EPA Head Hack Claims EVs Are Too Expensive, Using Data From 2012 & Ignoring Avg. Car Prices
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ANDREW WHEELER, administrator of the EPA, criticizing electric cars: It’s “a product … which most families cannot approach.” — remarks Thursday.
THE FACTS: His argument that electric cars are too expensive for most Americans is overstated.
In a speech earlier this week, Wheeler cited a McKinsey & Co. analysis from March 2019 that found electric cars cost about $12,000 more per vehicle to manufacture than a comparable gasoline-powered car. EV drivers also don’t have to fill up at the gas pump, pay for oil changes or replace timing belts or spark plugs. A 2018 study from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute found that electric vehicles cost less than half as much to operate as gas-powered cars — $485 per year for EVs compared to $1,117 for gasoline-powered models. So over 10 years, an EV driver will save another $6,320.
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Setting aside that wealthier households are generally more likely to buy new cars than poorer families, in 2016 the top-selling EV was the Tesla Model S, a luxury sedan with a more than $71,000 sticker price. But in recent years, several more economical models have come on the market, and the prices of the batteries that power EVs have fallen. For 2018, the best-selling EV was the less-expensive Tesla Model 3, which currently has a base sticker price of about $37,000. That’s below the $39,500 average U.S. sticker price of new vehicles cited by Wheeler.
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WHITE HOUSE: “The Trump administration is taking action to make America’s highways safer and our cars more affordable.” — news release Thursday.
THE FACTS: Trump and his officials are inflating the projected savings to consumers under his plan and may be exaggerating the safety benefits.
His own administration, in documents proposing to freeze the standards, puts the cost of meeting Obama-era requirements at around $2,700 per vehicle. It claims buyers would save that much by 2025, over standards in place in 2016. But that number is disputed by environmental groups and is more than double the estimates from the Obama administration.
They are also ignoring money that consumers would save at the gas pump if cars get better mileage. A study released Aug. 7 by Consumer Reports found that the owner of a 2026 vehicle will pay over $3,300 more for gasoline during the life of a vehicle if the standards are frozen at 2021 levels. The administration’s proposed freeze would hold the average fuel economy for the new-vehicle fleet at 29.1 mpg in real-world driving, while the Obama-era standards would raise it to 37.5 mpg by 2026, according to Consumer Reports.
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https://climatecrocks.com/2019/09/21/a-modest-suggestion-for-fuel-mileage/#more-57198