Gee, this is a tough one.
I’ve noticed a consistent problem with how many executives in the automotive industry as well as people outside of the industry who want to influence its direction approach the adoption of electric cars. What I chock it up to is group think and a disconnect with the average citizens in Western countries, because our leaders can’t seem to understand why more aren’t buying a Tesla or other EVs.
See a cop chase a Polaris RZR through the woods here.
This blithely elitist attitude is perfectly encapsulated in an article published by the World Economic Forumin collaboration with Thomson Reuters Foundation trust, titled “This is how the US can make EV charging sites more accessible.”
“Accessibility” has become one of the most cliched terms of globalist elites in the past two-plus decades. It’s reached the point that I cringe upon hearing it because the term is used to justify some of the most moronic and sometimes blatantly illegal initiatives. This is certainly no exception.
What WEF is worried about is that people who live in lower-income areas don’t have accessibility to public car chargers. Focusing on a charging station which was installed at a park in Price George’s County outside of Washington, D.C., the article goes on to reason that if we start plopping chargers in less-affluent areas people will start buying EVs in force.
It’s like these people have never spent any time in a truly poor area. Most cars are older and those that are newer are of the cheapest variety, unless they’re driven by a drug dealer or someone else making a living in nefarious ways. Yet somehow these people who might live on housing assistance and food stamps are supposed to be able to finance a $50,000 vehicle?
While there are cheaper EVs, the most affordable is the Chevy Bolt at an MSRP of $27,590. That’s still far too expensive for most who are down on their luck, working two or three jobs to keep a roof over their head. And with inflation cutting further into what little disposable income they might have had, you might as well ask them to build a car themselves.
Cars in general have become far too expensive lately, as anyone who’s gone shopping for one in the past two years has learned firsthand. Sure, there have been some deals here and there, but overall new and used vehicles have left many households strapped financially. Yet the WEF thinks if charging stations are installed in low-income neighborhoods people will see them and decide to get that Tesla after all.
It’s a complete disconnect with the harshness of reality. For those who have never had to live without much it’s easy to think if people just apply themselves they will automatically have luxuries. But this type of thinking fails to help and it will eventually leave not only those living in poverty but also the middle class desperate, angry, and bitter. The push to electrification will leave a portion of society alone so long as the costs continue to be astronomically high, no matter what tokens of encouragement elites throw at the plebs.
I know some believe electric cars will become much cheaper at some point, but all indications at the moment is they will only keep getting more expensive. Until we have an affordable way to build them, EVs will continue to be the possessions of the affluent – to say anything else is to deny the full reality of the situation.
Images via Chevrolet, Tesla