Commentary: ‘EV’s for Everyone’ Mandates are Politically Risky and Practically Disastrous

by Mark P. Mills

If we could imagine a time machine bringing to New York City, an American citizen from the 19th century, odds are the one thing that would seem the most amazing about our time would be the proliferation of the personal automobile. Big buildings, big cities, roads, nighttime illumination would all be imaginable, even if different looking and greater in scale. But the one thing radically different about modern daily life is the convenience and freedoms that come from a car.

Yes, that 19th century citizen would probably be puzzled by people staring at glowing rectangles in their hands. In fact, the personal computer and the personal car are co-equal in their transformative impacts. MIT historian Leo Marx put it well when he wrote that: “To speak . . . of the ‘impact’ of … the automobile upon society makes little more sense . . .than to speak of the impact of the bone structure on the human body.”

The centrality of the car in the social and economic structure of society is evidenced by how citizens have voted with their pocketbook. A car is the single most expensive product that 98 percent of consumers ever purchase. Over 90 percent of American households own or have access to a car. Average household spending on personal mobility is the second biggest expense after mortgage or rent.

And there’s nothing to the trope that the rising generations will abandon automobiles. A recent MIT analysis found Millennials exhibit no difference in “preferences for vehicle ownership” and in fact drive more miles per year than Boomers. As for Gen Zs, the share of cars bought by that cohort has increased five-fold in the past five years.

Finally, to finish framing why cars matter, let’s consider what used to be called telecommuting, Zooming and remote working, especially following the epic exodus caused by the destructive Lockdowns of 2020. Surveys show the lockdowns accelerated a trend that was already underway, one of a huge swath of Americans moving to suburbs or rural areas. It’s a trend that invariably leads to a greater need for cars and distances driven.

Now come politicians in a dozen states — and the EPA via a creative exercise of regulatory authority — with plans to to ban the right to purchase a car with an internal combustion engine, the kind of car that 98 percent of Americans own, and the kind of car that 98 percent of average-incomed Americans still buy. The goal of the bans is not, we’re told, to deny any citizen the ability to own or afford a useful car. Instead, as everyone knows, it is in service of the goal to cut carbon dioxide emissions by mandating the use of so-called zero-emission electric vehicles. EVs for all. The process of “transitioning” to EVs for everyone, everywhere, we’re also told will be painless because EVs are inevitably taking over the entire automobile market because they are — it is said — simpler, better, and easier to use, and “cleaner.”

And now the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) promises a gusher of money to induce that transition. Let’s stipulate the obvious – one doesn’t need subsidies and mandates to convince people and businesses to buy products that are inherently radically better and cheaper.

But, assuming that the inflationary legislation isn’t reversed by a future Congress, the IRA’s push for an energy transition will deploy $2 to $3 trillion, (when it’s fully ‘costed’ to include unfunded mandates and in-perpetuity subsidies), half of which will be for EVs and related infrastructures. You can buy a lot of obeisance with that kind of money. With so much money combined with political mandates and PR momentum, we should not be surprised to find no auto maker dare avoid genuflecting to the grand vision of an all-EV future. But money can’t buy a change in the laws of physics and underlying engineering realities.

The ostensible inevitability, the enthusiasm, the subsidies, and the mandates for EVs are anchored in three claims:

• That EVs will radically reduce global CO2 emissions.
• That EVs are cheaper and easier to fuel because, well, you can “just plug them in,” and
• That EVs will soon be cheaper than conventional cars because they are inherently simpler.

All three of these claims are simply wrong.

Start with the core claim that “they’re simpler.” Yes, conventional cars have complex thermo-mechanical systems. Engines and automatic transmissions are made from hundreds of components, although mated with a very simple fuel system, a tank holding a liquid with a one-moving-part pump. EVs, inversely, have a simple motor made from a few parts. However, the EV fuel tank is a complex electrochemical system made from hundreds, sometimes thousands of parts including a cooling system, sensors, safety systems, and a boatload of power electronics. EVs aren’t simpler, they’re just differently complex.

The illusion of EV simplicity has relevance to the strike underway by the United Autoworkers Union. EVs do not entail less labor to build, but instead shift where the labor takes place. The data show that, overall, while about 80 people are employed per 1,000 conventional cars produced, Tesla, the world’s biggest EV maker — for now — employs about 90 people per 1,000 cars produced per year.

Seem strange? Consider just the labor to make the two different drive trains. Again, take Tesla and specifically its trend-setting Nevada “gigafactory” where public data shows about 8 people are employed per 1,000 EV drivetrains produced – that’s electric motor plus battery. The combined employment at conventional engine and transmission factories is just 4 people per 1,000 drivetrains. That’s the inverse of the EV labor argument. And there’s more to the labor story, realities that have implications for emissions and costs.

Look upstream at the primary materials sent to the factories to fabricate the vehicles. Steel and iron make up about 85 percent of the weight of a conventional car. That upstream supply chain requires less than one person per 1,000 vehicles produced. Meanwhile, most of the weight of an EV is found in more exotic, so-called energy minerals, from copper and aluminum to, obviously, lithium, and also nickel, cobalt, manganese, and rare earths like neodymium. That upstream supply chain employs roughly 30 people for every 1,000 EVs. Of course, all that labor is elsewhere since the mines and refineries are not in America.

But before turning to cost and emissions implications of the upstream realities, we need to address the claim that EVs are simpler to fuel.

It’s obvious that the imagined all-EV future requires on-road fast-charging. First, the total labor to deliver the same energy to EV fueling stations is greater than it is for the gasoline infrastructure… something that will necessarily, ultimately impact costs. But setting that aside (and that’s a lot to set aside), the lie of the simpler-to-fuel is in the nature of electrical engineering for fast-charging batteries. The so-called superchargers offer, instead of overnight fueling, 80 percent charge in 30 to 40 minutes. This is only fast if it’s not compared to the 3 to 4 minutes it takes to fill up a gasoline tank. Long refueling times will translate into long lines at EV fueling stations as well as the need for five to 10 times more charging ports than fuel pumps.

That won’t be convenient, simple, or cheap. Each supercharger costs two to three times more than a gasoline pump. And, because superchargers necessarily operate at 100 times the power level of an overnight home-charger, that translates into staggering requirements for grid infrastructure upgrades. Today roadside fuel stations have the electric demand of a 7-Eleven; but convert those to EV fueling station and every one of them will have the electric demand of a steel mill – and highways will need thousands of them.

Enthusiasts are either unaware of or profoundly naïve about the time and cost challenges of all that. The naivety extends in particular regarding the materials demands for the quantities of copper needed for all the wires and transformers that will be required to replace cheap steel pipes and tanks. And the metal demands of the electric infrastructure will necessarily be piled on top of an unprecedented increase in demand for metals and minerals to fabricate the EVs.

While copper is the long pole in the tent, it is only one of the mineral challenges. The realities of costs and emissions for EVs is dominated by a simple fact: a typical EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds to replace the fuel, and the tank weighing together under 100 pounds.  That half-ton battery is made from a wide range of minerals including copper, nickel, aluminum, graphite, cobalt, manganese, and of course, lithium. And to get the materials to fabricate that half-ton battery requires digging up and processing some 250 tons of the earth somewhere on the planet. Those numbers,…