CV NEWS FEED // The percentage of Americans who say they are in the market for an electric vehicle (EV) has fallen significantly in the past year.
Public sentiment toward EVs has largely soured despite the Biden-Harris administration’s years-long effort to push them as an alternative to gas-powered vehicles.
Some critics have even charged the administration with effectively mandating EVs in the long term via various anti-fossil fuel policies.
Yahoo Finance’s Pras Subramanian this week reported the “consulting firm EY found that only 34% of US consumers plan to purchase an [EV] as their next car.”
“That’s down from 48% in EY’s 2023 survey,” Subramanian noted. He explained that this percentage includes customers who were in the market for partially electric vehicles such as hybrids.
>> MAY: SWING STATE VOTERS OPPOSE BIDEN-HARRIS CRACKDOWN ON GAS VEHICLES <<
The percentage of consumers in the market for fully electric-powered non-hybrid EVs was cut in half over the past year, according to the same source.
Subramanian indicated that per EY’s 2024 survey, “a paltry 11%” customers said they considered purchasing “fully electric vehicles.” By comparison, 22% said they considered buying this subset of EVs in last year’s EY survey.
Subramanian’s report continued:
EY’s survey found that only 24% of respondents felt the limited range of EVs was a top concern, down from 30% a year ago. EY found that only 23% of respondents were concerned about a lack of charging stations, down 11 percentage points from the 34% who were concerned last year.
EY noted another concern was battery replacement costs, though those concerns may be unwarranted. That’s because EV batteries have been shown to have a life expectancy of 12-15 years or longer, which generally outlasts the life of the car.
>> JANUARY: 100 LAWMAKERS TELL BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN TO WITHDRAW EV ‘MANDATE’ <<
Citing a need to combat climate change, the Biden-Harris administration has pursued aggressive policies with the goal of making EVs a majority of the new vehicles sold in the country in less than ten years.
However, the Heritage Foundation’s Diana Furchtgott-Roth noted last year:
Despite subsidies to car manufacturers to make the EVs, and tax credits for drivers to buy the cars, only 7% of new vehicle sales are electric vehicles, compared with Biden’s goal of 60% in 2030 and 66% in 2032.
An April CRC Research poll found that a strong majority (57%) of respondents across seven battleground states opposed Biden-Harris emission standards intended to regulate the presence of traditional gas vehicles.
As CatholicVote reported in May, the poll’s “respondents were equally distributed throughout the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.”
>> JANUARY: CAR RENTAL GIANT SELLS OFF THOUSANDS OF EVs CITING LOW DEMAND <<
In recent weeks, the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has stressed that the candidate does not support a so-called “EV mandate.”
In a piece published late last month, The New York Post’s Victor Nava characterized the sitting vice president’s apparent policy change as “yet another walkback on behalf of the California Democrat and possibly the biggest one of them all.”
Nava wrote:
In a “fact check” email, Harris campaign rapid response director Ammar Moussa dismissed claims made by former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), about the veep’s readiness to “force every American to own an electric vehicle.”
“FACT: Vice President Harris does not support an electric vehicle mandate,” Moussa wrote.
…
What the “fact check” leaves out is that Harris, 59, co-sponsored legislation in April 2019 that sought to ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2040.
The Harris-Walz campaign’s “A New Way Forward” policy platform, released on Monday, does not mention a stance on EVs. However, it states that, if elected president, Harris would “unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis.”
>> NOVEMBER 2023: THOUSANDS OF CAR DEALERS CONFRONT BIDEN-HARRIS EV ‘MANDATE’ <<
During a Monday CNN appearance, Axios National Political Reporter Alex Thompson said that he asked Harris’ campaign last week if she “would sign a bill she co-sponsored in 2019 [in the Senate] that basically mandated automakers to only make electric vehicles by 2035, 2040.”
“And, it took six days for me to get an answer,” Thompson told CNN hostess Brianna Kielar. “And the answer at the end of those six days was ‘No comment.’”
Also during the segment, Keilar pointed out that some of Harris’ “own staffers are not sure where she stands on a range of issues.”
Thompson continued: “This is sort of an aspect of what some people in the Democrat party have told me is like the ‘Frankenstein campaign’ … it’s part Obama staffers, part Biden staffers and part her team.”
“And it’s really sometimes unclear sometimes who’s in charge,” he added, “and also, a lot of those people don’t have extensive knowledge of the candidate they’re now working for.”
