You can’t fake out reality.

The realities surrounding the astounding costs, and unsuitability of current technology to actually make an “EV transition” according to radical government dictates, is beginning to hit home—even with mainstream media.

Of course, The Trends Journal in these pages has been warning readers of the realities surrounding EVs and the wider “Green Transition” agenda in countless articles over the past several years.

Multiple stories from this past week underscore the way EV technology has been deceptively hyped despite sobering realities, and massively subsidized, yet remaining out of economic reach to the bulk of average consumers.

The overall takeaway is that the U.S. government, and others around the world have embarked on a costly folly, trying to force uptake of problematic technologies, via draconian mandates and profligate spending.

But reality is intruding, in ways which are becoming harder to paper over and deny.

New Study Quantifies the Astronomical Costs and Perse Incentives Induced by Massive EV Subsidies

Anyone who has shopped for an Electric Vehicle knows that on average, they run about 40 percent more than their similarly equipped gas engine alternatives.

Not only that. They come with an additional list of caveats for that supposedly “equivalent” technology. EVs are:

• More inconvenient, taking longer charge (ie. fuel up), and have shorter ranges of travel before needing to “refuel” despite exaggerations from companies like Tesla
• Have battery technology which, in the event of accident, can be much more costly to repair and replace
• Have battery life cycles which require replacing on the order of 8 to 12 years, at exorbitant costs that approach the price of buying a lightly used gas powered car 
• Have had issues with fires and intense heat that makes them more dangerous than gas-powered alternatives
• Require higher levels of scarce resources that must be mined, creating mining and environmental / pollution issues which are often glossed over
• If used at the current rates that gas powered cars are used, would bring current electric generation and supply infrastructure to its knees

A just released first-of-its kind study has found that an average model year 2021 EV would cost roughly 48,698 dollars more to own over a ten-year period without the 22 billion in taxpayer-funded handouts that the government provides to electric car manufacturers and owners.

That’s in addition to the 40-percent premium of the initial sticker tag of EVs, compared to gas powered cars.

The study argues that actual fueling costs for EVs, meanwhile, add up to 17 dollars per gallon, if the costs of generating electricity are accounted for in the same way that gasoline costs are currently reflected in gasoline prices.

That fuel cost difference was the subject of a Newsmax article covering the study (“Study: Fueling EVs Really Costs $17 Per Gallon,” 28 Oct 2023.)

Compiled by energy experts at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), the study took into account factors like electric grid stress, state and federal subsidies, and federal fuel efficiency initiatives, as noted by Fox News, to figure the true price tag of EV ownership. (“New report unmasks true costs of electric vehicle mandates: ‘Remain more expensive’,” 25 Oct 2023.)

The report observed that despite massive EV subsidies which actually manage to outstrip those given to wind and solar generation, EVs remain far out of economic reach for average consumers.

In many cases, they simply don’t have the money. And even if they loaded themselves with debt to put the infrastructure in place, consumers can’t afford to buy the EVs to plug into the expensive charging infrastructure. And the grid as currently constituted couldn’t handle the load.

The report recommends allowing markets forces and actual innovation to drive energy policies, as opposed to ideology and vaporware which is sucking taxpayer dollars down the drain:

“It’s time for federal and state governments to stop driving the American auto industry off an economic cliff and allow markets to drive further improvements in cost and efficiency.

“It is not an overstatement to say that the federal government is subsidizing EVs to a greater degree than even wind and solar electricity generation and embarking on an unprecedented endeavor to remake the entire American auto industry. Despite these massive incentives, EVs are receiving a tepid response from the majority of Americans who cannot shoulder their higher cost.”

The report authors say that while authorities are attempting to mandate citizens and businesses to absorb a significant portion of the costs for implementing EV infrastructure, including charge stations, battery purchases, etc., those groups are balking at the costs.

Long before this TPPF report, The Trends Journal was warning readers about the folly of perverse incentives, subsidies and innovation by mandate, being pursued by the Biden Administration. See, for example:

• “ENERGY INFLATION AND GREEN ENERGY TYCOONS” (17 May 2023)
• “GREEN ENERGY TYCOONS UPDATE: INVESTIGATING THE ‘CLIMATE CARTEL’” (19 Jul 2023)

This was before passage of the deceptively named “Inflation Reduction Act” boondoggle, which primarily was designed not to tackle inflation, but to pump hundreds of billions worth of subsidies into supposedly “green” technologies.

Biden Administration Selling Out Autoworkers to an Unsustainable “Green” Agenda

EV subsidies have spawned a system where the rich are subsidized to purchase luxury EV virtue-signal toys, by average consumers who are paying the price, and doing without.

But the green energy transition doesn’t stop there. Mandates and regulations to phase out combustion engine technologies is setting up America’s car industry for a stupendous fall. And rank and file autoworkers are beginning to see the tea leaves.

Though late last week Ford and the UAW announced a tentative new agreement that would boost union salaries to compensate for runaway inflation that has plagued the economy for the past several years, the deal is only a stopgap.

Workers have a growing sense that the green energy agenda will not be coming to their rescue with manufacturing jobs that simply swap EV technology for current combustion technologies.

There is no simple swap-out coming, because current EV technology can’t replace the efficiencies and affordability of combustion technology, when it comes to the use case of transportation.

During union negotiations, Ford CEO Jim Farley made news by commenting that Joe Biden’s reckless EV mandates could well cost him re-election in 2024.

