- The world’s largest EV charging station is in California and it charges electric vehicles with diesel generators.
- If the charging station received electricity from the grid, it would still get almost half of its energy from fossil fuels since about half of California’s electricity comes from natural gas and electricity imports generated by gas and coal.
- California and the Biden Administration are using mandates and regulation to force Americans into electric vehicles.
- Despite borrowing trillions of dollars for “green” subsidies, the United States will not have the infrastructure in time to meet the administration’s proposed climate program.
- Biden would prefer Americans abandon personal vehicles for mass transit or other transport concepts, according to a key figure in the Biden administration.
The largest charging station in the world in Coalinga, California, is not fueled by wind turbines or solar panels. Rather, the electricity that feeds the facility comes from diesel generators hidden from view behind a Shell station. The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger Station has 98 charging bays. In 2017, Tesla boasted that all Superchargers in the automaker’s network were being converted to solar and Elon Musk added, “Over time, almost all will disconnect from the electricity grid.” Superchargers charge EV batteries up to the 80 percent in 20 minutes with 480 volt, 3 phase electricity, but the power needed for 98 bays requires diesel generators, as solar cannot do the job. The charging station is not connected to any dedicated solar farm, and absent the diesel generators, the station would receive its energy from California’s grid. About 42 percent of the grid’s energy is generated by natural gas. California also imports more electricity than any other state and typically receives between one-fifth and one-third of its electricity supply from outside of the state. Of that, natural gas and coal each supplied almost 10 percent. So, almost 50 percent of California’s grid power comes from fossil fuels.
Despite the reality that EV batteries will be charged by power from the U.S. grid or by fossil fuel generators, California and the Biden administration are pushing Americans into buying electric vehicles by mandates and proposed regulations. Electric vehicles could more accurately be referred to as “external combustion engines” to distinguish them from the internal combustion engines making up the vast majority of American vehicles.
California’s Electric Vehicle Law
California has a requirement that every new car in the state be all-electric by 2035, phasing out the sale of all gas-powered personal cars. When the Clean Air Act was passed by Congress in the 1960s, it allowed California to pass its own clean car rules that were stricter than federal rules, so long as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the rules first. California was given this allowance because of the smog in LA County from 1960s vehicle emissions. Despite Los Angeles not having a smog problem for more than 40 years due to vehicle emissions standards, that portion of the Clean Air Act has not been rescinded and has allowed the environmentalists in California’s state government to pursue vehicle regulations. Last year, Biden’s EPA reinstated a waiver that allows California to impose new rules limiting vehicular air emissions. Immediately after that, the California Air Resources Board passed a rule to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035.
Federal Regulations on Vehicle Emissions and Efficiency
Biden’s EPA has proposed tailpipe vehicle rules that are intended to ensure that electric cars represent between 54 and 60 percent of all new cars sold in the United States by 2030 and 64 to 67 percent by 2032—in just 9 years. The purpose of the new EPA regulations is to essentially regulate cars with combustible engines out of business by making the rules so stringent that car companies cannot comply. About six percent of U.S. car sales are electric, despite tax credits of up to $7,500 and large subsidies to battery producers from the Inflation Reduction Act.
And, Biden’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed to increase the average fuel economy of vehicles sold in the United States. Under the proposal, automakers would be required to increase the average mileage of the passenger vehicles they sell by 2 percent a year for passenger vehicles, and 4 percent a year for light trucks, between 2027 and 2032. If implemented, autos sold in the United States would have to achieve an average fuel economy of 58 miles per gallon by 2032. In order for automakers to achieve that average, about two-thirds of the new cars they sell by that year would have to be all-electric, which is exactly the same goal that was proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The proposed rules are part of President Biden’s climate agenda that aims to have half of all vehicles sold in the United States be electric by the end of this decade. Biden’s political appointees are interpreting laws and implementing regulations in such a way to reach the President’s “goal”.
Electricity Demand and the U.S. Grid
The U.S. electric grid does not have the capacity to handle the increased power load required to charge the volume of new electric vehicles that the Biden team wants on the roads over the next decade, which some estimate would double electricity demand. The Biden Administration’s new vehicle emissions standards would make the United States more vulnerable to blackouts unless there are massive changes to fix the grid. America’s growing power demands, coupled with the retirement of existing fossil fuel power generation resulting from EPA’s proposed rules for power plants, far outweighs the capacity of politically correct renewable sources to keep up, even with the massive subsidies they are now enjoying. And the need for additional transmission lines will not happen as fast as Biden needs them to meet his climate agenda goals.
A report published by the Department of Energy in February, the “National Transmission Needs Study,” says the United States needs to build 47,300 miles of new high voltage power lines by 2035, which would expand the existing transmission grid by 57 percent. The United States has 240,000 miles of high voltage transmission lines. Between 2008 and 2021, the United States built 1,700 miles of high voltage transmission lines a year. At that rate, building 57 percent or 136,800 miles of lines will take 80.5 years, which is way more than the time Biden has allocated to meet his climate goals.
Even the Biden administration official in charge of handing out subsidies to the alternative energy industrial complex that benefits from the White House’s EV mandate, Jigar Shah, chief of the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, indicated that the true goal is reshape society. He said, “Replacing all of the vehicles in the world with EVs is not sustainable.” He continued: “We need to invest in micro mobility, new ownership models, better urban planning models and other improvements.” In other words, we need to change the concept of personal transportation and the freedom it gives people with a fundamental transformation. This can be seen in the numerous references Vice President Kamala Harris has made regarding electric buses.
Conclusion
President Biden is doing all he can to transform the U.S. auto industry and domestic electric utility industry into renewable energy and electric vehicles, but the goals and time lines are not feasible. So, U.S. manufacturers will need to continue to use fossil fuels whether discreetly or in full view. Americans will suffer because electricity prices will continue to escalate, and vehicle prices for both gasoline and electric vehicles will remain high, despite massive subsidies paid by taxpayers. In fact, U.S. manufacturers are losing $30,000 to $60,000 on every electric vehicle they build, which are being subsidized by the higher prices demanded for gasoline and diesel vehicles. Biden is helping one nation prosper—China, who controls the battery supply chain and the critical minerals that are needed for the energy transition he wants. If the United States goes along with California’s mandate and federal regulations, most American auto jobs would be shipped overseas as car companies would have no reason to keep jobs in the United States if the cost of making an electric vehicle soars due to having to import the materials from China.
