Peter DeLorenzo has finally acknowledged that the decarbonization of the automotive fleet could be significantly driven by public-sector actions. However, he does so by spewing a bunch of lazy anti-government insults.
Does this represent his honest viewpoint or did a client of his consulting business, Autoextremist.Agency, Inc. ask him to do a little media spin? He doesn’t say — and out of journalistic transparency he should.
Also see ‘Does Auto Extremist’s Peter DeLorenzo have conflicts of interest?’
Whatever the motivation for DeLorenzo’s (2024) attack on banning the sale of gas cars, his argument is flimsy. Consider his insistence that “mandates are never a good thing and never work to the benefit of the consumer.” Really? He thinks the auto industry would have offered safety features without mandates?
By the same token, does he think that U.S. air quality would have improved as much as it has without the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970? Research has found that after only 20 years that law prevented more than 200,000 premature deaths and 18 million child respiratory illnesses (EPA, 2023a).
DeLorenzo substitutes cheap insults for actual facts
DeLorenzo pretends that mandates have had no policy successes and stoops to cheap insults, such as by arguing that “government types” will “never, ever learn” that mandates don’t work “because it’s what they do best, besides accomplishing absolutely zero in every other aspect of their ‘jobs'” (2024, original italics).
So who are these “government types” DeLorenzo dismisses? The Clean Air Act was signed into law by a business-friendly Republican President — Richard Nixon (EPA, 2023a). Twenty years later, fellow Republican President George Bush proposed sweeping changes in that law to address acid rain and toxic air emissions. That proposal was passed in the House of Representatives by 401-22 and in the Senate by 89-11 (EPA, 2023b). Those are lopsided bipartisan margins.
Also see ‘It’s a big deal that Ford and GM knew about climate change in 1960s’
Does DeLorenzo really think that acid rain could have been reduced and the ozone layer repaired if the likes of Nixon and Bush had just let the magic of the marketplace prevail? Or is he okay with their mandates but his real beef with banning the sale of gas-powered cars?
If the latter, then DeLorenzo should say so. He could also bolster his argument if he acknowledged that the gas-car ban didn’t come out of nowhere. As we have previously discussed (go here), years of foot dragging by the auto industry mean that we are running out of time to decarbonize the atmosphere.
Is DeLorenzo afraid to talk about climate change?
For a supposedly “bare-knuckled” guy DeLorenzo seems to be deathly afraid to speak directly about climate change. The closest he gets in this essay is to say that “EVs will be just one part of the transportation equation, along with hybrids, fuel cells, hydrogen fuel and hydrogen-powered fuel cells” . . and “ICE vehicles will be part of the transportation equation for decades.” (2024, original italics).
One irony is that a goodly number of decarbonization advocates would likely agree in general terms with the above statement. It just so happens that EV technology is thus far more commercially viable than hydrogen. In addition, California’s law only bans the sale of new gas-powered cars in 2035, so the existing fleet will likely stick around for quite a while.
Also see ‘What do you think American automobiles will be like in 2043?’
Decarbonization advocates have grappled with the many challenges of reducing greenhouse gases. For example, David Victor of the Deep DeCarbonization Initiative says that meeting California’s 2035 gas-car ban will require expanding the electrical grid “at a radically much faster rate. This is plausible if the right policies are in place, but it’s not guaranteed. It’s best-case” (Lopez, 2023).
So could DeLorenzo be right that California’s ban may end up being pushed back? Sure. But what he doesn’t address is that there are an increasing number of governments around the world that have passed similar laws. So even if California pushes back its ban a few years, that may not be very helpful to automakers if major markets such as the European Union do not follow suit.
Political pressures could come from both directions
Of course, there will undoubtedly be political pressures to relax bans elsewhere. However, DeLorenzo doesn’t acknowledge that political pressure is equally likely to come from the opposite direction. The rising frequency of climate-related disasters could fuel public sentiment to speed decarbonization.
