President Obama boasted at a United Auto Workers conference last week that General Motors was back in business, producing cutting-edge vehicles like the plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt. He even promised to buy one when his time in office ends “five years from now.”
Whoops! Just three days later, GM announced that it would suspend Volt production for five weeks this spring, idling 1,300 workers at a Hamtramck, Mich., factory.
Alas, Obama’s endorsements notwithstanding, there’s not much of a market for this little bitty car, at least not at the price of almost $32,000 — after a $7,500 federal tax rebate.
GM fell 2,300 units short of its sales target (10,000) for 2011. It is not on pace to hit 2012’s goal of 45,000 units.
So much for Obama’s goal of 1 million all-electrics and plug-ins on the road by 2015.
A123 Systems, a maker of electric-car batteries that has received $374 million in state and federal loans, announced 125 layoffs last fall. The cause: problems at its main customer, Fisker Automotive, which builds expensive plug-in electric cars. Fisker got a half-billion in loans from the Energy Department, though the money was recently frozen because of the company’s failure to meet production targets.
These events confirm the wasteful folly of allocating capital according to the dictates of politicians, such as when Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., declared in November 2008: “A business model based on gas — a gas-guzzling past — is unacceptable. We need a business model based on cars of the future, and we already know what that future is: the plug-in hybrid electric car.”
The electric vehicle flop also illuminates a point about science — or the politics of science.
Democrats and liberals are fond of calling their conservative and Republican adversaries “anti-science.” To the extent that the right espouses “creation science,” or disputes established facts about environmental degradation, it’s an appropriate label.
But progressives’ fascination with electric cars and other alternative-energy schemes reflects their own refusal to face the practical limitations of alternative energy — limitations that themselves reflect stubborn scientific facts.
Stubborn Scientific Fact No. 1: Petroleum packs a lot of energy per unit of volume. (Each liter contains 34 megajoules.) Consequently, gasoline makes a cheap, portable and convenient motor fuel.
By contrast, even state-of-the-art batteries deliver far less energy than gas, in a far bigger package. A Volt can go 35 miles on a single charge of its 435-pound battery. This sounds like a big deal until you realize that a gas-engine Chevy Cruze gets 42 miles per gallon — and costs half as much as a Volt.
It costs a fortune to pump, refine and ship crude oil. Yet even accounting for all that, gas-powered cars are a better value than electric vehicles and will be for some time. Gas savings on the Volt would take nine years at $5 per gallon to offset its higher price over the Cruze, an Edmunds.com analysis found last month.
Gas consumption creates “negative externalities” — instability in the Middle East, carbon emissions — not fully reflected in its price. But another fact about electric vehicles is that their juice comes from the fossil-fuel-burning grid in the first place.
Oh, and how are you supposed to resell your electric vehicle once you’ve driven it five years and the battery is depleted?
Advocates insist that the government should help them crank up mass production of electric vehicles. Once economies of scale kick in, they argue, electric vehicles can compete.
Four decades after the 1973 oil crisis, this logic is wearing thin. Any company that figured out how to build a practical mass-market electric car would be swimming in cash. That no one has done so suggests we are bumping up against the limits of nature, not just politics or economics.
Certainly the many hundreds of millions of dollars that the U.S. government, GM and GM’s competitors have poured into the effort might have been better spent on more plausible energy-efficiency efforts, such as advanced internal combustion engines.
Instead, Big Government and Big Business have focused on the Volt, the Fisker Karma or the Tesla Roadster, none of which is remotely affordable for the “99 percent” of Americans. And yet in his 2013 budget, Obama proposes to boost the tax credit for electric vehicle buyers to $10,000.
What’s “progressive” about that, I’ll never understand.
CHARLES LANE is a member of The Post editorial page staff.
Comments (30)
Add commenthahahaha
hahahaha. Love that change! More lies and boondoggle from the liar in chief.
Bumping up to the limits of nature?
How do we know?
I'm sure the Wright brothers after only going 120 feet didn't go back and design a 747, which in there world would of been a limit of nature to them.
Pong anyone, the 3 pound cell phone? How about dial up?
You can't solve any problems until you know what they are.
The higher the tech the more difficult, granted, but if this immediate gratification attitude had always been prevalent where would we be?
the 60 watt auto.
$10,000.00 tax credit? We’re bumping into the limits of O’Bama’s limited intelligence.
Same old, same old...come back to this in 10 years
It was not that long ago that Lane and others of little scientific knowledge or faith were proclaiming the folly of hybrid cars. Today you see the Prius all over the place. And many others, Ford is now using the exact same hyrbid technology that Toyota jumped on with such success.
They also said the hyrbrids would not last, or their batteries would need to be replaced well before the life of the car is used up, at a high cost.
Many are now driving their Prius and other hybrids for well over 100k, I know someone who's pushing 200K and the car and batteries are still going strong.
Today, right here in MN, businesses that one would think are not in the mindset to lose $$ are sinking large amounts of capitol into a fleet of vehicles running primarily on natural gas.
hey painless,
"Pong anyone, the 3 pound cell phone? How about dial up?
You can't solve any problems until you know what they are."
