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evs
Biden’s Trade War on Chinese EVs Undermines His Climate Goals
EV prices have come down in recent years, but they’re still unaffordable for the majority of Americans; too bad they can’t access China’s new BYD Seagull.
Apr 24, 2024
It might seem like there’s never been a better time to buy an electric vehicle.
If you go by the headlines, you might be forgiven for thinking you can afford to upgrade your old gas-guzzling sedan with a sleek new zero-emissions EV. And if you can’t, government rebates will knock thousands off the price tag, right?
Well, not necessarily.
To qualify for the ever-changing and complicated federal $7,500 rebate on EVs, you have to be rich enough to afford a new EV. (Some used models qualify, but good luck figuring out which ones—and better luck finding one that’s available).
Forget TikTok—it’s Chinese-made EVs that keep U.S. auto CEOs up at night.
But to qualify for the rebate, you can’t be too rich. If you’re middle-income like me, you can lease an EV, but then you don’t qualify for the rebate—your leasing company does.
EV prices have come down in recent years. But they’re still unaffordable for the majority of Americans, especially those who want to reduce their carbon footprint as well as their expenses. “Pricing is still very much the biggest barrier to electric vehicles,” according to one analyst.
Too bad consumers don’t have access to China’s new EV, the BYD Seagull, a car that test drivers in the U.S. are gushing over—and whose price tag begins at a mere $9,698. “That undercuts the average price of an American EV by more than $50,000,” reports Bloomberg.
In fact, more than 70% of all EVs sold globally are Chinese manufactured. You don’t have to live in China to buy one. You just have to live outside the United States, which is waging a fierce trade war with China.
Forget TikTok—it’s Chinese-made EVs that keep U.S. auto CEOs up at night.
To protect them, the Biden administration is fanning the flames of anti-China sentiment. “China is determined to dominate the future of the auto market, including by using unfair practices,” said President Joe Biden in late February. “China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security.”
This undermines Biden’s own climate goals, which rely on a mass transition to EVs. On top of that, the GOP has made attacking EVs part of its new culture war. It’s no wonder EVs remain out of reach for most Americans.
Why are Chinese cars so much cheaper, more varied, and just better than American ones? It doesn’t all boil down to the cost of labor—Chinese labor costs are not as low as they used to be. China’s government has simply made EVs a massive priority.
The Chinese government “has long played an important role—propping up both the supply of EVs and the demand for them,” explains MIT’s Technology Review. Beijing has offered “generous government subsidies, tax breaks, procurement contracts, and other policy incentives.”
Instead of adopting a similarly aggressive approach, the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) created a complex series of tax credits that require all EV materials and labor to be sourced in the United States.
There are better ways to protect fair labor standards. Fresh from a major union victory in late 2023, the United Auto Workers union won job protections from the three biggest U.S. automakers for workers transitioning into the EV industry.
Vehicles are the single largest source of U.S. carbon emissions. There are many ways to reduce this pollution, including redesigning cities to be more walkable, improving the quality and cost of public transportation and trains, and encouraging bicycle transportation.
All of that will take effort, time, and resources. But the climate clock is ticking fast.
Even when accounting for the mineral extraction needed to make EV batteries, EVs have a far lower carbon footprint than gasoline-powered cars—and are perhaps the most accessible tool we have to quickly reduce our carbon impact. We just need to prioritize making them available.
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EV Charger Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
A Rubio-sponsored bill would have effectively removed requirements to source EV chargers from U.S. manufacturers—though Rubio would have you believe otherwise.
Mar 02, 2024
Recently, the U.S. Congress passed a wildly misrepresented measure related to making electric vehicle, or EV, chargers in the United States. While the bill’s sponsors and supporters pitched the measure as protecting manufacturing workers in the United States, the effort would have effectively removed requirements that EV chargers purchased with federal dollars be made here.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and the other members of the GOP who backed this effort hoped that misleading rhetoric and outright lies would trick U.S. auto workers and their supporters. But the measure was never about supporting auto workers, it was about jeopardizing and slowing the transition to clean vehicles at their expense. Workers deserve more respect than that.
President Joe Biden cut through this façade and put workers first by quickly vetoing the bill. But this isn’t the first—and won’t be the last—time that the GOP tries to co-opt the fight for workers’ rights to advance its own agenda.
Many of these lies to workers are based on the same premise: Investing in the clean economy somehow means sending all our jobs and money to China—no matter how we do it.
We live in strange times. Politicians gleefully vote against bills that will lift up their communities to satisfy their big money donors, while happily cheering clean economy projects funded by the bills they voted against and bragging about investments in the electric vehicle technologies they have fought tooth and nail to derail. They defend U.S. auto manufacturing workers from one side of their mouth, while fighting against the policies that will keep our auto industry competitive in the global market from the other side.
Across the nation, working people are joining together—supported by allies in the environmental movement—to stand up for a better world for themselves, their communities, and for future generations. During its historic Stand Up Strike, the United Auto Workers (UAW) refused to fall for former President Donald Trump’s insincere attempts to court the union, seeing right through his “rally” at a non-union facility. Meanwhile, the UAW concentrated on getting the best deal for their workers and they were able to do just that—right in the face of Trump’s attempts to distract and divide.
