The American Energy Alliance reports that 79 percent of the electric vehicle tax credits were claimed by households with an adjusted gross income of more than $100,000 per year, according to a study by the Pacific Research Institute, and that a hugely disproportionate share of these vehicles were bought in California. This explains why 67 percent of voters throughout the rest of the country are opposed to these tax credits, which cost billions of dollars.
What all this means is that relatively well-off people are assuaging their environmental conscience at the expense of the little people. Moreover, in spite of various taxpayer subsidies to the manufacturers, on top of the $7,500 tax break to the consumers, these electric vehicles are then sold at a tremendous loss by the manufacturers. The manufacturers sell the vehicles at a loss by hiking the price on the rest of their fleet — that is, the vehicles that people who earn less than $100,000 can afford and want to buy.
To fully understand this tangled web of tax breaks and wealth transfers, one must take into account the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. The CAFE standards dictate to auto manufacturers a mandated target intended to reduce the average fuel consumption of their fleet. In 2011, the average fuel standard was 24 miles per gallon. The Obama administration forced an exorbitantly high standard of 54 miles per gallon by 2025. The problem is that most Americans still love SUVs and pickup trucks, which don’t get much more than 20 mpg, if that. Consequently, the manufacturers had to virtually give away electric cars to bring up their averages.
Now, contrast the poorest state in the country, Mississippi, with California. In 2017, the residents in Mississippi purchased a grand total of 128 electric vehicles. In the same year, Californians purchased 95,000. Californians have been going hog wild, as in pigs at the trough, for the $7,500 tax credit, due in part to their overwrought attempts to prove how green they are, and in order to save money on our extremely high gas prices. Ultimately, that means poor folks in other states are paying higher taxes in order to support the tax credit inordinately accruing to Californians and our higher fuel prices, and they are paying more for their vehicles via the CAFE surcharge.
Another lesson lost on fans of electric vehicles? Electricity is a secondary source of energy that must be produced by a primary source. That is, plugging a car into an outlet doesn’t make the car green unless the electricity was created by wind or solar, according to radical environmental purists.
Nevertheless, 77 percent of America’s electricity supply comes from fossil fuels. Another 15 percent comes from nuclear and hydroelectric sources. What that ultimately means, in reality, is that only 10 percent of these so-called green vehicles are running on renewable energy.
Finally, if you consider the enormous cradle-to-grave impacts of both the energy and mineral resources necessary to build and utilize wind and solar, and to dispose of the same, namely the batteries and solar panels, these energy sources aren’t very green at all.