DeLorenzo (2024) seems to want to delegitimize decarbonization advocates by implying that they are radical freaks who “won’t be happy until everyone has been forced into ‘driving’ flatulence-powered balsawood clown cars.” His colorful caricature may be amusing but it adds to the impression that he has shifted well to the right of public opinion.
Also see ‘Peter DeLorenzo: Transition to electric vehicles can’t be dismissed as a fad’
For example, a recent Pew poll found that two-thirds of adults “say large businesses and corporations are doing too little to reduce the effects of climate change. Far fewer say they are doing about the right amount (21%) or too much (10%).” In another recent poll, 56 percent of respondents “said the federal government should do more to reduce the effects of global climate change” (Tyson, Funk and Kennedy, 2023).
I get that DeLorenzo’s shtick may play well with a fair number of auto executives. Perhaps that’s all he cares about. But that’s not really the “unvarnished, high-octane truth” — it’s lazy spin.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- EPA; 2023a. “Highlights from the Clean Air Act 40th Anniversary.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Updated Aug. 8.
- ——; 2023b. “1990 Clean Air Act Amendment Summary.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Updated Nov. 15.
- DeLorenzo, Peter; 2024. “The Pendulum Swings.” The Auto Extremist. Posted Feb. 4.
- Lopez, Nadia; 2023. “Race to zero: Can California’s power grid handle a 15-fold increase in electric cars?” CalMatters. Posted Jan. 17.
- Tyson, Alec, and Cary Funk and Brian Kennedy; 2023. “What the data says about Americans’ views of climate change.” Pew Research Center. Posted Aug. 9.
What is going on is that the government thinks that they can demand that the populace that votes with their wallet will accept a solution that is not desired. The real point of Peter’s article is how Detroit is coming to the realization that the market is speaking that the mass adoption of BEV is not progressing on a timeline that matches the mandates. So, the rational response is to rework their product plans so BEV is a lower portion of what is being developed.
GM has already announced this and Ford just did their announcement in conjunction with reporting the massive financial losses for their BEV programs. The companies intend to remain in business selling what people want to use real money to purchase. The marketplace is speaking, and the manufacturers have decided to listen. Peter further points to this is the strategy that Toyota and Honda have been employing – they never bought into the all BEV story.
The nationwide infrastructure to support BEV does not exist and is not going to happen quickly. Peter, rightly so, points to what happened recently in the big cold snap and how BEVs were stranded. This did not help the acceptance of the BEV.
The government picked dates from thin air with little concern for technical and infrastructure implementation and certainly without thinking of market acceptance across the entire nation.
It strikes me as fascinating that DeLorenzo doesn’t acknowledge that the US shifted from a transportation dominated by the horse to the automobile in one decade. That required more infrastructure changes than what is needed today. What’s particularly amusing is we’re a lot richer and more technologically savvy than we were back then, yet somehow we’re less capable?
It’s also revealing that the “picked dates from thin air” crowd won’t acknowledge the need for rapid decarbonization — which has been increased by industry foot dragging. It’s well past time for the industry to show some social responsibility.
Instead of relying upon some holistic expectation for all the infrastructure needed nationwide to support BEV, detail how it gets paid for? Get away from the coasts and consider the middle of the country where the tolerance for taxpayer support for the required infrastructure is low. Think of large apartments and condos and about having several hundred cars at each place plugged in at the same then how there may be a string of such buildings in a neighborhood. The charging stations, what it takes to install those into existing spaces, the local power grid, the electrical utility’s ability to support all those connections running at one time. Remember that the BEV already are not paying gas tax which supports the roads they use; in other words, the ICE vehicles are unfairly subsidizing them.
No matter the “social virtue” of BEV, it still comes down to it only works if regular people are willing to use their own money to purchase these vehicles. If not, then the companies will make what people do want to stay in business with a profit. The politicians change course because the electorate forces the issue and mandate deadlines get changed/eliminated.