Many of these lies to workers are based on the same premise: Investing in the clean economy somehow means sending all our jobs and money to China—no matter how we do it. We know that the opposite is true. Investing in a clean economy is our only shot at keeping jobs here.
The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress have carefully written infrastructure, manufacturing, and clean energy laws that create jobs and investments here in the United States—particularly in low-income and underserved communities. That means these laws will greatly benefit blue AND red states, which is why you see a lot of Republicans running to embrace the very projects they voted against.
Requirements in laws enacted by the Biden administration specifically call for sourcing materials from U.S. manufacturers and building out the U.S. supply chain, which will create good, union jobs across the nation. And yet, the GOP rails against these investment and laws, even voting to repeal them. For example, the Rubio bill mentioned above would have effectively removed requirements to source EV chargers from U.S. manufacturers—though Rubio would have you believe otherwise.
This sort of dishonest rhetoric is only going to ramp up throughout this election year. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it far into the future, but workers in the United States are sick and tired of this dog and pony show. There are real-world impacts from the damaging policies the Republicans are hawking. Politicians should give workers in the United States the respect they deserve and stop with the lies.
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Where Are All the Affordable EVs?
Automakers have solved problems of affordability and engineering before. With the planet at stake, they must do so again.
Jun 20, 2023
The purchase wasn’t in my plans, but when I heard that Chevy will discontinue the most affordable electric vehicle (EV) in the U.S. at the end of the year, I realized I might need to buy a Bolt now or risk having to wait for more affordable EV options.
Every day, I work to advance the transition to zero-emission vehicles and away from polluting, gas-powered cars. I got into this work because of a deep concern about climate change. I’m worried that the already hot summers in the U.S. will become completely unbearable. I’m worried about my mom’s house which sits barely above sea level in California. And I’m worried about the communities who are already facing the brunt of climate impacts. When I learned that transportation is responsible for nearly one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, I knew that I had to work in this space.
When EV demand is booming, automakers should focus on meeting it instead of producing bigger, more costly vehicles.
The auto industry is at an inflection point. Last year, U.S. EV sales rose 65%, and the International Energy Agency predicts that EVs will account for one in every five vehicle sales globally this year. In mid-2022, a survey by AAA found that almost one-third of millennials are likely to buy an electric vehicle as their next car.
That same survey found that the cost of EVs is holding back 60% of respondents from making the switch.
All cars are getting more expensive: the average price of a new car in the United States was over $48,500 in March. The average new EV is $55,500. With the Inflation Reduction Act, American-made EVs are eligible for a $7,500 tax credit, too.
Most available electric vehicles are pricey trucks and SUVs or luxury cars. When EV demand is booming, automakers should focus on meeting it instead of producing bigger, more costly vehicles. Luckily, I know that EVs cut repair and maintenance costs by 50 percent over similar gas cars—but still, their up-front prices are daunting.
The EV I have my eye on, the Chevy Bolt, has a sticker price of $26,500. With tax credits, that drops to $19,000—far less than many gas-powered cars. GM markets the Bolt as “America’s most affordable EV.”
The “replacement” is the Equinox EV, which GM has admitted will come in “above” $30,000. That’s at least a $3,500 difference in sticker price. GM is retooling the Bolt plant to produce bigger electric pickups that fewer people can afford. That’s hardly the behavior of a company making “EVs for Everyone.”
GM is also falling behind on its EV targets, and analysts believe it will miss a goal of 400,000 EV deliveries in North America by 2024. The Bolt drove the company's record-breaking EV sales in the first quarter of this year: GM has delivered two Hummer EVs, 968 Cadillac Lyriqs, and 19,700 Bolts. So why pull the Bolt off the market?
If GM falls short of its production targets and kills the Bolt—a car that’s selling by the thousands every month—it’ll have ripple effects...
If GM falls short of its production targets and kills the Bolt—a car that’s selling by the thousands every month—it’ll have ripple effects that impact consumers into the aftermarket, too. Most Americans buy used cars, and used EVs now have their first federal tax incentive.
I would expect to see other affordable EVs out there, perhaps from Toyota, which captured the millennial market with its eco-friendly Prius 20 years ago. But Toyota has only one electric vehicle for sale in the U.S., the bZ4x, which debuted to mediocre reviews and a high price tag starting at $42,000. Just over 1,000 bZ4x sold in 2022.
Toyota is also fighting the EV transition at every turn. The past two years, Toyota was ranked the automaker with the worst impact on climate policy globally for its lobbying—actions like threatening to cease manufacturing cars in the U.K. if the country didn’t water down its strong clean car rules. Toyota backed off only after a newspaper exposed the threat.
Toyota gained its foothold in the U.S. making affordable, compact cars, while Chevrolet has long been the car of working American families. Since Model Ts started rolling off the assembly line, automakers have found ways to improve manufacturing processes and cut costs.
Car companies are capable of meeting this moment by selling good, affordable EVs. And increasingly, they’ll be required to: The UK, EU, and eight U.S. states have banned the sale of fossil-fueled vehicles by 2035, and more will follow suit.
Automakers have solved problems of affordability and engineering before. They did it with gas-powered cars in the 20th century. Now they need to invest in EVs and produce vehicles that Americans — in particular millennials and Gen-Zers who will be driving for the next 50 years — can actually afford. Our planet requires it, and drivers like me are demanding it.
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