Earlier this year, the leading U.S. car manufacturer admitted it is likely to lose more than 3 billion dollars due to sinkhole EV investments which haven’t panned out.

The company has also continued a 2022 trend of laying off workers. More than 200 were laid off last year, and a thousand more will lose their jobs in 2023, according to The Post Millennial. (“Ford CEO says EVs ‘have become a political football’ as Biden’s support with United Auto Workers slips in new survey,” 22 Oct 2023.) 

The news outlet noted that Republican likely Presidential nominee Donald Trump has been making inroads with union workers by hammering home the realities behind a forced “EV transition”:

“Biden, his mandate isn’t a government regulation. It’s a government assassination of your jobs and of your industry. The auto industry is being assassinated.”

Trump has promised to repeal Biden’s EV related mandates if elected in 2024.

John Podesta Controlling “Largest Slush Fund” in the History of the U.S.

Hundreds of billions allocated in 2022’s misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA) exist in a kind of green energy “slush fund,” not earmarked for anything specific, beyond what longtime political operative John Podesta decides.

Podesta currently serves as “Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation,” as part of the Biden administration’s “Clean Energy and Climate Team,” announced in the wake of passage of the Inflation Reduction Act billions.

Podesta is a longtime political operative who served under the Clinton and Obama administrations.

What are some of the ways in which taxpayer money is currently being thrown into sinkholes?

This past week, there was news that Podesta has been meeting privately with Rivian, a financially troubled marquee maker of high end EV trucks.

Rivian has a past of fueling Democrat campaign coffers while receiving EV subsidies—but has still managed to bleed out increasing losses. In 2021, the company lost $4.7 billion. And in 2022 the losses jumped to $6.8 billion, as Rivian stock has dropped 80 percent in value, leaving investors deep in the red as well.

According to Daniel Turner, executive director of Power the Future, failing companies like Rivian are courting Podesta for more money, and deals smack more of taxpayer greased sleazy politics than “saving the planet”:

“Well, Podesta has the largest slush fund, un-appropriated, probably in American history. As soon as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed, Biden and company announced it was actually an investment in green energy and yet it’s not appropriated to anything. So, it makes sense that Rivian and other failing green energy companies are knocking on John Podesta’s door.”

Turner added:

“The problem is that it will be sold to the American people as investment, it will be sold to the American people as combating the climate crisis. But it is just another example of corrupt government paying off people who fund their campaigns and deciding winners and losers when, at the end of the day, the real losers are the American people who are paying astronomical amounts for basic necessities because of this Biden economy.”

A Fox expose on the subject noted that Department of Energy Inspector General Teri Donaldson recently warned a Senate hearing that the IRA’s

unprecedented level of fluid green energy funding–over 350 billion–presents “tremendous risk to the taxpayers” and could be exploited by foreign adversaries, as well as domestic grifting projects and companies. (“Biden climate czar quietly met with flailing EV company dependent on taxpayer handouts,” 28 Oct 2023.)

We have been alerting readers and predicting for years that in addition to taxpayer boondoggles and elitist money grabs, a major motivator for a “green energy transition” is actually a radical degrowth, de-human agenda that has been percolating in elitist intellectual thought since the early 1970’s:

• “SMART CITIES WILL BE DIGITAL PRISONS” (31 Mar 2021)
• “DON’T CALL IT DRAGFLATION, IT’S ‘DEGROWTH’ SAYS WEF” (21 Jun 2022)
• “WEF TEAMS UP WITH TED TALKS TO PUSH DEGROWTH AGENDA” (13 Sep 2022)
• “THE ELITE BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE” (27 Sep 2022)
• “FROM COVID WAR TO CARBON WAR: THE THINLY DISGUISED GOAL OF SMART CITIES” (27 Sep 2022)
• “COP27: 30 YEARS OF DUBIOUS CLIMATE ‘SUCCESS’” (8 Nov 2022)
• “HOW CHINA MAKES OTHERS PAY FOR CLIMATE COSTS” (22 Nov 2022)
• “HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: THE DEGROWTH AGENDA CRUSHING CONSUMER DEMAND” (25 Apr 2023)
• “MOVING TO ENERGY AND TECH THAT ‘ISN’T THERE’” (16 May 2023)
• “DEGROWTH: BBC HIGHLIGHTS LOW CARBON ‘LIFESTYLES’ WHERE CARS AND TRAVEL FREEDOM WILL BE ‘THING OF THE PAST’” (23 May 2023)
• “TRUCKS, SMART METERS AND ELECTRIC VEHICLES: THINGS YOU WILL AND WON’T HAVE BY CLIMATE DECREE” (13 Jun 2023)

TRENDPOST: The deceptive degrowth agenda driving climate change policies has an endgame of restricting and reducing human populations, not trying to replace and provide the abundance and freedoms that have been afforded by carbon based technologies which matured over the course of the 20th century.

Those technologies included the use of nitrogen based fertilizers, and the revolution in mobility and delivery systems brought about via cars, trucks and air travel.

All those technologies are currently under assault by the “green” agenda. And quite simply put, there are no alternatives which can replace the prosperity and freedom that is directly attached to those technologies.

The vast political opportunism created by “The Inflation Reduction Act,” and other government climate initiatives creating perverse incentives, adds insult to injury, and will only increase the energy pain for average people, while doing practically zero to improve the environment or affect climate change.