Most people agree we need to take care of the environment. After all, this is the only planet we’ve got, right? So it always sounds great to do things that help care for the environment…but shouldn’t we also look at what it will cost us to do so and make sure the sacrifices are worth it?
The latest from the EPA is just the latest tricky sitch that deserves some attention. Like last year’s EV car mandate, now they’re requiring trucks to go EV…or else!
Here are Five Fast Facts on the new EV truck mandate:
- 📈 Raising The Standard - The EPA has set the new standard for 60% of all delivery truck sales and 25% of long haul freight trucks between now and 2032 to be EVs. You know, those huge things that move roughly 68% of all freight around the country? As a frame of reference, there are zero long haul EV trucks in production right now and current sales of delivery trucks are less than 1% EVs. Riiiiight, that’s gonna happen.
- 🤏 Just A Couple Wee Problems - Opponents of this move point out that electric trucks can only go 170 miles on a single charge at best (and that’s in good weather, never mind winter when EVs often go 0 miles) and they have to carry lighter loads to make up for bigger/heavier batteries, meaning it takes more of them to move the same amount of freight (yay, traffic congestion!). Also, the electric grid infrastructure isn’t even close to handling millions of new EV trucks, each of which uses 7 times the electricity of a normal home daily, and which charge in depots that use more energy than small cities. Details, details, details…
- 💡 Californ-eye-ay - Of the tiny number of electric trucks currently operating, most are in California. By 2030 those trucks alone will consume 11% of the state’s energy. Renewables aren’t capable of keeping up with that kind of growth, especially considering it takes up to 8 years to make some components and build the substations needed to power all of them. In completely unrelated news, California experiences easily the most power outages in the country.
- 🤯 The Magnitude Of The Effort - The EPA says that a mere 15,000 chargers will need to be built monthly to meet the demand of these new trucks. It’ll cost utilities $370 billion to upgrade their networks to handle the extra power needed, and trucking companies will have to spend another $620 billion on top of that to overhaul their fleets and infrastructure. Oh, and EV trucks are 2-3 times more expensive than diesel cabs. Chump change, right? But don’t worry, none of those costs will be passed along to consumers! 👍
- ❌ For The…Win?? - Okay, all those problems are a big deal, sure. But what about saving the planet? Well, if we did everything the EPA is demanding, it would “avoid” fewer CO2 emissions over the next three decades as China and India put out last year alone. And don’t forget that China is the one making all those EV batteries, and they’re dumping CO2 into the air at an astounding rate to do it.
🔥Bottom line: We said it before, and we meant it - we need to take care of our environment! But things like this EPA rule are literal insanity. You’re talking about forcing companies to build vehicles that no one wants because they are far less effective and way more expensive, to do jobs much worse than the cheaper gas-powered alternatives. As a result, two thirds of everything that is shipped from one place to another in the country will become massively more expensive to YOU. And in exchange essentially nothing different will happen in terms of planet-saving.
Why is this even a thing?
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