Tl;dr
“The Republican is like, ‘They’re trying to ban gas cars — I’m not going to buy a Biden-mobile,’” said Mike Murphy, a former Republican strategist who runs the nonprofit EV Politics Project, which attempts to counter misinformation on electric cars and encourage conservatives to adopt the vehicles.
Wow, I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you. If “gullibility” was a person, they’d vote for Republicans.
most republicans will buy plenty if the short term and long term costs are cheaper and if they have any access at all to charging.
I used to think that a decade or so ago, but between things like the Texas districts profiting most from wind being the most against it to basically everything this congress has done, it is become increasingly clear that Trump successfully made ‘owning the libs’ the party’s primary platform.
They are already cheaper long term, near parity short term, and charging corridors have gone from just along freeways to most highways, but most Republicans will still call them useless vanity items because why would you give up the ‘freedom’ of gas.
You are taking about a party where a significant portion have been sold massive impractical pickup trucks that never get off the pavement because of marketing that a big expensive truck is ‘manly’ and ‘free’. In that paradime, where a car is a form of personal expression based on marketing, things like practically or cost are not going to be significant factors in decision making.
After all, if the practicality or cost were driving factors, every Republican would drive a Japanese sedan or van and bike everywhere they could.
Even if every quibble was solved, we’d still see pushback because ‘I just don’t like it’, or ‘rolling coal owns the libs’.
To quote a user above:
if you applied classic Conservative principles of conserving individual liberty and being self-sufficient
if the practicality or cost were driving factors, every Republican
Would support relaxed zoning laws which enable the building of higher density, more eco-friendly and lower tax burden neighbourhoods. Places which make it easier to get around by walking or cycling. Places that make it feasible to get by without a car, or with only one car instead of two or three.
Turns out it’s because they’re tribalistic and contrarian. What a surprise!
I think a big portion of the root cause comes from the years of Russian astroturfing of the conservative online spaces. Russia is bigly into oil marketing, and supporting the usage of oil is aligned with their national interests. They have been basically brainwashing conservatives to support oil companies for many years, and now it’s part of their cultural identity.
But if you applied classic Conservative principles of conserving individual liberty and being self-sufficient, it becomes obvious that having an electric car would be an advantage. You can make your own power at home and be free from dependence on gas stations to power your freedom to travel.
There’s plenty of American oil propaganda too. Oil companies around the world have an interest in encouraging people to treat gasoline consumption as part of their cultural identity.
I would love to buy an electric vehicle, but
- New vehicles of any kind are the height of financial irresponsibility, and represent a horrifically bad “investment” in both the short term and the long term.
- The age at which any vehicle flips into being a good investment - 10-20 years old (the global minimum of purchase cost + ongoing repair costs) - is the time frame in which EV batteries become exhausted and require complete replacement at many tens of thousands of dollars, completely negating the financial benefits of a used vehicle.
So unless electric vehicles come with batteries that have lifespans in the 30-50 year range, a purpose-built electric vehicle of any age just isn’t a responsible financial decision for anyone who isn’t looking to burn their money for a vanity purchase.
