Top 5 Reasons To Ignore Big Oil’s Attacks On Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles are quickly becoming more mainstream because they are affordable, safe, and reliable. They also represent opportunities to create hundreds of thousands of jobs.  Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, work is already underway to build out electric vehicle infrastructure. Unfortunately, Big Oil special interests and their allies in Congress are trying to spread misinformation to obstruct investments in making electric vehicles even more affordable and accessible. Here’s why they’re wrong.

1. Electric Vehicles Save Drivers Money And Are Becoming Even More Affordable. Almost every major car brand and several new makers are offering electric vehicles today. Many electric models are available for under $35,000, less than the average price of a new conventional car in the U.S. Meanwhile, the top-selling truck for the last 44 years, the Ford F-150 is being offered in an electric version at price points comparable to gasoline versions with similar specs. Right now, the biggest obstacle to bringing even more affordable electric vehicles to the market is Republican obstruction against expanded tax incentives.
   Electric vehicles actually save drivers money when stacked up against their comparable combustion engine counterparts. In fact, Consumer Reports found that after you factor in fuel and maintenance costs, electric vehicle owners end up saving  $6,000 to $10,000 over the life of the vehicle. A new report by the Zero Emissions Transportation Association (ZETA) broke down specific state-by-state comparisons using local fuel and electricity prices to show how much cheaper it is to own comparable electric versus gasoline vehicles.
2. Transitioning To Electric Vehicles Means Creating Domestic Manufacturing Jobs And Building Supply Chains At Home. There is a boom in good-paying clean energy jobs building electric vehicles right here in America. Opponents of electric vehicles say they don’t want to be reliant on foreign suppliers of parts and materials, but they are also the same politicians who refuse to support developing domestic supply chains. Fortunately, the growing demand for electric vehicles is already driving investments right here in the United States, from battery plants in Georgia, to lithium sourced from a geothermal plant in California, to massive new assembly plant investments in Detroit. Estimates suggest significant investments in the EV sector could create over 635,000 jobs in EV manufacturing and related fields.
3. No, Electric Vehicles Are Not More Harmful To The Environment. This just isn’t true. To suggest electric vehicles aren’t cleaner than gas-powered cars is a straight up lie. Even after accounting for emissions from generating electricity and the fact that electric vehicles can be more intensive to manufacture, electric vehicles are still responsible for 3x less pollution over the life of the vehicles compared to gas-powered cars. That difference is expected to widen as we transition to more clean sources of energy.
4. Electric Vehicles Can Get You Where You Need To Go. For long-distance trips, fast-charging stations are already becoming more available. Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Biden administration is already taking steps to deploy a national network of 500,000 fast charging stations across the country. For most day-to-day travel, the average daily commuting distance is 27.6 miles, but the median range for new battery electric vehicles in 2020 was over 250 miles. Realistically, this is more than enough to cover average day-to-day driving scenarios, even if you only ever plug in at home with a basic charger that tops off your batteries overnight. 
5. Electric Vehicles Are Actually Safer Than Hauling Around A Tank Full Of Explosive Gasoline. A handful of viral videos of electric vehicles burning after a crash have somehow led some people to forget that current combustion engine cars run on an explosive. In truth, gasoline vehicles are 100x more likely to catch fire than electric vehicles. According to crash testing by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), electric vehicles are actually just as safe as or safer than gasoline- and diesel-powered cars. IIHS also studied data from nine electric vehicle models and their conventional counterparts from 2011 to 2019 and found that driver and passenger injury claims were more than 40 percent lower in the electric versions.