Reducing direct fossil fuel consumption is a noble cause. That said, our lifestyles depend on it regardless of our personal use. The economy has such a huge dependence that nearly everything we do has been facilitated in some way by oil consumption.
Yup, this it true, we have a deep dependence on fossil fuels. Just as a heroine addict has a deep dependence on opioids - doesn't mean that we don't need to systematically reduce our dependence ASAP, before it kills us.
This article is just more right wing propaganda put out by rich conservatives who want to continue to make money hand over fist, regardless of how much it hurts us as a people.
Forbes (rather cleverly) posits that subsidies for EVs are simply some kind of twisted power grab by rich people who want to buy Teslas, and want the public to partially pay for them.
Seriously?
This is so typical of corporate mis-direction and appeal to visceral fears of weak minded conservatives, that it's laughable.
"Rich people are taking money out of your families' pockets so they can buy their toys!!", he bleats.
The ironic thing is that rich people are indeed trying to take advantage of you, just in a different way, by getting you all pissed off, then leading you around by the nose, like a donkey.)
The *truth* is that Steve Forbes is heavily invested is fossil fuels, and is trying to protect his interests.
Some more truth is that we need end our dependence on fossil fuels, and quickly. Batteries are still so expensive that purchasing an EV is still not as economically feasible as ICEs (at this point).
What should have happened is we should have taken a many pronged approach to incentivising *not* using fossil fuels, such as a carbon tax, air quality regulations, EV credits (should be direct decrease from price instead of tax credit), as well as others.
Well, once again the carbon taxes we should have passed 20 years ago got stymied by big oil, and conservatives have continually done their best to roll back air, water and other clean regulations.
Just because the only incentive left standing is the EV credit doesn't mean we should just say "oh well screw it, might as well throw that out too, and give up!"
The government, as someone has posted, isn't "picking winners", that's just silly. It's not giving Tesla a huge tax break, (that would be picking a winner - you know, like the huge tax breaks we're giving oil companies right now!?) it's supporting the partial solution of converting our transportation to alternative, renewable energy sources.
When it became apparent that we need decent, paved roads for people to drive on when cars first took over from horse and buggies, the government, seeing the need for inter state standards and mass production, the Federal Highway Administration was born, and it did a *great* job building our highway system @ far less cost and chaos than if we had forced the individual states to try to do it. Was this "Picking winners"? No, it was backing a program that benefited the entire country.
And yes, the energy used to power the EVs needs to also be clean energy. Here's how you do that:
We need to not only keep, but extend (and improve) the EV incentives, until such time that battery costs come down enough to make EVs truly competitive with ICEs. And we need to double down - Carbon Taxes that really get to the root of the problem.
Regulations that make carbon base fuels less attractive. Stop giving oil companies financial incentives.
Upgrade the grid, install whatever grid storage and energy equalization solutions that are appropriate for that area. (For instance, if the government were to incentivise the installation of smart whole house batteries, such as the Tesla Powerwall, people could charge the battery during the night (or off peak hours) , then release energy during the day, or during peak draws, automatically - this would go a long way towards equalizing, and ameliorating the problems of wind and solar contributions to the grid.
But most of all, we need to *elect representatives* that acknowledge the problem, are smart, knowledgeable, and will proactively start implementing solutions. (GO Pete Buttigieg!!)
And we need to call out conservative sheep and their spurious, logically flawed and baseless objections to cleaning this mess, our mess up, before we go over the cliff.
And, by the way, if rich people are buying lots of EVs, we should thank them, because the more EVs there are on the roads, the more EVs there will be on the roads. And, if I'm not mistaken, that's the whole freakin' idea.
If you want to do something to help fix the income disparity between the wealthy and the middle class, well, cool, I'm with you. Support a wealth tax. But don't stop them from buying EVs.
That's just stoopid.
