To Counter Blue State EV Mandates, Red States Need To Start Mandating Gas-Powered Cars

The internal combustion engine is the engine of freedom. Gasoline-powered cars with internal combustion engines are the conveyances of liberty. You can drive 1,000 miles in a day if you desire, refueling whenever and wherever you like in a just a matter of minutes. The left wishes to deny you that freedom, and the two biggest blue states, California and New York, have now banned the sale of gas-powered cars by no later than 2035. Only the sale of “emission free” electric vehicles (“EVs”) will be allowed.

It is imperative that Texas, other oil-patch states, and all freedom-loving states (hello Florida) start fighting back. If New York can pass a law mandating that 100% of all new vehicle sales are EVs, then Texas (and Florida, and Tennessee, and Louisiana, etc) can pass laws mandating that no less than xx% - let say 90% hypothetically - of all new vehicle sales in their states must be gas-powered vehicles.

In a sane world, consumers in every state would have the freedom of choice to buy whatever types of cars they want. But sanity has been lost, so a mandate to sell gas-powered cars in red states is necessary to ensure that consumers will still have the choice to buy something other than EVs.

But wait – we conservatives are worshipful about how the market will sort things out. Let Texans buy whatever they want, and if they want gas-powered cars, the market will supply them, right? I used to believe that, but it’s not true anymore. The liberal obsession to terminate driving freedom is unrelenting – they will not pause in their war against gas-powered cars until no one, anywhere, can buy one.

If our “conservative principles” mean that we do nothing in response, the marketplace of major auto manufacturers will take the path of obedience to the left, and they’ll only manufacture EVs. Well, what about start-up auto manufacturers filling the void if legacy manufacturers stop building the gas-powered cars that Texans want? That free market just doesn’t exist anymore.

The cartel of tech utilities, money center banks, government regulators, etc. can and will collude to crush any start-up that defies the corporatist obedience to “the climate crisis.” Lines of credit, ERP software, payment transfer technologies, and so forth would be denied by the cartel of woke capital. Rather than sell their ubiquitous software to a startup auto-manufacturer selling gas-powered cars, companies like Salesforce would more likely be leading the charge to get corporate America to boycott the start-up.

To fight back, what if Texas and Florida were to completely deny market access to major auto manufacturers unless they sell a required percentage of gas-powered cars? (Again, I like 90%.) Those car companies and their suppliers would be forced to find the backbone to stand up to the woke cartel, because those manufacturers – and their suppliers - cannot afford to be shut out of Texas and Florida.

Another principle of responsible state governments is to promote their agricultural and mining products. As you may have heard, Texas produces a heck of a lot of petroleum. So do Oklahoma, Louisiana, and other states. The destruction of the petroleum industry is one of the objectives of the blue state EV obsession. Texas and other petroleum-producing states cannot just sit back and let the Gavin Newsoms of the world destroy their oil and gas industries.

And don’t forget how useless EVs are in a hurricane. If Florida does not protect the right of its citizens to buy gas-powered cars, it will be consigning millions of Floridians to no way to escape from a major hurricane. Florida needs to join the gas-powered vehicle alliance to protect its citizens.

Then there’s the whole grid issue. Texas has already shown with its insane dependency on wind power, that it cannot produce enough electricity during peak demand. California has the same problem with too much demand and too much unreliable energy sourcing. People can’t drive their EVs if they can’t charge them in the first place. Adding millions of electric vehicles to an already overburdened grid would ensure that the days of personal transportation freedom were over. And that is a feature, not a bug, of the EV push.

Texas, Florida, et al must make a stand and mandate that gas-powered cars remain the majority of vehicle sales in their states. And what if somehow the demand just isn’t sufficient for traditional gas-powered cars to meet the mandate? Then auto manufacturers can just keep lowering the price of gas-powered cars until they are selling enough to satisfy the mandate. They’ve had to play that game to make car shoppers buy EVs. If they have to do so to sell cars powered by the engine of freedom, so be it.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 04:30 PM

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