The Patriot Post® · Biden's EV Boondoggle May Hurt Harris
Two years ago, West Virginia’s then-Democrat Senator Joe Manchin finally caved to Joe Biden and the Democrats’ infamous Inflation Reduction Act. Manchin, now an independent, was the deciding vote that allowed the increasingly hard-left Democrats to take a big step toward their pipe dream of forcing an energy revolution in America, all for the express purpose of fighting climate change.
With Manchin finally on board with his Democrat colleagues in the then-evenly divided Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris served as the tiebreaking vote, granting Biden his massive spending package — a package that would, ironically, ensure that inflation remained high.
A feature of the IRA was a number of new climate-focused policies, including manufacturer incentives, to help advance Biden’s goal of killing the internal combustion engine and making half of the vehicles on the market electric by 2030. This included an EV purchase tax credit of up to $7,500.
After Harris promptly disappeared almost as soon as she was named Biden’s border czar, she was tapped to take the lead on his EV promotion plan. Indeed, Harris became the administration’s face for its EV push, which is when she touted a $1 billion grant for making EV school buses, embarking on that laughable scene of gushing over her love of yellow school buses.
The problem is that Americans have not bought into the Biden/Harris administration’s EV dream. As EVs pile up on dealer lots, the reality of market forces has come into play in a big way. Even with the administration putting its thumb on the scales and trying to pick winners, EVs are still losing.
Furthermore, not only are EVs becoming a financial liability for automakers — with manufacturers scaling back production in the face of dismal sales — but they may also become a political liability for Harris.
Like her infamous border czar role, in which the problem of illegal immigration has only worsened under her “leadership,” her role as the administration’s EV huckster has similarly failed. The Biden/Harris administration’s dream of an all-electric future is much further off than they’d care to admit.
Just last week, automakers Ford and Stellantis announced they were rolling back their investment in EVs, citing lagging customer demand. Ford announced that it was canceling production on an EV SUV and would be delaying the production of another EV pickup truck. This move will likely cost Ford some $1.9 billion, yet even that huge loss pales in comparison to the losses Ford is incurring on EVs that Americans simply aren’t buying. As The Wall Street Journal reports, “Ford lost an astonishing $44,000 on each EV it sold in the second quarter and expects to lose $5 billion on them this year.”
Interestingly, the political liability of EVs for Harris may be tied to America’s biggest and most successful EV maker, Tesla. National Review’s Zach Kessel explains, “Since 2019, a plurality of Tesla buyers have been Democrats, and those Democratic customers may not be incredibly pleased with where some of that money goes.”
Indeed. With Musk endorsing Trump and establishing a super PAC to support his election bid, it may end up that Harris’s tiebreaking IRA vote and the money that subsequently benefited Tesla could end up coming back to bite her.