EViscerating logic

The Ford F-150 Lightning photographed at Town and Country Ford in Madison, Tenn. (Photo: John Partipilo)

It was disappointing if unsurprising to hear recent news that Ford is tapping the brakes on its timetable for full production of electric vehicles at the BlueOval City facility under construction in Haywood County. Although EV sales in the U.S. and abroad have been growing at a healthy rate over the last few years, this year the rate of that growth has slowed. 

Consumer survey data points to several predictable reasons for EV purchase hesitation, among them range anxiety, a lack of reliable charging stations, and of course cost—EVs in the U.S. are a good deal pricier than internal combustion engine cars. Consumer reluctance aside, you can’t buy a car that doesn’t exist, and U.S. automakers have been slow to meet production targets. For example, in 2022 GM said  it would sell 400,000 EVs with its new Ultium battery architecture by the end of 2023, but managed to make fewer than 15,000 of them.  

But for all of these rational market-related explanations why EV enthusiasm has lost some momentum, a complete picture has to include the bizarroworld aspect: how some on the right have chosen to politicize battery-powered cars into yet another culture war touchstone. “Electric vehicles emerge as flashpoint in 2024 election,” read a recent Washington Post headline. 

Dimming electric vehicle market may delay start of full production at Ford’s new West Tenn. plant

Surveys of public opinion paint a pretty clear picture of the red-blue EV divide. A Wall Street Journal poll in March found that over 61% of conservatives have somewhat or very unfavorable views of EVs compared to fewer than 23% of liberals. That’s quite a gap. Asked why they view EVs unfavorably, most cite issues of cost, range, and performance, but almost 40% indicated that EVs “go against my political views.” This is odd. Are Teslas thought to be the preferred vehicle for driving pregnant teenagers across state lines for abortions?

We see the political divide not just in abstract opinions, but also in buying behavior. Research shows that the share of car registrations that are EVs is markedly higher in blue states than red states, even controlling for population density, income, and gas prices. A Gallup poll last year found that 71% of Republicans would not even consider buying an EV, compared to just 17% of Democrats. You’d think there’s a cabal of Nissan Leafs out there pitching protest tents on college campuses or trying out for girls’ high school swimming teams.

It’s easy enough to dismiss EV politics as yet another example of how just about everything these days ends up caught in the vortex of red-blue polarity. Well sure, but what strikes me about this subject is how perfectly it captures not just stubborn polarization, but systemic dysfunction in how our system of government works, or should work. 

The thing about EVs is that they are the inevitable future, or to put it in more specific terms, electrification of automotive powertrains in passenger vehicles is the inevitable future. EVs are fundamentally superior in a number of ways: easier to manufacture, more efficient at turning stored energy into kinetic energy, produce no local emissions, better integrated with electronics and software, less noisy and less smelly, and require less maintenance. It will take a while to get there, and hybrid options will persist along the way, but does anyone rationally believe that 20 or 30 or 40 years from now people will still be tooling around atop internal combustion engines burning petroleum products and bellowing toxic fumes?

In a well-functioning political system there would be an operating consensus about where this is all headed. We’d take up legitimate, informed disagreements about how fast we can and should get there through constructive engagement on whether and how public policy should help us navigate the path. But no, instead we get the GOP’s orange puppeteer shouting that EVs will “kill” the auto industry, infecting the party with thick-headed denialism. To cite a few examples:

It is reasonable to question how green EVs really are in places where the grid that charges them is mostly powered by fossil fuels. In a constructive system we’d have political compromise on the hard question of public investment into modernizing energy production, storage, and transmission. Instead we have “your green claims are socialist bullshit and these cars suck and I’m never buying one.”

It is also reasonable to wonder if the weight of EVs owing to batteries creates the externality of road-damage that everyone else is left to deal with. In a constructive system we’d be negotiating public investment in battery technology research to speed up progress on this scientific challenge, and in the meantime craft policy solutions that shift the externality onto EV owners (as some states including Tennessee have). Instead we have “see, your socialist EVs weigh a ton and chew up roads and they suck and I’m never buying one.”

And of course it is very reasonable to hesitate to jump into the EV side of the pool until vehicle charging is more abundantly available and reliable and less a source of anxiety. In a constructive system politicians would tangle over how public and private sectors can mobilize to rapidly improve charging infrastructure. Instead we have “I can fill up my gasmobile in three minutes everywhere and climate change isn’t real anyway so I’m never buying one.” 

To be fair, some of the ideological schism on EVs right now is less about the vehicles themselves than about tax breaks aimed at stimulating EV sales. We also have the messy business of tariffs as buyers become tempted by lower-cost (and innovation-rich) Chinese EV imports. It’s a presidential election year, Joe Biden is all about using levers of policy to juice EV adoption, and half the voting public equates supporting Joe Biden with having a root canal. Biden could use tax policy to juice puppy adoption and half the country would turn on puppies.

The good news is that softening demand for EVs is likely more of a blip than a trend, as consumers await inevitable improvements in charging, range, and price, and (importantly) wider model choices. And that inevitable future will be good for Tennessee’s economy: In addition to BlueOval, those Ultium batteries GM is banking on will incorporate cathode material produced at a new $3.2 billion LG Chem manufacturing plant under construction in Clarksville. 

Meanwhile, we get to enjoy the hypocritical political contortions of Republicans like Marsha Blackburn who with one hand wave off the sinister “green energy crusade” of the left that EVs are part of, and with the other wave on EV-related investment in Tennessee when it is something they can kiss up to and claim credit for. Not sure where Marsha stands on the sharks and electric boats thing, though.

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