Obama Is 826,000 Short of His 1 M Electric Car Promise

12/3/2014

Back in the good old days when President Obama didn't have so many dings on his record, he promised that by 2015 there'd be more than 1 million electric cars on the road.

Well, with just days to go, he's only about 826,000 or so cars short of that goal.

Instead of 200,000 Nissan Leafs on the road today -- as Obama's Department of Energy predicted in 2011 -- there are less than 70,000.

And while Obama forecast 375,000 Chevy Volt sales by 2014, just a bit more than 71,000 have made it off the showroom floor.

Fisker, which was supposed to be selling 85,000 electric cars a year by now, went bankrupt last year.

Add it up, and there are a grand total of less than 180,000 plug-ins on U.S. roads today. Worldwide, there are only 400,000.

It's true that Tesla has been something of a hit, at least among the richest of the rich. But even Tesla is having trouble getting its more modestly priced Model X crossover into production.

And so, after shoveling $8 billion in taxpayer money into electric cars, Obama quietly ended up ditching his 1 million goal late last year.

The electric car picture isn't likely to get much better in the years ahead, no matter how much money the government throws at this technology.

As Mark Mills carefully and devastatingly explains in an article on Real Clear Politics, electric cars face one impenetrable obstacle in replacing gas-powered cars -- it's called physics.

"Pound for pound (and pounds matter) the chemicals that comprise gasoline store 40 times more energy than the best chemicals in batteries," he writes. "Gasoline is not only more dense but also remarkably safe, easy to store, and portable."

He goes on: "The underlying difference in energy density — hydrocarbons vs. electrochemistry — is locked in the physics of the associated atoms and molecules. No venture capital, government subsidy, or computer magic can change that," he writes.

What this means is that electric engines must be far heavier. "A Tesla battery pack, plus motor, weighs over 1,500 pounds. A loaded fuel tank, plus motor, in a Mustang weighs just over 500 pounds."

Electric cars are also, he explains, far more expensive to drive than gas-powered ones when you include all the costs involved.

And while battery technology is improving, so too is the internal combustion engine, Mills notes, adding that because gas-powered engines start with a huge advantage over batteries, they will likely continue to outperform plug-ins.

This is science, folks. You know, the thing Democrats and liberals claim that they alone adhere to?

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