Don’t Count On EVs To Solve Climate Change

Don’t Count On EVs To Solve Climate Change

Share to Linkedin HEFEI, CHINA - APRIL 07: The Nio's 100, 000th production vehicle ES8 rolls off the assembly line at ... [+] the JAC-NIO production base on April 7, 2021 in Hefei, Anhui Province of China. (Photo by Zhang Dagang/VCG via Getty Images) Cognitive dissonance, the ability to believe contradictory things simultaneously, is getting a real work out amongst energy transition analysts and advocates, as on the one hand they are told "Electric Cars Closing in on Gas Guzzlers as Battery Costs Plunge" (Bloomberg 12/16/20) while also hearing "Tesla TSLA Raises Prices“”Again" (autoweek. com, 4/12/21). It sounds like the debate between those who say the environment is terrible and those who say it's improving: both can be true while appearing contradictory. Because the point is that car prices and costs are not always identical when talking about electric vehicles. For one thing, manufacturers like Tesla receive significant income from selling pollution credits; Tesla made $1. 4 billion in 2020, roughly twice its annual profits. The admittedly simplistic implication is that the company is not covering its costs from selling cars and needs higher prices to do so, even as battery costs are coming down. Which is interesting because the