Red or Blue, Gas or Electric?

 

“It’s gonna wreck the economy… The ideology is [failing], when you mandate electric cars

but don’t have the power to run them.”

Indiana AG, Todd Rokita, 1 of 17 GOP state AGs suing the Biden Administration to stop California from setting its own emissions standards.

I was part of a recent group email discussion that compared local gasoline prices across the US. $2-3/gallon in lots of the country, high $3 and $4+ out here in California, was the rough consensus. Those low-price red states enjoyed the difference, mocking that woke California pricing. California’s vehicular emission requirements, stringent realities for the state that seemed to invent “smog,” were seen as a dictatorial mandate from a freedom hating state… that simply imposed its requirements on everyone else.

California’s eventual ban on purely gasoline-powered vehicles after 2035 seemed to fall under a “it’s none of your business” notion. It matters because California is such a huge car market that manufacturers wind up having to accept California rules unless they want to spend a fortune on different cars for different states… knowing that their non-compliant vehicles just might never be sold, approved or resold in the nation’s largest car market. Some red state residents even bragged about the EVs they had locally. They call ‘em “golf carts.”

I’ve owned a hybrid for several years, and I do enjoy the resulting cost-savings plus a touch of “at least I am doing something about it” California smugness. EV cars cost more too and have a range issue. But as I read of the damage from climate change, which seems to decimate rural communities the most, I have to wonder what’s in it for red state politicians to marginalize what is eventually going to cost them the most? Pride? Wanting to fit into that local sense of belonging… in diametric opposition to all things blue? Just because? "We cannot afford the cost of fixing a problem that Democrats love to exaggerate.” “Makes no difference unless China, Russia and India play ball.” “Technology will eventually fix it.” “It just part of a natural cycle that will come back to normal soon.” “God promised never again.”

So, on December 23rd, a gathering of Los Angeles Times writers asked the question whether the red/blue divide could build a near term market for EVs in red America. After all, right-wing darling Elon Musk has moved to Texas and is about to go fully online with a huge Tesla plant in Austin. The Times writers started in Kokomo, Indiana, where EVs are as rare as hens’ teeth: “Almost everyone you meet here either works in a factory, is retired from one or has a relative in a plant that makes parts for gasoline-powered cars — which have ruled Kokomo for nearly 130 years, since a brash inventor named Elwood Haynes chugged down Pumpkinvine Pike at 7 mph in one of America’s first horseless carriages.

“‘We haven’t developed a workforce towards anything else yet,’ said Warren Sims, a 41-year-old worker in the same casting plant that employs his father, working on gas transmission engines. ‘We don’t make a fuel-efficient vehicle. Everything’s big and everything costs [a lot to] fuel and people buy it.’… Yet change is coming. Bulldozers are clearing Kokomo’s cornfields to build a $2.5-billion government-subsidized electric vehicle battery factory, with the aim of retaining jobs tied to auto production at a time California is leading the nation in phasing out gas-powered engines…

“Indiana can feel like a tough place to own an electric car… Major cities are located far apart, with few charging stations in between. The vehicles that dominate the landscape — American-branded pickup trucks — are just beginning to be offered in electric versions. And the most popular EVs remain out of reach for many consumers in places where incomes tend to be lower. The charging stations at the Meijer grocery store parking lot in Kokomo sit empty for hours… The state is also deep red. And Republicans are much less likely than Democrats to consider buying an EV, according to a poll conducted for The Times by Leger, a Canadian-based polling firm with extensive experience in U.S. surveys…

“Environmentalists, along with industry and government leaders, see a transformation afoot after decades of false starts. They have acknowledged, however, that they can’t complete the shift if electric cars are viewed as something only for rich liberals in California and New York. They need everyone… The uneasy reception to EVs in Indiana — in a national climate that includes Republican lawsuits against California’s new emissions rules and televised warnings that they represent an attack on freedom — suggests that the country remains divided over embracing a technology that environmentalists say is essential to combating climate change.”

That EV are cheaper to build and use many more robots in ground-up new plants are concerning to autoworkers. Rural highways demand more range and are often less traveled. Still, the handwriting is on the wall. And the key to win over red state drivers may still be jobs: “Many of the states that stand to get the biggest boost from the Biden administration’s investment in batteries lean Republican. In October, the administration announced $2.8 billion in industry grants in 12 states from the bipartisan infrastructure law. Among them: Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Georgia, Louisiana. Car and battery companies are spending billions more to build or expand plants in North Carolina, Ohio and Kansas.

“Kentucky, the home state of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, is poised to employ about twice as many people in EV jobs as coal mines… Republican states fought for a decade against President Obama’s expansion of Medicaid. But all 50 states — even the GOP ones — have already submitted plans to be part of the national EV charging network Biden announced this year. There is little evidence so far that conservative politicians would stake their political futures on the issue, even if they nod to anti-Biden talking points…Brad Chambers, Indiana Gov. Holcomb’s economic development chief, doesn’t think campaign attack ads targeting electric vehicles would have much of a shelf life.” It’s battle we have to win, a showcase of American knowhow. But the clock is ticking.

I’m Peter Dekom, and “jobs” may just be the grand uniter on climate change… let’s hope so!