The House Oversight Committee is launching an investigation into Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s electric vehicle road trip this summer, which drew attention after charging hiccups resulted in a family calling the authorities on staff blocking a charging station for the official.
Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and energy policy subcommittee Chairman Pat Fallon (R-TX) asked the agency Tuesday for documents related to Granholm’s journey through North Carolina to Tennessee to “understand the purposes, costs, and consequences” of the road trip. [emphasis, links added]
Their letter focuses the inquiry on an NPR report that documented the mishaps of the drive. The demand is the latest instance of Republicans attacking the Biden administration’s push for electric vehicles.
Alright folks, DAY ONE of the People Powered EV Summer Road Trip.
Got my coffee, my tunes, and a great group of folks working all through the southern Battery Belt to invest in our workers, our communities, and our future. pic.twitter.com/aSJFrjOtnt
— Secretary Jennifer Granholm (@SecGranholm) June 26, 2023
“This taxpayer-funded publicity stunt illustrates yet again how out of touch the Biden Administration is with the consequences of policies it has unleashed on everyday Americans,” the letter said.
“Committee Republicans remain committed to preserving freedoms like vehicle consumer choice in the face of an unproven, burdensome, and expensive Biden Administration push to force all Americans to buy EVs.”
Granholm’s trip was intended to draw attention to the billions that the Biden administration has poured into EVs and related infrastructure, but that message was soon overlooked when Granholm’s own staff had to grapple with the limitations of driving electric vehicles.
While trying to fast-charge a caravan of EVs in Georgia, her team realized there weren’t enough plugs to go around, so a staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by a charger to reserve the spot for the energy secretary.
As a result, a family with an infant was blocked off from accessing the charger and soon called the police on the staff.
Granholm’s trip underlined the obstacles that many EV owners face while driving long distances: the inconvenient wait that comes with juicing up the vehicle, the difficulty of planning ahead to find a charger before batteries run dry, and the challenge of finding chargers that are compatible or even work.
These hurdles make up the foundation of the GOP’s criticisms of electric vehicles, along with calling attention to the higher sticker prices of EVs than traditional internal combustion engines.
Democrats aimed to address these concerns with billions of dollars in investment through their party-line climate bill and a bipartisan infrastructure bill.
Still, House Republicans aren’t the only ones that are highlighting the mishaps of the trip.
During a Senate GOP weekly press conference earlier this month, leadership poked fun at the snags the energy secretary faced while driving her EV.
You can't make this stuff up.
If @SecGranholm can’t get from Charlotte to Memphis in an EV without incident, how does she expect to transition our MILITARY to an all-electric nontactical fleet by 2030?
Let’s call this radical, greenie push what it is – a road to nowhere! pic.twitter.com/d6S57W5Ht9
— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) September 12, 2023
“You can’t make this stuff up. … If the Biden administration can’t make it from Charlotte to Memphis without an incident, then how do we expect that all of our nontactical military fleet is going to get transitioned by the year 2030 without having big issues?” said Republican Policy Committee Chairwoman Joni Ernst (R-IA).
Read rest at Examiner
Everything this woman does is a joke. She nearly destroyed my beautiful and prosperous state of Michigan…she is worthless…
Unfortunately your current governor, Witless Whitmer, is just as bad.
Patton concluded that “the two-and-a-half truck is our most valuable weapon,”…
WW2, “The Red Ball Express”. Look it up, it’s a great story. From Wikipedia: “At its peak, it operated 5,958 vehicles and carried about 12,500 tons of supplies per day.”
Then think in terms of finding a charging point.
The true believers have made a big mistake by demanding battery power only. A plug in hybrid is the solution, but they insist on no fossil fuel back up.
Granholm’s follies exposed the likelihood that VIP’s will go to the head of the line at charging stations. I read a news article this morning about a woman that couldn’t charge her EV because the charger blocked her credit card. There were several there that were for government use only. Government cards only. 4 fast charging stations at $150,000 each, but no juice for you, peon.
I have said many times in various forums that the Plug-in Hybrids are a good solution but for a different reason than “eliminating” CO2. Most driving in cities is commuting to work, shopping and other such activities. These add the most pollution (not CO2) in cities but are generally short distance driving. So if they were in EV mode for those drives while having an ICE for longer distances which are outside city centers and also burn the most efficiently (not stop and go) this is a win-win. And a big cost saving on consumers as well as needing a huge Charging Station infrastructure out in the middle of nowhere.
I have been seeing some Plug-in Hybrid commercials on TV but haven’t caught what company is touting this. My wife and I each have Hybrids which get 45-50 MPG but would consider replacing one of them with a Plug-in Hybrid for our driving around the city.
Note that Granholm’s electric vehicle road trip included a gasoline powered vehicle that was use to block access to a charging station. If Granholm was so confident in the electric vehicles, why did her caravan include a fossil fuel car?
Could it be that she isn’t confident that the EVs would be able to get them to the next destination. One thing she had her people do (she wouldn’t deign to do the work herself) is map out where there were fast chargers at a distance well within the range of the EV with the least range.
Another issue brought up in the article is the incompatibility between EVs and the charging stations–not all are created equal for compatibility. Kinda reminds me of all the different charger connections for our phones and other electronic devices. Apple has their own connections that are not compatible with USB or now USB-C. I’ve got four different charger connections depending on the device and it’s a pain. But at least my problem won’t cause me to be stuck in nowhere land with a dead EV battery.
Newsflash Greta Thunberg is getting EV a Nissan Leaf