Who Makes The Big Policy Directions For Societies?
I drive a beat up 2009 Prius. I ordered a Tesla a few years ago but that’s when I became aware of who and what Elon Musk is. So I kept the Prius. I’m so glad I did— the Tesla seems like a pile of junk and people I’ve met who have worked at the factory assembling them have confirmed that over and over. Sometimes I wonder if I should still be driving at all. I’m 76; when do you just stop and not renew your license? It’s such a car culture city, L.A. Without a car, you’re so isolated. Bad city planning decisions were made long ago, courtesy of the auto and oil industries.
Hard to believe today but L.A.’s streetcar system, operated primarily by the Pacific Electric Railway Company, was once one of the largest and most extensive in the world. It connected neighborhoods across town and the surrounding areas, facilitating convenient and efficient travel for residents, a far cry from the horrific public transport system in L.A. in the last few decades. The decline of public transportation in Los Angeles began in the mid-20th century, and it was very much a corruption-based political decision with a concerted effort by various interest groups, particularly automobile manufacturers and oil companies, to promote car usage over public transportation, understanding that the expansion of freeways and the proliferation of automobiles was an extremely lucrative opportunity.
They actively “lobbied” for policies and investments that favored car ownership and usage. A notorious example is the General Motors streetcar conspiracy, which involved GM, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum and Mack Trucks, purchasing streetcar systems in L.A., Baltimore, St. Louis, Jacksonville, and Oakland and then systematically dismantling them, eliminating competition for the automobile industry and ensuring that cities would become reliant on cars for transportation. The collusion between automobile and oil interests with easily corrupted politicians stunk to high heaven, leading to a defunding and dismantling of the streetcar lines while governments simultaneously invested heavily in freeway construction.
Yesterday, Zoë Schlanger took a look at the differences in car policies between Biden and Señor Trumpanzee. “The Biden administration,” she wrote, “earlier today issued a major new rule intended to spur the country’s electric-vehicle industry and slash future sales of new gas-powered cars. The rule is not a ban on gas cars, nor does it mandate electric-vehicle sales. It is a new emissions standard, requiring automakers to cut the average carbon emission of their fleets by nearly 50 percent by 2032. This would speed up the transformation of the car industry: The simplest way for automakers to cut emissions will likely be to shift more of their fleets to electric and hybrid models, and the Biden administration estimates that the rule would result in electric vehicles making up as much as half of all new cars sold by 2032. It also gives the country more of a chance of meeting the administration’s goal of cutting U.S. emissions in half by 2030 and eliminating them by 2050. The final rule is a less stringent version of a proposal from last spring, reflecting concessions to the United Auto Workers union that give car companies more leeway in the first three years after it takes effect in 2027.”
The slow-moving House immediately sprang into action. passing a resolution by Dan Newhouse (R-WA), H.Res 987: “Denouncing the harmful, anti-American energy policies of the Biden administration.” Every Republican + 4 Blue Dogs— Mary Peltola (AK), Marie Perez (WA), Vicente Gonzalez (TX) and Don Davis (NC)— voted for it. It was adopted 217-200.
Schlanger noted that “Tailpipe emissions are an issue not only for the climate: Breathing the soot from car tailpipes is a major health hazard, leading to tens of thousands of premature deaths in the U.S. per year, and the EPA estimates that the rule will cut noxious air pollution enough to provide some $13 billion in annual health benefits. But this rule, outlining a particular version of the country’s automotive future, has arrived just as Republicans are trying to create a wedge issue out of electric vehicles as a signature Biden climate effort. The loudest opponent has been Donald Trump, who over the weekend used the word bloodbath in a tirade against electric vehicles and is sure to make a big deal of the Biden administration’s new rule. What cars Americans will drive eight years from now could easily become the major climate issue in this year’s presidential election. Even with the rule, plenty of people in the U.S. will still be driving gas cars in 2032, and for a long time after. The average car on the road is more than 12 years old. A gas car someone buys today could still be chugging along in 2036; a gas car someone buys in 2032 could still be zooming down the highway in 2044, when Biden would be 101, and Trump 97—assuming either of them are still alive. And of course no consumer would be made to give up their existing gas cars or even avoid purchasing new gas ones, should they want to.”
The point, of course, is that “decisions made now about the future of electric vehicles have consequences that Americans will be feeling for more than a decade. Cars and other forms of transit are responsible for the largest share of the U.S.’s planet-warming emissions. And with global warming accelerating at a pace that has climate scientists concerned about the planet entering uncharted climatic territory, the trajectory of transit emissions in the U.S. relates directly to how habitable the planet remains in future decades. The same is true, of course, of all efforts by the federal government to curb climate change, each of which are threatened by a potential second Trump term.”
The Biden administration’s new EV rule would accelerate a transition to electric vehicles that, by all counts, is already happening. Globally, EVs are set to surpass two-thirds of car sales by 2030, per analysis by energy nonprofit RMI. In the U.S., in part thanks to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, EVs are also trending up: The sector took 10 years to sell the first million electric vehicles in this country. It took two years after that to sell the second million and, last year, reached a new breakthrough pace—1 million EVs sold in a single year. EVs now make up some 9 percent of new U.S. car sales, and sales are still on the rise. But that growth has begun to slow slightly. More Americans drive EVs than ever before, but we are still far from being a nation enthusiastic about or equipped for a plug-in future. Car companies that not so long ago rolled out big-eyed EV plans are now rolling them back a bit.