The first three items you mentioned (and their evolution) were the result of FREE ENTERPRISE, not government dictate.
And last, we know what the problem is, epecially in this case: it IS the government.
And to RINO, this article is about electric hybrids. Now, natural gas, that's something else althogether.
But don't try to sell us that the same forces behind government mandated electric cars also support natural gas vehicles, because they don't. Natual gas is a by-product of oil wells, and we all know how oabma feels about oil...
lildrummer
Then don't cry to the government and scream Obama isn't doing anything about gas prices. I'm seeing this as one of the rallying cries about how he's failed now.
When gas is $10 a gallon its just free enterprise.
Just like the REA, it jumpstarted a to expensive proposition by backing it to get it off the ground.
Would we have the airline industry we have today if not for the publicly funded airports? How about highways? Without the Government we wouldn't need cars.
How about cleaner air and water.
Our history is littered with instances where the government helped get things started.
gas prices went down today
At my station...10 cents! Since some want to blame the President when they go up, can we now credit him when they come down?
did you credit bush when it went back below $2?
If he gets it back to $2.50, which he wont because his green energy agenda demands $5 gas, I will give him some credit.
But until he is gone, the gas price is only going to continue the upward swing. A whole 10 cents after a nearly $2 increase since he took office, WOW!
I believe he said, "Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket."
Oh definitely,
we were all delighted when the economy tanked and the demand for gasoline with it.
The demand
was still there for the working people and it really hurt them. I suppose that doesn't matter to a liberal retired person like you though.
To the Obama lovers, you
To the Obama lovers, you should all call him and tell him what a great man he is for giving half a billion t0 Fiskar! 500 mili0n 0f your tax dollars t0 a car company in Finland, yes Finland, your tax dollars c0mpiment f Barrak im n0t American Obama, went t0 a private car company in Finland, outstanding! Guess all his h0pe and change is in finand
Jobs
It sounds nice the way you put it lamigra but I'll be fair and balanced and tell everyone the rest of this and let them judge for themselves.
They were given a low interest loan to build their second generation electric vehicle in a plant in Delaware, with the design to be done in So. Cal.
Yea it might be risky, but you know what some people have been screaming about.
GOOD PAYING JOBS...
F & B,
you might want to take your concern up with G W Bush and his policies. At the end of his administration we were hemmoraging 800,000 jobs a month and that continued into the first part of the current administration (Gee, Obama couldn't magically turn it around right away). Low gas prices were a result of the downturn in economic activity.
Lamigra-- do you have any idea what you're talking about?
Buuuu, But
Obama promised!
He said he'd fix it in
one year!!!
Care to document that?
I didn't think so.
Good paying jobs? They
Good paying jobs? They created 100 jobs here in the us and created 500 in Finland. Awes0me 0bama y0u have created an actual j0b, t0 bad it c0st the American tax payers 563 milli0n f0r y0u t0 create 500 jobs in Finand You do realize giving money out hand over fist doesn't ''create'' jobs. And are y0u aware after they received the m0ney the few cars that have been built have been built in Finand, UK, and a few assembled here as they said there was n0 pe0pe here in the US that c0ud d0 the w0rk, nice try When will my Gov invest in American companies? Why does our tax dollars always seem to be relocated over seas? If you think all that money stayed here in the US your as blind as the rest of the Dems. So blind to their own ignorance, Obama shelled out half a billion to Solindra, and many others ''green'' energy private companies, all have failed. Tel me h0w $500 plus million d0llars t0 Fiskar wh0s cars all sell f0r 0ver $100k helps %99 0f pe0pe wh0 cant even c0me c0se t0 0wening 0ne? An0ther 0bama fail, at what time d the binders c0me 0ff DEMS?
Cheyenne do you?
Cheyenne do you?
The Blaze
You must have read the Blaze's version of this. The only money loaned to them, which is only guaranteed by us and must only be spent in the US, by the way, for the first generation car, built in Finland, is to American suppliers like Goodyear for tires, GM for the gasoline motors, the brakes and a couple others. They have 650 people working at the So. Cal facility right now. The 100 jobs you are talking about are in Del. tooling the plant for the second generation car. I did see they recently had to layoff 26 in Del., due to what I don't know?
Like I said it is risky, but if it pans out we could get thousands of jobs from this without actually paying out a nickel. I'd rather see this than some of the crap we actually do spend money on.
Fiskars has been in business a long time. Cars have been around a long time. Solyndra was a completely new company.
Electric cars and bankrupt energy policies
Electric cars dominated in the early days of the auto industry. They disappeared quickly with the Model T and the electric starter for gasoline cars. Electric cars haven't been worth much since. The subsidy to their buyers is simply taking from the rest of us to give to the rich. It's just one example of the more or less bankrupt energy policies of my Democratic Party as they relate to ethanol, wind, and solar.
Rolf W.
The fact remains Rolf,
the alternative energy industry continues to create jobs (too bad our policies aren't more supportive of solar where the Chinese continue to dominate our market). Every new solar panel, wind generator, etc means more energy self-sufficiency and less dependence on foreign energy sources. With the rising demand for oil by nations like China and India, the cost and price will continue to rise. At what point does it become prohibitively expensive? And there's always the possibility that our access to oil will be limited due to geo-political considerations. It would be nice to at least have an alternative energy infrastructure started.
cheyenne says...
