Staff Reports
President Joe Biden’s grand plan to electrify American roads has run smack into a brick wall, otherwise known as reality. According to reports from The Wall Street Journal, General Motors found itself in a bit of a pickle as it announced that its ambitious battery plant project in Indiana is now delayed by a year. Originally slated to crank out power cells by 2026, production will now only rev up in 2027. This little setback costs a cool $3.5 billion and will be located in New Carlisle, Indiana—the place where dreams of electric vehicles take an unexpected pit stop.
It’s not a surprise, given GM’s track record, which is beginning to look like a game of musical chairs. Just as recently as July, the auto giant revealed it would be postponing the launch of a new Buick EV as well as the development of a new EV truck factory. They previously proclaimed plans to produce one million EVs in the coming year but seem to have changed their tune quicker than a radio dial on a Sunday drive.
Biden-Harris Administration Gets Disappointing News About EV Battery Plant It Has Touted via @WestJournalism https://t.co/9bIHAVyJLe
— 🇺🇸 The MAGA Train 🇺🇸 Kenneth F Crowe (@KennethFCrowe1) August 29, 2024
Originally announced with fanfare just a few months ago, this collaboration between GM and Samsung SDI promised to create 1,700 shiny new jobs for Hoosiers, much to the delight of Indiana’s GOP Governor, Eric Holcomb. He confidently declared Indiana was in “high gear” to lead the charge toward a new transportation future. No one seems to have informed the job creators that consumers have decided they aren’t quite ready to switch gears to electric.
In typical fashion, Biden jumped on the bandwagon, proclaiming that the clean energy revolution would mean Americans could finally bask in the glow of lower energy costs and a streamlined supply chain. However, the apparent disinterest from the buying public tells a different story. The administration’s plans to mandate that a staggering 70 percent of new vehicle purchases be electric or hybrid by 2032 have not resonated with the average American who continues to prefer their dependable gas-powered vehicles.
While the mainstream narrative might suggest that rising fuel costs would lead folks to embrace electric vehicles, independent studies have indicated otherwise. A Consumer Reports survey from November revealed that electric vehicles from the last three model years encounter a whopping 79 percent more issues than their gas counterparts. Hybrids, in comparison, showed significantly fewer problems. It’s clear that consumers want reliable vehicles—certainly not the latest tech eco-vehicles that seem to break down faster than Biden’s speeches.
The push for EVs is a classic example of a top-down initiative, one that working-class Americans never asked for. People need reliable transportation to commute to work and support their families, and for most, that means sticking with their trusty gas-powered cars. Vendor promises and political grandstanding do little to change the fact that experience—and the demand from everyday consumers—still reigns supreme in the motor vehicle market.
