Toyota President Admits 'Silent Majority' in Auto Industry Are Leery of Massive Electric Vehicle Push
President Joe Biden, the radical environmental lobby and government agencies across the nation are making a heavy push for Americans to switch to electric vehicles, but it seems car industry insiders are not so sure it is all such a good idea.
On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal published comments by Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda who noted that the idea that everyone could so easily dump gas-powered vehicles for electric ones is simply not as feasible as the activists and government officials seem to imagine.
Toyoda warned that many insiders, who he says represent a “silent majority” in the auto industry, are quietly wondering if it is a smart move for car makers to look toward retooling exclusively for electric cars and thinking that is the future of the industry.
“People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority,” Toyoda said. “That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend so they can’t speak out loudly.”
Notice that last bit. Toyoda is saying that intelligent and informed industry insiders know full well that EVs are not the only way to go for a myriad of reasons.
And we know that they are not really environmentally friendly and cannot be the future of the auto industry with current limitations on the technology, but as Toyoda noted, execs are afraid to speak out because radical, leftist enviro activists are intimidating everyone to stay quiet not just in the U.S. but across the world.
The Journal adds Toyota is one of the few larger manufacturers that isn’t making proclamations about the end of gas-powered cars and setting dates to stop making the internal combustion engine.
Toyota, the Journal added, is centering itself more on hybrids, not straight-out EVs.
Toyoda added that his company isn’t looking to make a permanent switch “because the right answer is still unclear.”
Toyoda also told his audience that he has tried to inform various government officials that it is too early to decide whether EVs are the answer.
The car company chief’s comments come even as massive government subsidies for EVs are skewing the market and forcing car makers to move towards dumping gas-powered products whether it is the right move or not.
Toyoda is right. The world is not ready for an all-EV transportation revolution.
To name just a very few issues, the first and most important limitation on the increased use of EVs is the fact that the U.S. power grid is simply unable to support widespread use of them. The grid is unable to handle charging so many EVs. Indeed, according to ICF International, the power grid is constantly breaking down now, without everyone owning an electric car to further tax our power production.
ICF added that officials in California have admitted that more EVs would cause a 40 percent increase in demand for electric power. And California is already drowning in blackouts during summer peak hours.
Also, 20 million Americans are already behind in paying their electric bills, Bloomberg reported in August. Imagine if the increased costs of charging a car were added to that mounting burden.
According to Yahoo Finance, the cost of adding an EV to a household is equivalent to adding two entire air conditioning systems that are running all year long to their electric bills.
Then there is the looming disparity between homeowners and renters with their respective capability to charge their vehicles. It isn’t likely that apartment complexes would be willing to go to the expense of installing charging stations, so this means that the middle classes and the rich would be able to own an EV that they can charge at home, while renters would have to do without personal transportation because they have no place to charge their cars. If all we can get are EVs and no gas-powered cars, only “the rich” will be able to own a car at all.
Speaking of that, the costs for these cars is also far out of reach for lower-income Americans. Currently, EVs start at around $50,000 and the costs go up from there. This is about an entire year’s salary for many lower middle-class income earners.
There are also all sorts of manufacturing issues that cannot be surmounted because neither the technology nor the materials exist to solve them.
Toyoda is right. There are far, far more problems with EVs than those listed here, and the world’s car manufacturers cannot go all EV any time soon. It is simply not possible.
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