"the alternative energy industry continues to create jobs "
At the tax payers expense. How many tax payer dollars have been wasted on worthless green energy efforts again? How many Obummer cronies have had their pockets well lined with greenbacks only to have their businesses go bankrupt under the tax payer tab?
Thats right, its Bush's fault for Obama failed policies and plans.
Our nation has a long history of government-business partnership
via grants, subsidies and tax credits (sometimes referred to as corporate welfare). The canals of early America and the national highway system under Eisenhower come immediately to mind (and yeah, they cost taxpayers money). Oil subsidies still exist for the major oil companies despite its being a 'mature' and profitable industry. It's been estimated that eliminating ALL tax credits, etc in the tax code, most of which benefit already existing (mature) industries, would add a trillion or so in govt revenues. Whether green energy has a future or not is really a matter of opinion and policy (govt-business partnerships).
" green " electric cars
everyone goes back and forth on electric versus gas, and in the grand scheme of things looking at where the energy comes from gasoline vehicles are less costly and less damaging to the environment, then you bring in the hybrid which in many cases is a great alternitive if you live and work in a metropolitan area, on the higway the benifit is limited at best, there are old tech vehicles that do much better on milage than a hybrid ( e.g. vw jetta tdi's 50mpg) that being said there are new technologies out there that are currently being used that need some tweaking that could become cheaper as well as more environmently freindly than what we are currently concentrating on, cng (compressed natural gas), methane, hydrogen, and propane are some examples of this, propane tech has been around the longest, cng and methane have been used effectivly in public transit for 10+ years and all three fuels can be used in current technology internal combustion engines with minor conversions, the government complains about fuel milage on gasoline so they push ethonol, which on the surface sounds like a great alternative but when you look at the cost vs benifit it is not much cheaper than regular unleded but the fuel milage is cut in half, with no savings on emitions hydrogen looks like the best out of them all if production and delivery could be figured out so it was cost effective, in the end there is a long road ahead of us and until we can make something work effectively we need to stop fighting about the little thing and get govenment out of the waycompanies like solindra and others may have had had a chance if the government that gave them a handout with the left hand would have kept from punching with the right
sorry, cheyenne
New solar panels and wind turbines don't do zilch. together they were about one percent of our total energy supply in 2011. And those wind turbines required back up natuiral gas plants to run in very inefficient start and stop mode. that wastes fuel and sends up more GHGs.
And a study in Spain showed that for each new subsidized 'green job', two jobs were lost in energy using industries. Many fled to France for its low cost nuclear power.
At this point solar, wind, and corn ethanol are all subsidized scams.
The EIA has released numbers on subsidies per unit of energy produced. Solar is the champ getting $63 per barrel of energy; wind gets $32.59; and oil and gas get $0.28 cents.
REW
Blame for green energy fiasco
This time I'll agree with idwd. We can't blame this one on Bush, although he did have switch grass dreams. President Obama and legislator Democrats are doing this one all by themselves.
Again Rolf,
the industry is in its infancy. One might expect a mature industry like oil to be more efficient. Is it possible that via advances in technology, some of the problems and inefficiencies might be improved? What're we gonna do, big boy, when oil is no longer available for one reason or another?
What're we gonna do, big boy, when oil is no longer available?
We will electrify most transportation with power from natural gas, nuclear, and hydro. High efficiency hybrid and diesel cars will also be important. Solar is a good possibility for power if nano technology panels succeed. Oil should be used more for the hundreds of products made from petroleum feed stocks.
No thanks for the 'big boy' since I am trying to diet.
I'll agree for the time
I'll agree for the time being.
Mature/efficiency in the Oil Bidness?
Is this like when some temporary small supply interuption in a far-flung location--whose effect wouldnt' be felt here for months--results in a sharp price rise at our gas pumps--overnight?
The problem with a lot of the anti-government involvment folks is that they assume todays demand and it's answer by industry will fully meet every need out there. The problem is, that demand is skewed by lack of reality. We want cheap gas and the ability to drive as much as we want, in as poor mileage cars as we want, and we want no talk of more efficient vehicles.
The downturn in the economy was nothing compared to the looming future threats.
Corporations respond to today's investors today.
Manufacturers respond to todays demands today.
Neither are as likely to forecast into the future and take risks with their company's health or their shareholders wealth as they might have been in past decades. Investors are too knowledgeable and too mobile with their $$ these days.
One of the duties of government is to plan for the future.
Incentives that help develop technology which improves efficiency, decrease reliance on declining/risky foreign fuels (and the costly wars that seem to go along with them), and develop good jobs in new technology growth industries--are a great thing. We CAN'T count on companies to do this on their own. The multiple failures of car companies in this regard ought to be evidence enough of that!
I would agree there is a point where support of new technology must end. Due only to POLITICS, we seem to have a problem in that regard. Case in point--the ethanol subsidies and the massive oil industry subsidies.