Auto dealers are struggling to sell backlogs of electric vehicles pushed onto their lots by manufacturers that have been forced to ramp up production by President Biden’s quest to end the use of fossil fuels.
Along the way, the government and utilities have shifted the costs to taxpayers through billions of dollars in subsidies. [emphasis, links added]
A study calculates that taxpayers are on the hook for a staggering $50,000 for every electric vehicle sale or $22 billion annually. That excludes a recently extended $7,500 tax credit for certain electric vehicle purchases.
Although billions of dollars have been pumped into the industry, electric vehicle sales have cooled since August.
Auto dealers say consumers are seeking hybrid vehicles or gasoline-powered cars that are, on average, less expensive and free of the notorious challenges of charging EVs, especially on longer trips.
Electric vehicles made up 7.8% of auto sales in August, a record high, but dropped for three consecutive months to 7.2% in October.
“We’re having trouble selling them at a rate that would be improving because the customers are increasingly citing reasons why they don’t work for them,” Mike Stanton, chief executive officer of the National Automobile Dealers Association, told The Washington Times.
The backlog of unsold EVs has a simple explanation, said Brent Bennett, a policy director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which produced the report on electric vehicle subsidies.
“It’s not that there is something wrong with the EVs and the technology,” said Mr. Bennett, the lead author. “It’s the subsidies and this regulatory regime that are forcing it to happen much faster than consumers want it, and much faster than automakers are able to make it happen.”
Auto dealers are pushing back.
Read rest at Washinton Times
Always bear in mind what a subsidy really is…..
In plain terms you are being taxed on the one hand for using something deemed politically unacceptable to give subsidies to those industries that are in political favor. Science and economics be damned !
Subsidies should always be viewed as coercion by the government !
Someone is going to be bludgeoned with the blunt instrument of taxation so that some rent seeking woke pressure group can be subsidized.
It is always thus and therefore always bad ! Even if you are the recipient of this largesse, it is still bad – shame on you for being so naïve.
No subsidies for anyone or anything ever should be the norm.
“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” Thomas Jefferson
Subsidies do not actually make anything “cheaper” but instead move to cost to some other area of the economy in what is little more than a shell game con-job by politicians.
Worse, subsidies normally have the adverse effect of rent collecting of these subsidies by vested interests, which actually increases the real cost to the economy.
I personally prefer market forces as the principal arbiter of how I spend my money rather than some politically motivated zealotry. I dislike having politicians meddle in matters of engineering and economics.
If a product is worth buying at the price it is offered at no subsidies are ever needed. It is obvious that the car manufacturers cannot make the EVs at a cost that they could sell them to customers without the subsidies. Even with them there still are few takers.
The climate change cult is always talking about what is sustainable. Using the concepts of a command economy to make more EV’s than the consumers are willing to buy certainly is not sustainable. Something is going to have to give. The best solution is to return the rate of production to what is supported by free market forces. Knowing how stupid the advocates of the climate change movement are, there are other ways to reduce the excess inventory of EV’s. One would be to throw more tax payer money at the problem and reduce the purchase cost to the point were more people would be willing to buy them.