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07.23.2014 0

The EPA takes aim at Tesla, electric cars

teslaBy Tom Toth

The cornerstone of personal independence and commerce in the modern world is motorized mobility — the car. Ever since Henry Ford’s Model T revolutionized travel in the United States over a hundred years ago, people have relied on the automobile for virtually every personal interaction and business expenditure. Today, the car may very well be at the precipice of its evolutionary leap into the 21st century, and Obama’s regulatory state could kill it on arrival.

Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, has been a pioneer in the development of electric cars that are as practical as they are attractive. Tesla cars are inherently American: efficient, sleek, fast, and, well, sexy. Everything we look for in the vehicles that represent such an enormous part of the American experience.

Recent stories have revealed Musk’s plan to release a $35,000 Tesla model with the capability of traveling more than 200 miles per charge — or about double what the unattractive, euro-like Nissan Leaf can travel — said to possess the amenities and attractiveness of the current, far more expensive Tesla models. A top-end electric car for the every-man. If achieved successfully, this may mark the beginning of the commonly used exhaust-free, electric automobile. What a glorious achievement for the environmentalist left! … Right?

Well, not quite.

As one can easily deduce, the electric car requires electricity. For electricity to be a more efficient way to power said electric car over, say, petrol fuels, it needs to be available in inexpensive abundance. That’s the non-starter for the EPA and the environmental extremist allies of the Obama administration.

Most American energy is generated by coal and natural gas. Coal is already on its way out. Regardless of the resource’s ability to power the nation for over 500 years at current energy usage rates, the EPA has recently laid down a regulation forcing all plants to reduce emissions by 30 percent — a crippling blow to an already suffering industry. The regulations may actually work far better, and worse, than expected. They very well reduce emissions from power generated by coal by 100 percent when the industry is unable to afford the amazing costs of retrofitting plants with new government-regulated technology. They may also, ironically, kill an industry that actually lures the American public away from the gasoline-fired automobile that the same regulatory clear-cutters want to do away with.

If energy prices skyrocket, as Obama said would be an inevitable outcome of his environmental policies, there is no practical purpose to investing in an electric car at any price point.

The free market could be ready to be rid of the carbon-puffing car and the alarmist, reactionary left may have already killed it upon arrival.

What exactly does the Obama administration want for the future of American energy? The market knows what it wants, the people know what they want. But it seems like the environmentalist radicals behind the Obama administration’s energy and environment public policies have an indiscriminate taste to destroy, rather than build for the future.

Progress is just over the horizon, only the self-titled “progressives” stand in the way.

Tom Toth is the digital content director for Americans for Limited Government

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