The popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) has never been buzzier. Across the U.S, EV sales jumped by two-thirds last year to over 807,000 cars, according to Wall Street Journal reports. Fully electric vehicles now make up 5.8 {09e594db938380acbda72fd0ffbcd1ef1c99380160786adb3aba3c50c4545157} of all cars and light trucks sold in the US, up from 3.2{09e594db938380acbda72fd0ffbcd1ef1c99380160786adb3aba3c50c4545157} just a year earlier. Options for EV buyers are increasing as well, as Ford, Hyundai, Kia—along with startups including electric pickup maker Rivian — edge in on turf long dominated by Elon Musk’s Tesla.
But the EV revolution isn’t happening fast enough to satisfy everyone. “We have to take combustion-engine vehicles off the road as rapidly as we can,” then-candidate Joe Biden said in 2019. Since taking office, Biden has made the shift to electric vehicles one of his top environmental priorities.
Back in late 2021, the president told automakers he expects EVs to make up 50{09e594db938380acbda72fd0ffbcd1ef1c99380160786adb3aba3c50c4545157} of their new vehicle sales by 2030. The White House is enforcing this “voluntary” policy with a combination of carrots and sticks. The carrots include plans to spend nearly $15 billion building EV charging stations and subsidizing domestic battery production.
As for sticks, the administration has issued draconian fuel-efficiency standards requiring that each carmaker’s gas-guzzling fleet achieve an average of 55 miles per gallon by 2026. Voters would likely balk if the White House began to ban traditional internal combustion engines (ICE). But Manhattan Institute economist Jonathan Lesser argues the new fuel standards actually impose that goal in a stealthier fashion. The new rules constitute “an electric vehicle mandate by regulatory fiat,” he writes. In other words, Biden is using executive decrees to position EVs as the backbone of the nation’s automotive future.
Political leaders in New York, California, and other states aren’t even trying to be stealthy. New York Governor Kathy Hochul and California’s Gavin Newsom have both signed measures severely limiting ICE sales over the next few years, and banning them outright by 2035. “We can solve this climate crisis if we focus on the big, bold steps necessary to cut pollution,” Newsom said last August.
These leaders often talk as if shifting to electric cars is the boldest step our nation can take to help the planet. In reality, policies forcing carmakers to build EVs—and forcing drivers to buy them—are misguided. Even if all Americans traded their gas-powered cars for electric vehicles, the transition would yield only modest reductions in emissions. Moreover, the policies intended to push people into buying EVs rely on un-American levels of coercion.
To be clear, the EVs are technological marvels and a blast to drive. But the promise of electric vehicles has been oversold. EVs are not an environmental panacea. And, for now at least, they don’t make sense for most drivers.
It’s no coincidence that Tesla, America’s most popular EV brand, was born in California’s Silicon Valley. The roads are smooth, the weather is mild, and the people are rich. California EV owners can charge their cars in their own suburban garages and drive them modest distances to work or out to dinner.
But most Americans don’t live in balmy Palo Alto. Many have to contend with very cold or hot weather, which can dramatically reduce an EV’s range. Others drive rural roads, where chargers may be scarce. And city residents often lack personal garages where they can plug in.
Nonetheless, the federal government wants to see an EV in every driveway, and offers subsidies of up to $7,500 to people who buy them. Not surprisingly, most of that subsidy money winds up in the pockets of well-off car buyers.
Meanwhile, battery-powered cars and trucks still can’t do all the things people expect from their ICE vehicles. For example, Motor Trend magazine recently tested the towing-capacity of Ford’s hot-selling F-150 Lightning pickup. They discovered that hooking a full-sized camper trailer to the $92,000 EV truck reduced the pickup’s range to a nail-biting 90 miles.
EVs are also more expensive than comparable ICE vehicles—and prices are still rising. According to J.D. Power, the average new EV sold for $66,000 last year, up from $51,000 the year before and far higher than the $45,844 price tag for an average ICE last year. Driving an EV now also costs slightly more per mile than driving a mid-priced ICE, according to the Anderson Economic Group.
