If I was to ask you “Who invented the modern automobile?” your first guess would likely be “Henry Ford”. It would make sense given the ubiquity of the Model T in pre-Great Depression America. But the answer is actually Carl Benz (of Mercedes-Benz fame).
What Henry Ford actually “invented” was the mass-production assembly line process for making automobiles–a process that lowered manufacturing costs, allowed the company to make a lot of cars quickly, and–most importantly–meant Ford could sell his vehicles at a price point that made them affordable for millions of American families. It was a process quickly copied by nearly all of the other pre-World War II automakers, allowing the US to ditch the horse and buggy, the trains, and the streetcar and become a driving country.
Well, America now needs another Henry Ford. And that is especially true for folks living in California–where the Legislature has just approved a measure that will ban the sale of all gasoline-powered internal combustion engine vehicles by the year 2035. This law is passed at a time when the average cost for an electric car in the US is $66,000–up 13% from last year.
There were cars in the US before Henry Ford started making the Model T. It was an interesting mix of gas-powered, steam-driven, and even battery-powered cars on the few drivable roads–but these were mostly the toys of the very rich–and were not relied upon as the main mode of transportation. Then Ford changed all of that by making cheap, but more reliable, vehicles that the much more handy folks of those days could actually fix themselves.
In getting ready for this Two Cents, I read through a number of articles talking about the price trend expectations for EV’s. Many pointed to the fact that owners today tend to be higher-income, and many cite the fact that they got a tax incentive to purchase their electric car. A number of articles were also optimistic that production costs for EV’s will fall below that of making gas-powered cars within the next ten years. But most of those articles are now several years old–and articles written this year have a very different tone. Even a pro-EV website like Green Car Reports is admitting that battery production is going to be a bigger challenge than everyone first thought.
For starters, the Swiss tech firm ABB–which sells battery production technology–is sounding the alarm that there will not be enough battery production facilities to meet the vehicle number goals laid out for 2035. Also, the cost of the raw materials needed to make those batteries has only been increasing since (and this is Economics 101) demand for them has increased substantially in the past decade. And that is where the “next Henry Ford” has to show up–to figure out a way to mass produce electric cars in a way that actually lowers their price.
Although I would point out that California lawmakers won’t actually be rooting for the “new Henry Ford”. Continued high costs for electric vehicles actually plays into their long-range goals for the ban on internal combustion engine vehicles. And that is control of residents’ transportation options. Removal of gas-powered vehicles from the streets, without equally-affordable replacements, will force more people to seek out public transportation to get almost everywhere. It will also drive more people in rural or suburban areas into the ever-denser city centers where public transportation is offered–or where you hope you can find a job and shops close enough to walk to every day. And when there is greater demand for public services, the alleged threat of reducing those services serves as a great incentive to vote a certain way.
It’s ironic that the state that helped to create “car culture” in America with hot rods, street racing, strapping surfboards to your “woody”, beautiful coastal highways, drive-ins, drive-thrus, and songs about cruising is now leading the way to destroy that culture–and the amazing freedom of movement that it brought to us.
