Stephen Moore: U.S. Big Three Auto Companies Commit to Making Cars That People Don’t Want

My parents were members of the Greatest Generation. They survived the Great Depression and were able to support their families. Then, on December 7, 1941, their lives and families were rocked by the Greatest Generation. My grandfather worked in Washington, D.C. for the War Department, while my father was in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

My mother and my father made an solemn promise that they would remain together as long as they were alive. Never You can buy a Japanese or German car. They didn’t matter how well made they were. They were enemies. They were responsible for nearly half a billion deaths. Period.

This value system was passed to me. Honoring the values of my parents, I could not in good conscience purchase a Japanese or German car.

I was thinking that maybe after all these years I will have to change my mind. American auto manufacturers, who are so often helped by U.S. taxpayers have declared that they plan to cease producing and assembling gas-engine vehicles in the next few decades. These are the cars Henry Ford first saw on the Ford Motor Company’s Detroit assembly line 100 years back.

Virtually everything will be possible from now on. All American-made automobiles will become electric. The corporate executives at Michigan’s automotive executive offices may think that this makes them better global citizens. They are all committed to the fight against global warming. They may be betting politically that the federal government, along with more states, will follow the lead of California and require that all new cars be powered by a battery. The folks at Ford and General Motors are also doing a lot of virtue-signaling.

It’s a country that is free, and if they want millions of EVs to be rolled off the assembly lines, then so be it.

It is one thing to make cars that appeal only to Sierra Club members and another to produce automobiles that every buyer wants. Guess what? EVs have been largely ignored by most people. (Incidentally I am agnostic about electric vehicles. I’ve experienced Teslas driving, and they are a wonderful vehicle. However, they can be stuck in the middle nowhere and run out of juice.

Only 6% of all new cars are electric. Polls indicate that less than half of Americans would prefer an electric vehicle to a conventional car. A larger majority of Americans oppose the government telling them what type of car they can purchase.

California, which has about one in five new car sales that are battery-operated, is the state that sells more electric vehicles than any other country. Detroit, it’s not the country.

All this is to suggest that the American auto industry’s shift to all EVs will fail. This could be America’s biggest failure since Ford introduced Edsel. (This was the 1950s ugly car that nobody wanted.

Nevertheless, one company is recognizing the absurdity of producing only electric cars. Toyota, the Japanese carmaker, is this company. Akio Toyoda is the president and great-grandson of the founder of the Japanese automaker Toyota.

“People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority,” Toyoda has recently spoken to reporters. “That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend, so they can’t speak out loudly.”

Toyoda didn’t finish. “I believe we need to be realistic about when society will be able to fully adopt Battery Electric Vehicles,” He explained. “And frankly, BEVs are not the only way to achieve the world’s carbon neutrality goals.”

Toyoda has it right on all counts. There’s scant evidence that EVs will reduce pollution levels more than traditional cars — in part because most of the energy for the batteries comes from burning fossil fuels. Because the batteries themselves produce waste.

It is possible that a Japanese CEO is more tuned in to American car buyers’ tastes and preferences than those who are based here. (Yes, I do know that Toyota has many American plants.)

It would be reasonable to assume that U.S. automakers understand the basic red, white, and blue reality that Americans have a long-standing and special love affair with cars. They’re not going to trade their Mustangs, Camaros Camaros Cadillacs and trucks in for an EV. This would be like removing our firstborn.

Even more sad is the fact that Japanese car executives seem to better understand American buyers than Detroit’s execs. Honda and Toyota were among the first to realize that people needed more fuel-efficient vehicles when gas prices tripled between 1970s and 1980.

This means that GM, Ford, and Chrysler will continue to make their pledges to 100% EVs. I will have to end my long-standing promise to my parents. “buy American” Never buy a Japanese vehicle. American companies won’t allow me to choose. Sorry, but this is 2023 and not 1923. In 1923 Henry Ford claimed that you could have any color Model T as long it was black.

Übrigens, wie das? “woke” If the green energy fad fades into history, as it almost certainly will, and American auto companies experience a sales crash, they should not be asking for another taxpayer bailout.

Stephen Moore is an economist at FreedomWorks and a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation. His most recent book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy.”

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