Hybrid cars are losing their luster. As noted in a number of articles, including this recent commentary on the Reason Foundation website, they don’t get the superior gas mileage claimed in their EPA ratings. Hybrids may reduce gasoline consumption modestly but not enough to justify the handsome premiums charged by auto manufacturers — as my wife, who paid about $5,000 extra for a hybrid version of the Toyota Highlander last year can testify.
Hybrid sales are slowing, and Ford Motor Co. is backing away from a pledge to ramp up its hybrid production by 10 times, leaving the market mainly to Toyota. Ironically, the federal tax credits for hybrids and the special privileges, such as the right to travel in HOV lanes, will induce American motorists to buy Japanese cars manufactured in Japan. (Most hybrids are made in Asia.) Now, there’s an industrial policy that we can all be proud of!
Meanwhile, the humble electric car is making a comeback. The Wall Street Journal has an article in its personal section today, “The Electric Car Gets Some Muscle.” Manufacturers are shaking up the image of electric cars as a golf carts with windows by improving performance, extending their driving range and adding popular features such as sunroofs. Tesia Motors Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up, is selling a roadster that it claims can reach speeds of 135 miles per hour and run 200 miles per charge. (Let’s hope Tesia’s numbers aren’t as inflated as the hybrids’.)
What does this mean for Virginia? For starters, the economics of electric vehicles are more favorable here because the cost of electricity is below the national average. Indeed, Dominion was pushing electric vehicles a decade ago, only to give up, apparently for a lack of interest. But, then, gasoline prices were a lot cheaper than they are now, and the technology less advanced.
When the state Energy task force looks at energy alternatives for the Commonwealth, it should take a look at electric cars. Short of providing subsidies, always a bad idea, the task force should ask, what regulatory barriers can the state remove to facilitate the widespread use of electric cars? For instance, do Dominion and American Electric Power offer off-peak electric rates for cars that recharge their batteries at night when demand is low?
As I’ve noted before on this blog, every $.20 increase in the price of gasoline sucks about $1 billion out of the pockets of Virginia motorists and transfers it, in part, to countries where mullahs and imams use it to finance American-hating Islamic madrassas or, worse, terrorists. Inducing Virginians to drive electric cars won’t do much to starve the mullahs, but at least it would substitute home-generated electricity for oil, keeping those dollars circulating in our local economy and insulate us from oil-supply disruptions in unstable and war-torn countries.
Everyone agrees that we need to wean ourselves from our oil addiction, but Virginia legislators act as if they are powerless to do much of anything. The Energy study group needs to seriously rethink Virginia’s energy-intensive transportation and land use policies, as noted frequently on this blog, but it also needs to think creatively about ways to jump-start the adoption of electric cars.
