Welfare for the rich is strong with “green technology” as subsidies that target electric vehicles benefit the already rich more than anyone else.
“Rich and not-so-rich motorists should buy the cars that they like without depending on subsidies from their fellow taxpayers,” Robert Bryce wrote for Investor’s Business Daily.
Through state-built EV charging stations and tax credits, the richest Americans benefit from government favoritism of electric cars. The average household income for Tesla buyers is $293,000, Bryce noted, and it’s $199,000 for Ford Focus EV buyers.
Yet those buyers receive a $7,500 federal tax credit for the purchase, and more than a dozen states offer rebates and other benefits. The average taxpayer, whose price range is nowhere near the cost of an electric car, subsidizes their wealthy neighbor in the name of green energy.
Electric cars remain prohibitively expensive. For those rich Americans who want to convert, they have the income to do it without the help of the government. Traditional gasoline-powered vehicles have been striving toward a greener future as the government favors EVs: the fuel economy of a new vehicle has risen from 20.1 MPG in October 2007 to 25.3 MPG by March 2016, a 26 percent increase.
Emissions, too, have spiraled to new lows. “Emissions have reduced drastically and those from newer vehicles are becoming almost negligible,” the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, a trade group, noted.
Compliance standards set by the Obama administration helped drive the improved efficiency, but most of the gains have come through industry innovation. “The industry has been ahead of targets for three consecutive years through 2014,” Automotive News noted. Energy standards have struggled to catch up to auto makers.
That’s troubling for EV development. With low gas prices and more efficient traditional vehicles, the demand for those expensive models will stay cloistered among the rich. A Tesla isn’t a practical mode of transportation so much as a signal of its owner’s wealth, status, and environmental concerns. It’s strange, then, that green subsidies go toward EVs. The subsidies and incentives drive market growth for electric vehicle producers, but market favoritism is a poor justification for a subsidy.
