The mission to replace gas cars with EVs has led to a series of major miscalculations, one of which has to do with the sheer size of the new electric vehicles being put on the road. "It doesn't, and that's the problem." The EV myth "The entire myth at the heart of this whole transition is that the battery car seamlessly fits right into the gas car's position," Edward Niedermeyer, the author of "Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors," told me. But this one-size-fits-all solution fails to address our broader transportation problems, meaning emissions targets are likely to be missed and other transportation problems will continue to go unaddressed. Instead of seeing EVs as one piece of a plan for more sustainable transportation, America has focused on using EVs as a one-to-one replacement for gas guzzlers. But they're a symptom of the larger problem: America's EV plan was flawed from the start. Industry analysts have pointed to several reasons for the slowdown, including insufficient charging infrastructure and a lack of affordable EV options. Auto execs who were once trumpeting the potential of electric cars are even publicly acknowledging that EVs aren't working. Even Tesla - once the superstar of EVs - announced it would delay a planned factory in Mexico. Automakers have backtracked on their promised investments: Ford delayed $12 billion of its planned $50 billion investment in EV manufacturing capacity, while General Motors delayed production of key EV models and scrapped a $5 billion partnership with Honda to make cheaper EVs. EVs accumulated at dealerships this fall, even as automakers cut prices to try to entice customers. The trickle-down effects of this decreased demand are everywhere. Sure, sales of EVs keep going up - a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric - but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed, and analysts have suggested the country is no longer on track to hit the government's sales targets. But the electric-vehicle takeover has hit some serious roadblocks. It would not only give the government a highly visible way to show it's fighting the climate crisis but boost the economy through new jobs and investment. The transition to an all-EV future seemed like a slam dunk. By the end of 2022 the situation looked promising: More and more Americans were going electric, and soon everyone would be driving an EV, reducing emissions in the process. That set off a flurry of new projects: EV plants, battery-manufacturing facilities, and mining operations began popping up. The following year Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which created a bevy of incentives for drivers to buy electric and for automakers to invest in EVs. Two years ago President Joe Biden climbed behind the wheel of a beefy white electric Hummer to tout his plan to make half of all new cars sold electric by 2030. It often indicates a user profile.Įlectric vehicles were supposed to be inevitable. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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