The Patriot Post® · Auto Dealers Tell Biden Americans Don't Want EVs
If climate change is the greatest “existential threat to human existence as we know it,” as Joe Biden ridiculously declared back in 2021 at the United Nations’s climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, then what has changed in two years? Well, carbon emissions have kept rising, but the globe is not heating up as the climate alarmists have been direly warning.
Maybe that’s why the green dream simply isn’t selling — literally, as renewables are struggling and EVs are piling up on dealer lots. More on that in a minute.
Even Biden won’t be making an appearance at the UN’s upcoming annual climate summit, COP28, in Dubai. The White House excused Biden’s planned no-show by noting that the administration is sending Special Climate Envoy John Kerry as well as National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi and senior advisor John Podesta. White House spokesman Angelo Fernandez Hernandez added, “Since day one, President Biden has led and delivered on the most ambitious climate agenda in history, both at home and abroad.”
At this latest summit, the assembled climate alarmists should be eating a little crow as they admit that the planet has not heated up nearly as fast as they all warned back at the signing of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
Meanwhile, COP28 plans to engage a first-ever assessment of progress in the “battle” against climate change. But what of the conundrum of the 2015 climate model predictions showing a global 3.5ºC temperature increase that has failed to materialize? Well, this is being dismissed by once again moving the proverbial goalposts. The summit plans to admit that global temperatures are rising at a slower rate than predicted, but it will double down on it still being a crisis.
One of the blatant optical hangups, however, is the fact that the oil-rich nation of Dubai is hosting the conference. That fact has made Jean Su, director of the climate alarmist group Center for Biological Diversity, rather upset. “An oil chief is hosting these talks, so we really needed the president at the table pushing for the strongest action to phase out fossil fuels,” she said. “President Biden’s absence on this crucial world stage shows he’s not taking that phaseout seriously at the time when we need it most.”
Biden has indeed hampered oil production here at home, but he’s gone hat in hand to OPEC more than once to make up the production shortfall and help his poll numbers in the face of skyrocketing gas prices. OPEC did not oblige.
The problem is that, despite Biden’s aggressive push to turn the country into a “green dream” nightmare, America’s free market economy has been throwing quite the wrench in the works. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Americans aren’t buying the climate alarmism narrative, and for good reason — the offered/mandated “solutions” don’t make any economic sense.
A great example set up the conference just this week. Nearly 4,000 car dealers across the nation sent Biden a letter explaining the problem. As automakers have been pumping out more and more electric vehicles — which are subsidized during production and at the time of sale — dealers have been struggling to sell them. As a result, vehicles have been filling up their lots and costing them money. As the letter reads, “[Battery] electric vehicle [BEV] demand today is not keeping up with the large influx of BEVs arriving at our dealerships prompted by the current regulations,” and “BEVs are stacking up on our lots.” According to the letter, EVs take twice as long to sell as other vehicles, even with big tax incentives.
People don’t want EVs due to their higher price tags, but also for many practical reasons. EVs are simply limited when compared to gas-powered cars. Driving range, lack of adequate fast-charging stations, and the impact of severe weather are just a few of the reasons why consumers aren’t buying them.
The Biden administration is having trouble getting the EV revolution to stick, but Team Biden is also stumbling with the transition from fossil fuel-based energy to renewables. Once again, basic economics combined with the inherent limits of wind and solar energy production are tough to overcome.
Biden wants net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. That is a pipe dream, as we have repeatedly observed. As of 2022, wind turbines provided roughly 10% of the nation’s energy supply, and solar power contributed an additional 3% — again, even with massive subsidies to prop up those forms of energy production. Most leftists won’t even hear of nuclear power, which is the real solution.
While the Biden administration still preaches the renewables pipe dream, growing energy costs have Americans seeing a different reality. As Manhattan Institute energy expert Jonathan Lesser observes, “Wind power is running into an economic wall, and the public doesn’t want it.”
Even with Biden putting the federal government’s hand on the scales, the costs are simply too much. At least that’s what the Danish company Orsted decided back in October when it pulled out of a years-long plan to build wind farms off the coast of New Jersey. Development, construction, and upkeep costs would have New Jersey residents spending significantly more for their electricity, not less, than was promised when the plan was first adopted.
Well, Barack Obama did say that, under green fiats, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
The cost of renewables includes questions of negative impact to the local wildlife. Are wind farms off the New England coast responsible for recent whale deaths? What of the number of birds being killed annually by wind and solar farms?
As the American people have become more familiar with the litany of genuine problems associated with the net-zero green dream, many are souring on it. The truth is, there is no climate crisis. That’s not to say that the climate has not been changing, but the earth’s climate has always been in a state of flux. Furthermore, there is little that humanity can do about it. Adaptation is the answer, as it always has been, not the hubris that humanity has the power to exert control over the planet.