Recently, Spiked political writer Brendan O’Neill slammed those pushing electric vehicles for their “classist war” on cars. But the dirty little secret about electric vehicles (EVs) is that they aren’t just snooty and elitist, they also have a particular purpose. And that purpose is to drive all Americans — not just the poor — out of even owning a vehicle in the first place.
Of course, despite the super optimistic proclamations about EVs, they just aren’t ready to replace gas-powered cars. They are super expensive, costly to repair, they can’t be relied on for long trips, they are difficult to charge out on the road, and they are no in any way, shape, or form as “green” as EV lovers think.
Government operatives and climate change religionists know all this, especially the lack of green bona fides of EVs.
But they don’t care. Not even a little.
Why? Why are they more than happy to play along with the lies about how wonderful EVs are?
Because, simply put, EVs are the first step in totally eliminating the privately owned car and taking away American freedoms.
Spiked’s O’Neill pegged some of this disdain for cars to the “bourgeois left.”
He writes:
As for cars – nothing gets up the noses of the eco-orthodox middle classes as much as the sight of these four-wheeled machines trundling through their neighbourhoods. Motorphobia is rife among the bourgeois left. As cars ‘clog our streets’, we are ‘struggling to breathe’, cries a writer for the Guardian, conjuring up a beautiful image of metropolitan types going about like Edwardian ladies, a hanky at the nose to protect them from the fumes of the little people’s vehicles. ‘Get rid of your car’, barks one of the Guardian’s environment correspondents. Governments have got to wise up to the eco-calamity that will befall mankind if cars are not ‘removed from the street altogether’, he says.
The motorphobes might finally be getting their way. These high-status citizens who cannot comprehend why everyone doesn’t do what they do – work from home, cycle to the artisan baker for some organic rye, only drive a car when it’s absolutely essential during the summer jaunt in Tuscany – might finally see their streets ‘unclogged’ of the masses’ beastly automobiles. Across England, policies are being introduced to discourage, or outright render impossible, the driving of cars in local areas. From Low Traffic Neighbourhoods to ‘15-minute cities’, from ugly bollards to gates that only allow public buses to pass through, the car is being ground to a halt. We cannot let the liberty of driving be snuffed out so cavalierly, and undemocratically.
O’Neill is certainly right that the bourgeois left do hate gas-powered cars. But it is more than just snooty elitism.
EV lovers aren’t being pushed to help Americans enter a new era of technology, they aren’t being pushed to save money, and they aren’t being pushed to give us a new convenience, nor are they being pushed to stop climate change.
They are being pushed for two reasons.
First, they are being pushed to destroy the gasoline/fossil fuels industry. But that is a side-benefit.
The biggest end goal is to drive Americans away from owning their own car. And not just gas-powered cars, but any kind of car.
EV pushers know that there aren’t enough raw materials on earth to engage in the ongoing manufacture of the needed number of batteries to maintain car sales as they have been in the past. If all we have is EVs available, the number of cars out there ready to buy will be but a tiny number compared to what is sold today. There is no physical way to manufacture enough EVs to replace all working gas-powered cars.
Then there is the insufficient power grid. The lack of power in the electric grid for every home to have a charging station is already well understood by the powers that be. But they are keeping it as quiet as they can.
Then there is the impact they will have on the used car market. In fact, EVs will put an end the used car market. Firstly, remember that an EV battery costs car owners between $5,000 and $40,000 (depending on the model car) to replace thee battery. And these batteries only last between 15 and 25 years. That means that used EVs will just about be ready for a replacement around the time they will be going on the secondary market.
Therefore, middle and lower income people will quickly find that isn’t worth paying up to $15K for a used EV that will cost them up to $20K to replace the battery within a short time after buying the thing. And that is IF they can even get a battery to replace it with. If EVs become pervasive, the poor and lower middle class will not be able to afford a car. And that is exactly what Democrats want. On top of that, the batteries can’t come down in price like most tech because of the scarcity of the rare earth materials they are made of.
They KNOW all this, of course. It is not a mystery.
They understand this all full well. And it is a feature, not a problem.
The point is, Democrats and leftists do not WANT you to own a car at all. That is the point.
The dystopian fever dream of leftists is to drive people out of suburbs and rural areas and into mega cities where they control all. And in that case, there is no need for cars, they claim, because public transportation will be there to “help” us get around.
But to realize this socialist utopia, they need a way to get rid of cars. And so, electric cars achieve the following goals: making both new and used cars prohibitively expensive for the average American, limiting manufacturing numbers, and forcing people to give up the dream of owning a car because there aren’t many out there and they are too expensive anyway.
But wait, you may say, we’ll still have freedom of movement with EVs, won’t we?
Yes, but it won’t last. Since the greenies and Democrats are fully aware that EVs are even more hazardous to the environment than regular cars, EVs will soon enough be outlawed, too. And it will be far easier to outlaw EVs after only the rich have them and 90 percent of Americans have been forced out of owning a car. Taking a few hundred thousand cars away from cloistered rich people will be easier than taking them away from millions of people spread all across the country, after all.
Don’t be fooled. Don’t buy and EV and help them perpetrate this on America.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston
