Automakers’ EV Cowardice Is Hurting You And Our World

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This year it has become a trend for major automakers to announce a retreat from ambitious plans to transition to electric vehicles (EVs). While publicly stating the decision is due to limited consumer demand, the reality is that profitability deficits press on upper automotive management. Such reluctance to embrace EVs is a tremendous loss, as internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) cannot deliver the benefits of EVs like clean air, energy security, and lower cost transportation. Automakers’ EV cowardice is holding back the transition to EVs, to the detriment of us all.

ICEVs burn fossil fuels. What happens when the US relies too much on nonrenewable fossil fuels? The results include:

CO2 emission escalation;
environmental pollution;
a drastic change in climate;
depletion in carbon sinks;
mismanagement of waste;
loss of biodiversity; and,
energy production inadequacies.

Renewables, on the other hand, produce low or net zero carbon emissions. Net zero carbon is decarbonization and refers to an environment in which the maximum or corresponding volume of gases is absorbed from a polluted environment via a carbon sink, by employing carbon offsetting strategies and reducing emission means.

The Paris Agreement sets international targets for limiting global warming, with countries committing to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Policy coherence and integration policy includes aligning environmental policies with economic objectivity. Yet mainstreaming sustainability across sectors and harmonizing regional and national policies is tricky. Addressing interconnected environmental challenges can enhance advanced approaches towards achieving net zero carbon emissions by aligning environmental policies with economics.

Such approaches build up local economies, too.

The Debate about EVs vs. ICEVs

What do we already know about gasoline consumption?

The US burns 370 million gallons of gasoline every day.
The US consumption of gasoline is 3 times more than China’s and far more than any other country’s.
Gasoline use causes one-sixth of US carbon emissions.
Gasoline burdens US households to the tune of more than $450 billion a year.
We need to cut gasoline consumption significantly if we are to meet targeted climate goals.

Even with the common knowledge about the negative consequences of gasoline consumption, the US remains sharply divided over EVs. When any new technology enters the marketplace, existing norms need to be broken, and it’s often easier to stay with what has worked, what’s “not broken.” News becomes hype, then controversy, and now, in the case of EVs, politics.

For example, an all-electric world almost necessarily means less business for suppliers. A report from consulting firm PwC found that much less of an EV’s value, 35% to 40%, would come from components from suppliers. More than half of the value of an ICEV comes from supplier components. Michigan’s Community & Worker Economic Transition Office is a work in progress, with the goal to help communities with plant closures and work with suppliers to help them diversify their products. “This could be a really powerful way for us to get out ahead of some of the economic change that’s coming,” Smith told TIME magazine.

That’s a good step, but much more needs to be done. Consumers are persuaded by marketing. The next EV buyer is less wealthy and more practical than the earliest EV adopters, and it would take focused marketing campaigns with explicit lists of EV benefits to get current ICEV drivers to make the switch.

Instead of heeding charged rhetoric, though, it’s important to point out how EVs are, actually, safe, reliable, efficient, clean — and so much more.

EVs don’t emit air and climate pollution we hardly notice as a part of daily ICEV transportation.
The important public health and climate benefits of zero emissions transportation cannot and should not be buried.
National security is stronger whenever we reduce our dependence on global oil.
EVs reduce consumer costs.
Fleets can shift from expensive gas to lower-cost, locally-produced electricity and increase — rather than decrease — profitability.

Unfortunately, profitability has taken priority in the short term, and continued reliance on ICEVs burdens the global quest to achieve net zero emission benchmarks by 2030 and 2050. EVs of all kinds are going to replace ICEVs — school and transit buses, delivery vans, garbage trucks, and freight trucks. Battery electric transportation and transit is the future, and it is now.

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EV Sales are Slowing, Right?

Wrong. EV sales haven’t continued on a linear upward trajectory, nor have they met the anticipated trends from EV optimists, but data shows that EV sales are growing nationally and internationally. Just look around you on the roads and in parking lots — you’ll know an EV because, on most models, the charging port, which looks a lot like the door to fill up an ICE vehicle, is in the front on the driver’s side. Also, the front grille is often smooth/solid.

Mythology permeates social media about EV downsides.

A Facebook pop-up on my iPhone showed a post from a former high school classmate who repeated the myth that EVs pollute more than ICEVs. I replied that non-renewable electricity sources and the environmental impact of mining battery materials are definitely concerns, but the fact is that EVs significantly reduce pollution compared to ICEVs.

A California-based case study supports this. A report released for 2022 greenhouse gas emissions showed a drop across most sectors that was the equivalent of removing more than 2.2 million gasoline-powered cars off California’s roads for one year. The biggest drop came from transportation, due largely to the increased use of renewable fuels in addition to the growing strength of the zero emission vehicle market. Five out of seven sectors tracked had drops, which reduced total emissions by 9.3 million metric tons, or a 2.4% reduction from the year prior. The data underscored a continued trend of steady emissions decline even as the economy continues to grow. Between 2000 to 2022, emissions fell by 20% while California’s gross domestic product increased by 78%, pointing to the effectiveness of the state’s climate change and air quality programs.

Here’s another example of how EVs are cutting emissions across multiple sectors: Nearly a year after becoming the nation’s first city to mandate that all rideshare vehicles be either zero-emission or wheelchair accessible by 2030, New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission released a report detailing major strides towards that goal, as well as improvements in reducing emissions, boosting charging infrastructure development, and amplifying accessibility. The report details the progress of TLC’s Green Rides Initiative, which is already about two years ahead of schedule.

As of August 2024, 19% of those rideshare trips were conducted in either an EV or wheelchair accessible vehicle (WAV), a significant outperforming of this year’s 5% goal. So far in 2024, more than 14 million EV trips have saved a combined 19,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of powering nearly 3,800 homes for a full year. Green Rides has also been a boon for public and private charging infrastructure development.

Media hype aside, some important stats are emerging about EVs which boost the argument that we need to make the move to zero emissions transportation sooner than later. Consumers become much more calm once they have a chance to get up-close-and-personal with a plug-in electric vehicle. Consumer fears about EVs seem to nearly evaporate, in fact, once a driver has owned or leased an electric vehicle. Instead of moaning about short-term profitability losses, the automotive industry — and all businesses, really — need to design plans to prepare for decarbonization, like bidirectional charging and its benefits to the grid.