Peach Tree Times

As President Joe Biden continues to push for a transition toward electric vehicles (EVs), most Democratic leaders, including Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) have voiced their support. 

A proponent of the transition toward EVs, Warnock took to Twitter in February to advocate for the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, legislation aimed at EV infrastructure funding.

"The $20 million I secured for Georgia to expand our state's electric vehicle charging network is going to create new economic opportunities and pave the road to bring more clean energy jobs to our state,” Warnock said in his tweet.

In July, Warnock voted in favor of the Democrat-led Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes a new $4,000 tax credit to be used toward electric vehicle purchases, Reuters reported.

As of July, only 2% of Americans own electric vehicles (EVs), Kelley Blue Book data showed.

Electric vehicles are only sometimes and somewhat better than gas-powered vehicles, Bjorn Lomborg's recent commentary piece in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said. Not only are they much costlier, but during their lifetime EVs emit a little less than half as much CO2 as their alternative, estimates from the International Energy Agency said.

"If every country achieved its stated ambitious electric-vehicle targets by 2030, the world would save 231 million tons of CO2 emissions,” Lomborg said. "Plugging these savings into the standard United Nations Climate Panel model, that comes to a reduction of 0.0002 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century.”

In a WSJ letter this week, Rae Rosen pointed out that during hotter months, California residents are asked to reduce their electrical usage during certain hours of the day in addition to being constantly asked to reduce their overall electrical usage. Meanwhile, the state is urging its residents to buy electric vehicles, which begs the question, "How will [they] charge all these electric cars with such a massive increase in demand for electricity?"

"In reality, electric cars are driven less than half as much, which means they’re much costlier per mile,” Lomborg said. “In part, this is because electric cars are often a luxury item. Two-thirds of the households in the U.S. that own one have incomes exceeding $100,000 a year. For 9 in 10 of electric-vehicle-owning households, it’s only a second car. They also have a gasoline-powered car—usually a bigger one, such as an SUV, pickup truck or minivan—that they use for long trips, given its longer range.”

Therefore, if 90% of EV owners also have a gas-powered car that they drive more often than their EV, then only .002% of Americans solely drive electric vehicles. In places like California—which is attempting to "ban gasoline-powered cars"—this poses a major problem.

As part of a broader effort to become emission-free economy-wide by the year 2050, Biden has set the goal of 50% electric vehicle sales by 2030; the Guardian reported.

As Lomborg points out, politicians across the country are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into EV efforts, keeping consumers from purchasing the cars they desire "for virtually no climate benefit."