EV's Or Else

EV mandates may be coming soon to a car near you:

Much of the problem has to do with pricing. EVs are roughly 50% more expensive in the UK than gas or diesel-powered and hybrid cars. But there’s also an issue of practicality; EVs aren’t feasible for British households that can’t park their cars off the street, which is a third of houses in the UK. EVs are generally bulkier, which makes them less attractive to buyers as well. This is driving some manufacturers to partner with Chinese companies for dirt-cheap EVs. Other manufacturers are feeling the crunch of having to make sales quotas for the year or face the dreaded fines. Clark writes:

Now the crunch has come, as it was always likely to do in the autumn: car-makers are getting to the point at which they can’t afford to sell many more petrol, diesel or hybrid models this year without risking running into those punitive £15,000 fines. Hence the efforts to push sales into next year. But that will only buy a temporary stay of execution, because next year manufacturers will have to ensure that 28 per cent of vehicles they sell are BEVs – and the proportion rises to 80 per cent by 2030 (or quite possibly 100 per cent if Labour returns to an all-out ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and adds hybrids to the banned list too). If you have pre-sold much of next year’s petrol and diesel quote in advance, life is going to be even more difficult next year.

At the same time, buyers are having a hard time getting their hands on the cars they want. The wait time for some gas, diesel, and hybrid vehicles is stretching well into next year. This is a scenario we could see here in the States if Kamala Harris wins the election. She may have said she doesn’t support EV mandates during the campaign, but that doesn’t mean she won’t go back on her word if she wins. We also know how the Democrats love to push executive orders that make our lives less convenient and affordable, so EVs could be next.

Inconvenience is what the government does best...