees opportunity. The UN sees opportunity. Hell, the progressives in the US admitted that the Green New Deal was really more about reorganizing the economy than climate.
How did you actually form this opinion? It’s garbage.
I challenged you to name one grid 100% wind and solar, which is impossible because there is none. Any grids even close to 50% have the highest power prices in the world and rely on imports from other grids, when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
I do not want them to change.
I want them to respond to market demand and not government mandates and subsidies.
If EVs are a better product, they will sell. But so far, they are not.
Here’s the story on coal…Why don’t you go to Beijing and New Delhi to argue with them.. Maybe Indonesia as well
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-23/coal-s-long-goodbye-in-china-and-india-is-a-climate-headache
Robbie, China and India have been bringing on more coal plants per year than the west is shutting down.
They export the vast majority of their solar panels and their wind turbines.
The answer has been and will continue to be NUCLEAR.
And that assumes that you believe that we have a climate “emergency” which, if the polls are to be believed, fewer and fewer people believe to be the case.
For that matter, the planet is dynamic and so therefore is the climate. It is in constant motion, constant change. Five ice ages in 240 million years kinda proves that. What are we gonna do when the next one hits, pump out CO2 to warm the planet back up?
Given a choice, I will take a warmer planet with its increased growing season, expanded forests, and deserts that are starting to be reclaimed, over a world covered in miles thick ice.
Change is change. It brings risks and it brings opportunities. Not our job or within our power to adjust the climate, it is our job to adapt to it in a manner that best suits our needs.
It’s really just unbelievable that there are still people in total denial of climate change. Back to school for you. You’re right on nuclear however.
It’s not “total denial of climate change” to question the apocalyptic predictions some people have been making. We know that increasing amounts of carbon dioxide will have some effect on the climate, but we don’t know how much.
It’s people like Al Gore and John Kerry who deny the science behind climate change. Al Gore won an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for raising the alarm about climate change, but we now know that his predictions were preposterous.
It’s good to worry about climate change — I certainly do. The future is uncertain, and we should be careful to protect our environment. But to insist on things like bans on gasoline cars is hubristic nonsense. There’s no rational basis for the net zero campaigns. People like the mentally-ill Greta Thunberg bring no sense to the cause.
The climate has always changed. Where I live has been savannah, tropical rainforest and deep under the ocean at various times in our earth’s ever changing history. Now it’s a temperate rainforest.Yet you seem to think that it should be magically fixed at our current level? When the dinosaurs were around it was 7 degrees warmer than the planet today.
I thought that it was internal combustion engines which could backfire, not electric ones?
Only if you run them too rich or foul the plugs. LOL
American EV cost $60000 while Chinese EV cost $9000. The auto industry in marketing to the rich only and losing the middle-class market. An EV does not have to be expensive. America needs to learn to copy and steal technology. They stole from us. Why do we enforce their patents. Make Chinese companies give away technology the way we had to give ours away.
William, that is just SO naive as to be astounding.
China massively subsidizes its EV manufacturers and indeed it generally has some ownership stake in them.
They have two objectives related to EV that impact the cost.
First, they have a MASSIVE overcapacity for EV production and need to dump these cars. There were 500 EV manufacturers at one point in China. They have acres and acres and acres of unsold EVs rotting in fields.
(Sorta like their ghost cities)
Second, China wants to dominate the market for future technology, from chips to cell phones, to 5G to AI, solar, wind and fusion. One way to do that is to drive your competition out of business by massively undercutting them on price until they go broke. Rivian is not willing or able to lose money at the rate the Chines government is.
The reason for this is two fold. The Chinese government wants, above all else, social stability and that means jobs for its people. Also, it expands their geopolitical power.
As an additional point, Chinese products of all kinds, from mother boards to chips to TikTok all provide data back to China on the activities of the consumers that use their products. EVs are just one more opportunity for them to inject monitoring tech in the west.
It’s a bit of kabuki theatre as well. The rules take effect in 2032 so Sleepy will be long gone by then so subsequent Administrations will change things as they face economic realities. Its a trick played by Western Politicians so they run run-around & take credit knowing the deadlines are off in the future when they will be long gone. The average western citizen can’t afford these EVs and the Western Govts are too far in debt to subsidize for long.. All well increasing the defense budgets too.
I’d note that compared to the million$ that organized Labor has given to the Dems over the years, $45,000 is chump change.
As others have noted, the Left can yearn all it wants to for the extinction of ICE vehicles and a petroleum-free world, but darn it if reality will keep biting them in the @**. At the minimum, petroleum is and will be vital for plastics and a host of other essential non-fuel products. But more so, the US transportation system for goods is dependent on gasoline and diesel, whether it be for long-haul trucks or diesel-electric locomotives, and there aren’t any replacements for them in the immediate offing. Add to that the lack of extensive infrastructure for recharging EVs, and the increased electricity generating capacity that would require, and switching to EVs by the 2030s is a fantasy.
It would behoove the enviros and automakers to offer more hybrids and PHEVs as a bridge, and for the enviros to get over their phobia about nuclear power if they really want to decrease dependence on fossil fuels for transportation. Hybrid and PHEV vehicles at least have the range to say drive across the typical US state and would be far more appealing to a lot of Americans. My recent experience driving a current generation hybrid in Europe is making me think seriously about getting a PHEV when my current ICE car gives up the ghost.