In Republicans’ framing, though, electrical vehicles are an existential threat to the American car industry, most particularly because they are a stand-in for economic competition with China. Trump, in his remarks on electric vehicles over the weekend, falsely claimed that “they’re all made in China,” and claimed that Biden “ordered a hit job on Michigan manufacturing” by way of rules that incentivize the purchase of electric vehicles. He warned that China would soon try to sell EVs in the U.S., then promised to put a “100 percent tariff” on each car imported to the United States.
Existing tariffs have prevented Chinese EVs from taking over the U.S. market so far. They do pose a threat to American carmakers’ current offerings, should they ever make it here: One expert in the Netherlands recently told The Atlantic that “Chinese consumers are the luckiest EV buyers in the world,” because of the range of EVs available there. But competition has advantages, too: The threat of incredibly cheap Chinese EVs— some slick models are even in the sub-$10,000 range— has major U.S. automakers such as Ford and Stellantis (Chrysler’s parent company) openly talking about how they need to push innovation faster to keep up. (The Chinese electric-vehicle titan BYD, which offers its “Seagull” hatchback at roughly $9,700, recently surpassed Tesla to top global EV sales.) As I’ve written before, one of the dangers of Trump’s stance on climate change is that it will delay the U.S.’s advance into the future where new energy and transportation technologies hold the upper hand. Eventually, gas cars will be relics; all we are deciding now is how quickly that future will be ours, and how much climate misery the world should endure in the meantime.
Yesterday Zack Budryk looked into a looming scandal— Trump and Musk related so it’ll probably never be adequately investigated— that could be as consequential and awful for America as the General Motors Street car conspiracy was. You may have noticed in recent days that Señor T has been escalating his moronic rhetoric against electric vehicles (EVs) on the campaign trail. The Orange Menace’s “frequently apocalyptic language around EVs made national news over the weekend,” with Trump saying Biden’s promotion of the vehicles would lead to a “blood bath” in the auto industry and beyond unless Trump is returned to teh White House. His comments were part of patr-for-the-course exaggerated and false anti-EV rhetoric from Trump, who has frequently attacked EVs in Michigan, where he consistently tries “to stoke or exploit autoworker anxieties about whether EVs could cost jobs in the industry.”
Mike Murphy, a Republican political consultant who has been critical of Trump and argued against politicizing electric vehicles, said that the Republican base has been negatively polarized against them, giving Trump— and other former candidates for the party’s presidential nomination, including former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley— an incentive to attack the vehicles during the GOP primary.
“EVs have become politically loaded among Republicans, so if you’re looking at a Republican primary, he’s partially driving that,” Murphy told The Hill. But, he said, such anti-EV invective is likely less appealing to swing voters, particularly if they associate local and state investment with the push for EVs.
Murphy said that according to his research with the EV Politics Project, a research firm he founded to explore partisan divides around EVs, states that have seen heavy EV manufacturing investment comprise about two-thirds of electoral college votes.
…The Biden administration, as part of a broader goal to halve U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade, has worked to promote increased use of EVs through measures including tax credits for the purchase of one. The administration has set a goal of EVs comprising half of new car sales by 2030.
…Biden administration policies that incentivize the purchase of EVs have created an opening with Republican voters who feel ambivalent or positive about the vehicles generally but chafe at the prospect of being compelled to buy one, said Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist based in Arizona.
“If Americans don’t want to switch over en masse to EVs, you need to give the people what they want,” he told The Hill.
Murphy added that research by his organization indicates about 44 percent of Republicans agree with the characterization of EVs as “the future” of vehicles.
“A decent hunk of Republicans do think EVs are coming,” he said, adding that he thinks Trump’s attacks are “a general election mistake.”
He noted, however, that while demand for EVs has grown in recent years, it may be at or nearing a saturation point.
…A potential wild card in Trump’s opposition to EVs is Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose own rhetoric has become increasingly partisan. He called for a “red wave” in November and has promoted numerous conservative figures on Twitter and Trump confirmed a meeting with Musk earlier this month.
Trump acknowledged the two men have “opposing views” on EVs in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, during which he also used uncharacteristically tempered language on the subject, saying, “I’m all for electric cars, but you have to have all the alternatives also.”
As Musk and Trump increasingly see eye to eye politically, the Tesla boss may see an opening to sway Trump on electric cars, said Marson. He noted that Trump came out against a bill that could either force the sale of TikTok or ban the app in the U.S. shortly after a meeting with GOP donor Jeff Yass, who owns a stake in TikTok.
“Elon Musk probably took away something from” that episode, Marson said. “Send a billionaire to buddy up with him and maybe he’ll change his stance.”
If the cash-strapped Trump campaign is willing to triangulate on EVs in exchange for Musk’s support, “that could pay dividends over the next few years,” he added.
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