Here’s something we learned just from Politico’s headline: Republicans are waging a crusade against electric cars, and they might regret that in the 2024 election.
Politico is correct if waging a crusade against electric cars means opposing EV mandates and impossible deadlines. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm wants the entire U.S. military fleet to be electric by 2030. It was Politico who told us last December that the Biden administration’s $7.5 billion allocation had led to exactly zero charges being installed two years later.
It’s funny … Politico told us one year ago that Republicans were stoking the fires of the next big culture war: electric vehicles. Just last month, Politico suggested a brilliant idea to get conservatives on board with EVs … electric vehicle racing. Politico asked if Formula E — the world’s only all-electric racing series — could save Joe Biden’s presidency.
In other words, Politico is all over the place, demonstrating exactly how poorly the policy of EVs has been handled. Now they have an opinion piece saying Republicans might come to regret their “crusade” against electric cars this November, according to a recent poll.
New polling shows that Republicans’ anti-electric car stance could be a liabilityhttps://t.co/Qn48sxDzZI
— POLITICO (@politico) April 7, 2024
Mike Murphy writes:
First, we asked voters if they had a mostly favorable, mixed or mostly unfavorable opinion of “American car brands.” On this topic Republicans and Democrats were in lockstep: Republicans rated American car brands 59 percent mostly favorable while Democrats rated them 55 percent mostly favorable.
But when we asked voters to rate “electric car brands” the partisan divide was stark: GOP voters gave electric car brands a net 40 percent unfavorable rating, while Democrats gave EV brands a 15 percent net favorable rating. That’s a huge, 55-point gap between Republicans and Democrats.
Why such Republican hostility toward electric cars? It’s tribal. In our modern politics any friend of my enemy must be my enemy too. If Joe Biden is for EVs, we must be against them. GOP politicians looking for cheap applause cannot help but pile on and amplify one of the latest turns in the culture war.
Yet there is real political downside for Republicans who embrace this easy feedback loop of EV attacks.
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Independents, though, could be turned off by the Republican crusade against EVs, swinging the election to Biden.
Spoiler: the polling did not say anything remotely close to that. https://t.co/gNRYYR7SWf
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) April 7, 2024
I don’t know any Republican who is anti-electric car. People should buy whatever type of car they want.
We are anti-government-mandate.
Get it right.
— American Made (@Brain_Pwr) April 7, 2024
Republicans are anti-mandates. That’s all.
— Dory Beutel 🇺🇸✌🏼🇺🇸 (@DoryBeutel) April 7, 2024
Any time an article starts with qualifying themselves as a Republican, you know the author is full of it
Electric cars are bad, they’re bad for the environment, they utilize slave labor, and there isn’t enough lithium
— Nick 🇺🇲 (@realduskknight) April 7, 2024
Republicans don’t care what kind of car you drive. Just don’t ask your neighbor to subsidize it or pretend it is going to save the planet. The planet will be just fine with whatever car you choose. 🇺🇸
— John Rust (@JohnRust_IN) April 7, 2024
No one is stopping them from buying EVs. The fact is that without government subsidies, there would be no real EV market (same for windmills).
— Shawn spelled the right way (@ShawnsBrain) April 7, 2024
Republicans want to give people a choice when it comes to cars and energy and it’s a “liability”?😂
— David Hastensen (@DavidHastensen) April 7, 2024
The declining sales of EVs tell a different story.
Turns out, Americans are smart enough to know that expensive, heavy cars with strip-mined battery components, an ever declining range, and no grid infrastructure to support are bad economics and ecology.
— Jared A. Chambers 🇺🇲 (@C4CEO) April 7, 2024
Yes, not forcing people to buy cars they don’t want will be a liability
— Anti child-mutilator, leave them kids alone (@Thegreatunwoken) April 7, 2024
When I can fill up an EV in 5 minutes, I’ll quit bashing them. They’re useless outside of cities.
— Jackson Reborn (@jaxonreborn) April 7, 2024
Not wanting an EV does not make someone anti-electric car.
If you want to drive a coal powered car I’m not going to object.
Btw, you could buy a used 1970’s V8 gas hog, run it the rest of your life and still have a smaller carbon footprint than what it takes to produce a new EV.— Michael PacNW (@MichaelPacNW) April 7, 2024
Republicans have no anti-electric car stance. Anyone who wants one should buy one.
We just don’t want the govt saying the MUST buy one– through legislation banning internal combustion driven cars.
More twisted, fake news.— Miguel Ritchie (@KeyWestAuthor) April 7, 2024
Extreme climate activists Extinction Rebellion just showed up at the New York Autoshow and poured oil all over an electric vehicle in protest. They posted a press release:
Electric vehicles do not solve the fundamental problems with cars. The construction of electric vehicles is as carbon-intensive, if not more so, than that of conventional cars powered by fossil fuels. More important, cars themselves damage the climate in many ways above and beyond their gas consumption. Cars are constructed out of materials that are very difficult to produce. The excessive steel in cars is incredibly climate-unfriendly to produce. The many superfluous electronics in cars contain rare earth metals and require expensive, shipping-intensive manufacturing processes. The fact that cars are heavier and larger than they need to be means that all cars, including electric ones, are incompatible with a livable future.
“All cars … are incompatible with a livable future.” We’re all going to be forced to live in “15-minute cities.”
This Republican doesn’t care if you buy an electric car or not. But don’t pretend the mandates aren’t out there. California has already announced an upcoming ban on gas-powered lawnmowers in the state. You won’t be able to buy a gas-powered mower in California. It will be illegal.
A ban on gas stoves was also part of the Republican “culture war,” remember? No one was going to ban gas stoves. It was a right-wing conspiracy theory, until it wasn’t.
Once there’s a reliable network of charging stations coast-to-coast and people can recharge their cars in five minutes, there might be a demand. But the technology isn’t there yet.
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