The purported environmental and financial benefits of transitioning to electric vehicles have been called into question in a new report from the Manhattan Institute, Fox News reported.
In a paper titled “Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream,” author Mark Mills argues that transitioning to electric vehicles would increase costs for consumers, put significant strain on the electric grid, and threaten US national security, all while failing to make a dent in global greenhouse gas emissions.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Mills, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said transitioning to electric vehicles is morally, geopolitically, socially, and economically consequential.
He warned that federal subsidies and mandates could cause “the biggest misallocation of capital” in the industrial markets “in modern times,” with hundreds of billions spent.
And even with all that money spent, the transition to electric vehicles will not “achieve the goals intended,” Mills said. Instead, it will come with “enormous economic and social costs” since the “underlying premises” in taking the actions underway “are either incorrect,” poorly understood, or “difficult to quantify.”
Mills explained that the government’s aggressive push to transition to electric vehicles in the coming years is based on the premise that it will lower carbon emissions and help consumers save on fuel costs while keeping vehicle prices steady.
But according to his report, the expected cost and emissions benefits are subject to a wide range of conditions, even when or where an electric vehicle is charged.
He also notes that the manufacture of electric vehicles results in carbon emissions as emissions are associated with all of the materials and machines used to make them.
Mills told Fox News that based on “realistic scenarios,” there could be times when driving an EV could generate more carbon emissions than driving a conventionally-powered vehicle.
In his report, Mills warned that a ban on internal combustion engines will likely lead to draconian impediments to convenient, affordable driving, not to mention a tremendous “misallocation of capital in the world’s $4 trillion automotive industry.”
