Relative cost of U.S. electric car policy

[JamesMcQuaid]

Saudi Reuters is running a story entitled "U.S. electric car policy to cost $7.5 billion by 2019: CBO". Roughly half of this expenditure dates to 2009, the other half was authorized under President Bush in 2007.

What Reuters fails to explain is that during the same time period, the oil industry will receive $32 billion in U.S. federal government subsidies.

The reality that American ‘Consumption Pain’ Is Self-Inflicted has not prevented irresponsible politicians from opposing electric vehicles and higher CAFE standards.

What Is Consumption Pain:

Visualizing Bloomberg’s data from August helps explain the “pain at the pump”. Usually, the less developed a nation is, the higher its pain rank (heavy subsidizers like Saudi Arabia are outliers). The average American can afford paying $3.75 per gallon more readily than, say, the average Indian, who makes only $4 a day and pays more than $5 per gallon -- a staggering 137 percent of a day’s wages.

Factoring gasoline consumption rates into the ranking presents a radically different picture of the world and confirms that Americans do feel pain. Let’s call this “consumption pain” (click on map to the left). The formula is simple enough: Multiply the “pain at the pump” (the average price per gallon of gasoline over average daily income) by daily gasoline consumption per capita, obtained from the EIA and World Bank.

By this measure, the U.S. ranks sixth highest in terms of “consumption pain” despite its relatively low prices at the pump (11th lowest in Bloomberg’s ranking) and high income (11th highest).

Bob Lutz understands that the economics of consumption pain are at play as well as anyone, and this may account for his resolute confidence in the future of vehicle electrification:

Lutz says the Volt will survive all naysayers

Retired General Motors executive Bob Lutz has wondered whether “somebody is waging a deliberate war of misinformation” against GM and the Chevrolet Volt before deciding not to worry about it.
...
“The Chevrolet Volt will survive, it will survive on its own merit, it will become the landmark vehicle it was destined to be,” he said. “It is by far the No. 1 selling vehicle of its type in the world. It’s doing better at this stage in its life than the Toyota Prius did at a similar stage in its history.”

[Gary Norton]

Exactly. And the $32B oil subsidy doesn't include the $5 Trillion spent on the military over that ten years, much of which is there to protect oil supplies.

[aventineavenue]

Lots of deception/dishonest reporting in this "story" - I fail to see how the ~$1.5 billion in allocated tax credits could be counted as a "cost" to the government. It is a reduction in tax revenue, for sure, but that is not the same thing as a cost/expenditure.

Yes the $2.4B in battery related grants and loans could be considered a government cost of "EV Policy" but I fail to see how the "$3.1 billion in loans to auto companies designed to spur production of fuel-efficient vehicles" can be added in as well as being related to "EV policy costs"...I don't know the particulars but much of this money could be going into efficiency of ICE (ex. "ECO engine") development which does little for the actually electric car movement...in fact it competes with it and sells more ICE cars (ex. Chevy Cruze, Sonic, Spark, etc) or perhaps some alt carbon fuel vehicles, stretching out our dependence on fossil fuels, oil in particular.

[montgom626]

Saudi Reuters is running a story entitled "U.S. electric car policy to cost $7.5 billion by 2019: CBO". Roughly half of this expenditure dates to 2009, the other half was authorized under President Bush in 2007.

What Reuters fails to explain is that during the same time period, the oil industry will receive $32 billion in U.S. federal government subsidies.

The reality that American ‘Consumption Pain’ Is Self-Inflicted has not prevented irresponsible politicians from opposing electric vehicles and higher CAFE standards.

What Is Consumption Pain:

Bob Lutz understands that the economics of consumption pain are at play as well as anyone, and this may account for his resolute confidence in the future of vehicle electrification:

Lutz says the Volt will survive all naysayers

We are such hypocrites taking everybody's inventory about what they are doing wrong. The problem is us! Look in the mirror. When you drive your car alone, your are a hypocrite. If everyone would car pool, then all this silly mental masturbation would be unnecessary. But no one in the country can be inconvenienced with car pooling because we are all so important and busy and don't have the time. Yet, I can read a post that took an hour to write, but never addresses the real problem in this fat, overweight, lazy and self centered society. We are too lazy to get off of our collective rear ends and really make a difference. We love to talk about how much we care and how much we do, but we do jack. We sit in our cars, alone, and worry about what others are doing. We are doing nothing! We are full of BS. Excuses. Blame someone else. We may know how to spell personal responsibility, but we don't act on it. Always blame the other guy for big oil and foreign wars. Look in the mirror next week when you sit alone in your car. You are the problem. Big oil can't get rich unless you feed the beast. Hypocrites. Wars can't be fought over oil if you do something other than spout a bunch of hot air about how much you care. Nonsense. You just like to hear the sounds of your voices proclaim your moral superiority.