If the U.S. and allies become failed states, blame their energy and climate delusions.
I didn’t read last weekend’s Barron’s interview with GM’s Mary Barra before starting this column because I knew the question most crucial for shareholders wasn’t going to be asked:
“Ms. Barra, you say GM won’t be selling gas-powered cars by the year 2035. When you say these words, is it part of an unspoken political bargain to protect the trade and fuel-mileage concessions that allow large markups on big SUVs and pickup trucks?”
Normal market logic goes out the window when company leaders are indulged and even required to say fantastical, unrealistic things about the future. I’ve long borrowed the term “sophisticated state failure” for the Western world’s energy policies. Because government must always be seen doing something, nonsense ideologies, even when spoken purely for effect, end up “gamified” (made a game of) in government programs. Thus the Obama auto bailouts: They left Detroit permanently dependent on artificially inflated pickup profits to subsidize loss-making electric vehicles served up as a gesture by the political class.
The resulting program, the Biden Transportation Department was legally obliged last year to admit, fails any cost-benefit test. Climatewise, the truth is even sadder.
Dollar for dollar, subsidizing EVs for Americans is a subsidy to the rest of the world to use more fossil energy and cause more emissions, a reality that can’t escape political notice forever.
Take Norway, portrayed in GM ads as EV heaven. As a Morgan Stanley research note first observed two years ago, Norway has seen no decline in oil consumption related to EVs, though users receive thousands of dollars in annually recurring subsidies and EVs accounted at the time for 64% of new-car sales.
The reason is increased use and ownership of gas-powered cars, especially for trips that EVs aren’t suited for.
Now comes an update from the natural-resource consultants Goehring & Rozencwajg that only darkens the picture. Despite some of the greenest electricity on Earth, a Norwegian still needs to get 45 years of use out of his imported EV battery (expected life 15 years) to offset the global CO2 cost of producing it.
