Hooray for electric vehicles. Someday, they’re going to help slash carbon emissions and get global warming under control.
Getting there, however, is not likely to be an effortless glide on gleaming blacktop. This is going to be a bumpy road, and the faster we go, the bumpier it’s going to get. Get ready to surround yourself with airbags. And get a helmet, maybe.
The Biden administration is reportedly set to boost fuel-efficiency standards in a way meant to dramatically speed the adoption of electric vehicles, or EVs. The New York Times reports that the goal is to boost EVs from less than 6% of new-car purchases today to nearly 70% by 2032.
One way to do that through regulatory power would be to crank up the fuel-efficiency standards automakers must meet. The current rules require automakers to average 49 miles per gallon (MPG) per vehicle, across their fleets, by 2026. Raising that to 60 or even 70 MPG would leave no choice but to rapidly roll out EVs. The Environmental Protection Agency is due to spell out its approach on April 12.
The key fact here is that it’s nearly impossible to make gasoline-powered cars more efficient than they already are. After 100-plus years of innovation on the internal-combustion engine, we’re far down the curve of diminishing returns.
But EVs are a step-change in efficiency, at least the way the government measures it. Most EVs average more than 100 MPG-equivalent, a measure that equates electrical power with what a gas engine produces. The thrifty Honda Civic, by contrast, averages just 35 MPG. So if Honda built more gas-powered Civics, it would actually harm the automaker’s fleet-wide fuel-economy. More hybrids, with both a gas engine and a battery, would barely help. The only way to reach a lofty new federal MPG requirement will be with electrics.
The goal is laudable. The implementation, however, could be a multi-car pileup. It’s hard to think of an era of forced technology adoption anything like what Biden supposedly has in mind. The government has been tightening fuel-economy standards since the 1970s, but that has largely been a gradual process. Even then, unintended consequences have caused unforeseen problems.
The adoption of federal mileage requirements in the 1970s, in response to the Middle East oil shocks, was supposed to force automakers to build more efficient cars that burned less gas. That did happen. But other things happened that weren’t supposed to. For one, automakers began to build more vehicles that qualified as “light trucks” rather than passenger cars, because those were subject to looser efficiency rules. That’s how the roads ended up clogged with giant SUVs that get worse mileage than many cars from the 1970s. While trying to drive efficiency, the government inadvertently created an incentive to make bigger vehicles, as well.
To make care more efficient, automakers made them lighter. That made them less survivable in crashes and probably caused more highway deaths. Economists also discovered something they dubbed the “rebound effect,” in which drivers saving money from more-efficient cars end up driving more, with their cars therefore emitting more. Some two- or multi-car families that own one efficient car even buy a gas-guzzler as a kind of treat for themselves, figuring they’re already doing their share by owning the fuel-sipper.
What could the unintended consequences of hyperactive EV adoption be? There are a couple of obvious guesses. One is that charging networks won’t keep up with demand. There’s already a shortage of charging stations outside the big coastal cities, plus even the fastest charging can take 20 to 30 minutes. Who wants to be fifth in line for the only supercharger available between St. Louis and Denver?
There could also be shortages of minerals needed for EV batteries, such as cobalt, lithium, manganese, and nickel. Even if this doesn’t cause a shortage of vehicles, it could push prices up.
EVs may not even be the ultimate climate solution. Since they charge from the electrical grid, they’re only “clean” if the energy used to produce the electricity is also clean. Right now, about 22% of all electricity in the United States comes from renewables and that is forecast to rise steadily—but not to 100% any time soon. The same permitting barriers that block oil and gas pipelines stand in the way of new high-voltage transmission lines and other types of green energy infrastructure. It’s possible hydrogen fuel cells or some other technology will be a better solution in the long run, and we’ll need yet another fueling infrastructure.
Then there’s the possibility—perhaps likelihood—that a future presidential administration will reverse Biden’s moves. That’s been happening for a decade. President Obama tried to ramp up fuel-economy rules, then President Trump reversed the Obama moves, then Biden reversed the Trump moves and went further than Obama. Will the next president keep the green-energy revolution on cruise control or shift gears?
As turbulent as the green-energy transition is likely to be, there are some trusty ground rules for consumers. If you rely on one car and occasionally make long trips, you should either hold off buying an EV or make sure there are plenty of chargers wherever you’re likely to go. If you have more than one car and one of them is a commuter, an EV might be a great choice, if you can charge at home and are unlikely to need the electric for a road trip. If you want to be part of the revolution and don’t mind being inconvenienced, then get an EV and always keep some engaging reading material in your car, in case charge-ups go long.
Finally, nobody should feel left out or guilt-ridden for holding onto that dear old gas-powered car or buying one in the future. Internal-combustion vehicles are reliable, terrifically convenient, and cheap if you shop prudently. You can buy just as much horsepower as you need—no more—and mature supply chains probably mean you won’t be unwittingly paying for blood minerals. In fact, if you can keep a gas-powered car in the stable until the green-energy revolution is over, you probably won’t regret it.