My sense is that we are living through one of those threshold periods of rapid change — kind of like the dawn of the 20th Century. That was when the US was transforming from a sleepy rural nation into an industrial powerhouse. That transition had many bumps in the road (so to speak). Along the way I would imagine that some predicted that the transformation wouldn’t be completed because of X or Y or Z. But it did — and in retrospect looks inevitable.
We will figure out how to deal with such things as building a charging network the same way we originally filled the nation with gas stations. Or built the interstate highway system. Or brought electricity to the vast rural expanses of the country. Given current political polarization, this transition will likely happen more rapidly in the blue states, but the rest of the country will eventually catch up.
I get the practical considerations of switching to an EV. For now I’m squeezing more miles out of my old gas-powered cars, partly because I’m waiting for EV technology to mature a bit more and partly for prices to come down. I suspect that I’ll get an EV within three or four years. By that time the charging networks should have been built out in the more rural areas of my state where I like to go camping.
Agree, that blue and red states are going to have different acceptance rates. But, even within the blue states there will be resistance in many area. I am in Illinois and the Chicago metroplex’s politics are far different from most of the rest of the state where I am. Even California has that type of difference with the central valley. The electric companies will have to raise bond money for the infrastructure changes. That means rate hikes which are not going to go well in a lot of areas; especially with what it is causing it. With a highly divided national government I question the extent to which federal funding would be approved by Congress.
Back at that transition to the automobile and industrialization the funding was substantially from private sources with profit motives and little, if any, government interference. Going further on this, back then these were new business endevors while now this is about the replacement of highly profitable industries with lots of employees and its own infrastructure footprint. Drilling, old field services, refining, distribution, and down to the gas stations. These are all being asked to downscale themselves to a near extinction level. How much in local, state and federal taxes do they represent? This is no longer an issue of just asking the individual buggy whip makers to give up their future.
Of course there will be transitional issues. My point is that they aren’t insurmountable. The Inflation Reduction Act was partly intended to help utilities expand their capacity and improve resiliency. Even in the absence of climate change we need to update the electrical grid.
Now, perhaps you don’t like the idea of “government interference.” If so, keep in mind that the only reason vast swaths of the country gained electricity for the first time was because of New Deal programs. Let’s also remember that the basic transportation infrastructure that you and I take for granted today has always had pretty heavy government involvement. Who paved the roads, put up traffic signs, staffed highway patrols and created a system for licensing drivers?
You also make it sound like the shift from horses to cars had less of an economic impact on existing industries than an EV transition. I’m quite skeptical of that argument. Studebaker was one of the few manufacturers of horse-drawn wagons that made the transition to automobile production, but today pretty much all of the automakers are getting into EVs.
Will there be losers in this transition? Of course — just like there always has been during times of social transformation. Decarbonization has plenty of job opportunities for those who are displaced.
Lots of that road work is paid by the federal and state gasoline taxes. This is something that the EVs pay nothing to and are simultaneously given additional tax breaks. What happens if there is a charging tax to replace the gas tax?
Going back to Peter’s article, one of his points was about the reorienting to hybrids. Some argue that it is the worst of both worlds with 2 power sources adding complexity, weight and cost. Yet, it also offers the advantage of long distance travel without range anxiety – readily available gas stations, quick refill time to achieve another maximum range. It also solves other concerns like what happens in extremely cold weather, lack of charging stations at locations like the apartment and condo complexes,
As I look out at the states with a notable degree of oil production it is hard to think of them as being places willing to use taxpayer money to make large commitments to support the BEV transition. Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alaska, the Dakotas all come quickly to mind.
Is this the great transition period or a politically dictated single solution (BEV) that is bypassing other viable alternatives that can be more acceptable to the general public?
A whole lot of the political landscape around this issue could be changing come November. Not just the presidential decision but the make up in the Senate and the House. There is even a Supreme Court case that could alter the ability of the Federal Agencies to create and enact regulations. I am not making any projections on winners just trying to point out that the “lay of the land” today may not be the same at the end of this year on the issues related to the “grand transition”.