The Morning Rant: The Biggest Boondoggle In History?

The maniacal push for total conversion of our transportation network to EVs is part of the now-discredited and equally insane Global Warming/Climate Change power and money grab. At its heart it is two things: the first is raw, naked power. The elites want to control us, and transportation is a huge part of the modern world. The second is the degradation of our standard of living. EVs are inherently shorter range, more expensive, and more difficult to recharge on the go, so that will keep us closer to home...that mythical 15 minute city!

Sounds like socialism to me, because it is. And like socialism, it is failing because of that pesky little thing that guides civilizations' economic decisions....the market. Or Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand," which is merely the sum of all of the billions of individual decisions made by us for our own benefit.

But central planning, one of the tenets of power-mad socialists, ignores those individuals and instead decides what demand for goods should be. For economics geeks there is even a law -- Say’s Law -- that suggests that supply can drive demand. But real-world evidence says that is mostly incorrect, and the socialists don't understand that law anyway.

So the mad push for EVs by automobile companies assumed that if they built those cars, no matter how expensive and inconvenient and dangerous (Lithium battery fires for the win!) they are, American consumers would buy them because...uh...reasons!

Those "reasons" can be distilled into one thing...worship at The Sustainable Organic Church Of The Carbon Apocalypse, which is Buck Throckmorton's brilliant term for the factless faith in EVs, renewable energy, a carbonless future, and unicorns!

Sadly, this hysterical conviction has spread to the C suites of our automobile manufacturers, and they fought the immutable laws of economics for years, until they simply ran out of other people's money...mainly their investors'!

Are EVs The Biggest Boondoggle In Human History?

hen Stellantis last week announced it was writing down $26 billion, the CEO of the car company that now owns Chrysler, Antonio Filosa, said it was “part of a decisive process we started in 2025 to once again make our customers and their preferences our guiding star.”

Which begs the question: What was Stellantis’ guiding star before if not its own customers?

For that matter, who or what has been guiding General Motors (which announced a $7.6 billion writedown last month), Ford ($19.5 billion), and other automakers that’ve written down a total of $140 billion in just the past three years?

Anyone who has followed the auto industry over the past decade knows the answer. All of these losses are the result of automakers chasing the phantom known as “zero emission” cars.

There is some welcome news here. What the experience with the EV debacle shows is that consumers are still in the driver’s seat – no pun intended.

It's simple really. Free markets are successful for exactly that reason, and command economies will always fail because it is almost impossible to predict and guide demand through supply. I say "almost," because of course demand for EVs can be created by destroying the market for alternatives, but that is an economy-crushing behavior, and one that we see being played out in other countries.

Experimenting with people's economic lives rarely turns out well, and America's astounding economic success is a result of mostly avoiding that temptation!

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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