By Michelle Naranjo
In 2008, then-President Barack Obama set a goal of 1 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015, but that goal was hardly met. Fewer than 400,000 EVs had been sold. Plug-in vehicles accounted for less than 1 percent of all vehicle sales, about the same as the number of convertibles sold in the nation annually.
Despite the looming warnings from climate scientists, car buyers were more concerned with range anxiety and the cost to buy an EV.
General Motors joining other automakers to follow more progressive Biden-led goals is admirable, but it is truly nothing short of GM seeing dollars.
The President-elect sees his climate change policy to be an opportunity to create more jobs for millions of Americans. His vision includes investments in infrastructure, the auto industry, transit, the power sector, buildings, housing, and agriculture.
Setting sights on a national standard is the right thing to do. The challenge will be to unite consumers into understanding that it is the right thing to do and holding the automakers accountable.
Case in point, several manufacturers - including GM - have made vehicles for years that, while not plug-ins, were an attempt at bettering emissions, but they absolutely failed in following up with any significant customer education or marketing. Take any PZEV (partial zero-emissions vehicle). Most car buyers aren’t aware of what they are buying. In GM’s case, they had a mild hybrid system in the Buick LaCrosse, for example, but were almost afraid to tell that story to car buyers.
But those car models were not the bread and butter that supports a global company, so there wasn’t much effort from the marketing companies.
Globally, EV sales are on the rise. Chinese EV sales currently total more than every other country in the world, combined. More than 60 percent of vehicle sales in Norway are plug-ins. Numerous countries have set dates to end the sales of traditional internal combustion engines.
“The cost of energy from wind power has dropped by a factor of 10,” energy analyst Ramez Naam said on the Orange and Outrageous podcast, by Former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. “The cost of electricity from solar power has dropped by a factor of 30.” In an even more dramatic statistic about the future affordability of electric-powered cars, BloombergNEF, estimates the cost of lithium-ion battery packs has dropped 87 percent between 2010 and 2019.
GM can’t afford to not side with Biden.
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