Time is another factor. Tesla owners like to brag about plugging into the high-voltage “Superchargers,” which can pump 200 miles worth of juice into a car’s batteries in about 20 minutes. But most public charging stations are of the less powerful Level 2 type. These can take eight hours or more to fully charge a vehicle. (Many home chargers take even longer.) Meanwhile, it takes less than four minutes to fill the tank of a typical ICE car.
EVs are often touted as “zero-emission vehicles.” But calculating their true environmental footprint is surprisingly tricky. Yes, EVs emit no tailpipe emissions. So, if an EV is charged with low-carbon electricity—say from nuclear, hydropower, solar, or wind—that adds up to very a clean operation.
However, if you live in a state that mostly burns coal for electric power—like Utah, Indiana, or Kentucky—your car’s carbon footprint will approach that of an ICE vehicle. And EVs only reduce emissions if people actually drive them instead of a comparable ICE vehicle. Researcher from the University of Chicago recently concluded tat he typical EV is only driven 5,300 miles per year, ‘about half the US fleet average’.”
It appears affluent EV owners use their electric cars when it’s convenient but rely on their conventional cars or trucks for about half their travel. Of course, an EV that mostly sits in a driveway doesn’t do much to bring down emissions. Which is why, as those University of Chicago researchers concluded, “electricity may not be as easily substituted for gasoline as previously thought.”
It is also important to consider the environmental impact of the car itself. A typical EV battery pack contains about 25 pounds of lithium, 30 pounds of cobalt, 60 pounds of nickel, 90 pounds of copper, and hundreds of pounds of other materials. All those minerals must be mined, processed (mostly in China), and shipped around the world—which takes energy and creates pollution. Is all that environmental disruption worth it?
Most experts calculate that the lifetime emissions from an EV are still somewhat lower than those of a comparable ICE vehicles. But not everyone agrees. And those “lifecycle” calculations assume the EV will be driven as much as a combustion vehicle, which, as that California study showed, probably isn’t the case.
Even today’s relatively modest production of electric vehicles is putting strains on mineral supplies. The price of lithium has climbed roughly 1,000 {09e594db938380acbda72fd0ffbcd1ef1c99380160786adb3aba3c50c4545157} since 2020. (That’s one reason EV prices are surging.) One group of analysts predicts the global demand for lithium will grow by a factor of 40 over the next two decades.
This shortage of critical materials is one reason some automakers are skeptical about electric vehicle hype. “EVs are just going to take longer to become mainstream than media would like us to believe,” Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said last year. Unsurprisingly, his company is exploring hydrogen fuel cells and other low-carbon technologies, in addition to EVs.
Investors too are becoming more realistic about EV prospects. Tesla’s stock—which was once worth more than all the world’s major car companies combined—has fallen by roughly half since its late 2021 high. Washington might also consider accepting a similar dose of reality, with federal policymakers rolling back efforts to force us all into electric vehicles overnight. Offering subsidies to help affluent people buy luxury cars is unfair, and according to a recent Harvard study, might even boost overall emissions.
If politicians are serious about reducing those emissions, they should focus on making the U.S. power grid cleaner. For example, we should trim regulations that give local activists too much leverage to block power-line projects like Missouri’s proposed Grain Belt Express. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs to streamline approvals for the next generation of super-safe nuclear plants. That way we can have enough cheap, clean power for the people who do want to drive EVs—not to mention installing home heat pumps or electrifying dirty industries now reliant on fossil fuels.
Governments generally aren’t very good at picking the technologies of tomorrow. Maybe the car of the future will run on batteries, maybe it will be hydrogen fuel cells, maybe it will be super-efficient combustion engines. Nobody knows for sure, least of all state and federal bureaucrats. While is why instead of limiting our choices, our leaders should let innovation flourish, and let Americans drive what they want.
James B. Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the co-host of the How Do We Fix It? podcast. He is the former editor of Popular Mechanics magazine.