www.dailywire.com
Daily Wire. Well, I guess we know their biases upfront. Since this article is based on a report (
here) we'll just skip the outrage and jump to the primary source and look over their claims. Of course said report is courtesy the
Texas Public Policy foundation - whose donors include the likes of Koch Industries and swaths of the Texas petroleum industry, thus also highly biased.
Here's the
money shot:
Six areas:
- Tax credits + Rebates
- Avoided Charging + Infra costs
- Incremental Generation/Transmission/Distribution Costs
- State ZEV mandates + credits
- EPA GHG Multiplier Credits
- CAFE credits
Tax credits + Rebates are self-evident.
Avoided Charging + Infra Costs is apparently amortizing IRA allocations for fast charging stations across the number of EVs sold in 2021. Reasonable-
ish however such installations can outlast the vehicles sold concurrent with their funding with capital costs that only partially go towards the charging stations themselves.
Incremental Generation/Transmission/Distribution Costs is simply
creative writing. The electrical grid sells electricity for purposes well beyond EV charging - such as megalomarts, pool pumps, HVAC - and is largely paid for by the ratepayers it sells electricity to; whatever .gov subsidies go into the grid
are amortized across the rest of the economy.
State ZEV mandates + Credits are particular to the states that have them. Of note that TX - and numerous other states - have implemented fees to recover road tax from EVs not paying gas taxes; TX said fees are well above what typical ICE drivers will pay per annum.
CAFE Credits - for all the verbiage blown on this I cannot find evidence that it's such a big factor in the marketplace. We'll look at Tesla since they're the biggest producer of EV's in the United States. Here's
Tesla's 10K for 2022. Revenues on page 35:
Tesla reports
selling 1.37 million vehicles in 2022. Those credits amount to $1296 per vehicle. If there's some book-cooking going on in Tesla's SEC filing and their revenues from credits are some
~fifteen fold and their gross margins on COGS aren't as claimed there's
serious money to be made in litigation as well as jail time for huge swaths of the C-suite.
If the government wants to pass laws that mandate (force) electric cars on us
As far as I know, only WA and CA have mandates on the books, and their timelines are dependent upon market realities that are unlikely to kick in before the milestone dates, thus are at best
aspirational. The federal government has at best a
policy position right now.
what about the millions of us that live in apartments and don't have personal garages?
An open question for sure.
I know that apartment complexes in the DFW metro have started to install shared L2 chargers (probably in the region of 32A@240V or ~7.7kW). The installation cost is fronted by property owners, usage cost is almost certainly passed on to residents - likely via a credit card or some billing arrangement via a website or mobile app.
Chargers for designated parking spaces will likely have some sort of designee authorization such as a fob
(or bluetooth app ala those awful smartlocks that are being deployed en masse).
Units with garages may opt to include chargers or 14-50 outlets so you can plug in your own EVSE. The upcoming industry transition from J1772 to NACS
(previously the Tesla connector) may favor the latter.
Properties without dedicated off-street parking ... that's another thing entirely. Probably going to lean on municipalities to deploy public L2 charging. Or utilities to deploy it. Expect to pay for the privilege - ideally at a modest premium over retail electric rates.
What about security against vandalism, since the stations will be out in the open all night?
As opposed to all the other vandalism that can happen?
I gather there are locking mechanisms out there - either workarounds or built into the vehicles themselves.