A Cautionary Tale From Europe

[Valin]

Power Line

John Hinderaker

November 28, 2024

In 2019, Britain’s Tories won a landslide victory. Just five years later, they were voted out of office. The Conservatives failed to deliver on immigration, and Boris Johnson went “green.” With more or less leftist positions on those two issues, what reason was there to vote Tory? None, most people concluded.

Now the “green” train is engaged in a slow-motion wreck. Electric vehicle mandates are part of the problem. The Telegraph headlines: “Labour poised to water down electric car rules amid crisis in industry.” The subhed: “EV mandate not ‘working as anyone intended’, admits Business Secretary.”

Labour is poised to water down electric vehicle (EV) rules amid a mounting crisis in the industry over the pace of the transition away from petrol and diesel cars.

(Snip)

Europe’s carmakers are in desperate straits because governments are requiring them to sell ever-increasing numbers of electric vehicles, and their customers don’t want to buy them. But governments are not yet ready to admit that the whole thing was a mistake. Thus:

[Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders] said the slowdown in the global market, especially for electric vehicles, has hit production, with the UK particularly exposed “given we have arguably the toughest targets and most accelerated timeline but without the consumer incentives necessary to drive demand”.

It is a classic scenario: the government creates a problem by enacting mandates that devastate a market, and the purported “solution” is to distort the market further via subsidies. This is a path to ruin. The United States is on the same road, but not as far along. It isn’t too late for us to turn back.

 

[Valin]

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