Obama's electric car is a rich man's ride-Charles Lane

• 7/30/10, "Unaffordable at any speed, President Obama's electric car subsidies are snobby and foolish," Slate, by Charles Jones

"It's official: The Chevrolet Volt, the new plug-in electric hybrid car from General Motors, will cost $41,000—that's a four-seat hatchback for about the base price of a BMW 335i. To be sure, a $7,500 federal tax credit cuts that to $33,500, and electricity is cheaper per mile than gas. But barring some huge oil price spike or stiff new gas tax, it would take more than a decade to offset the higher purchase price. Some will pay a premium for the frisson of going green or being the first "early adopter" on the block.

• Still, this little runabout is a rich man's ride.

And that's my problem with the Obama administration's energy policy, or at least with his lavish subsidies for the Volt, Nissan's all-electric Leaf (likely sticker price $33,000), and Tesla's $100,000 all-electric Roadster:

• Where does the federal government get off spending the average person's tax dollars to help better-off-than-average Americans
  
• buy expensive new cars?

President Obama's ostensible goals are reducing both carbon emissions and the nation's dependence on foreign oil and creating "green" jobs. But it's far from clear that his program will actually achieve these laudable aims at a reasonable cost.

• And there are cheaper, more equitable policies. You might call the president's subsidies limousine liberalism—if only the cars were bigger.

How rarefied is the electric-car demographic? When Deloitte Consulting interviewed industry experts and 2,000 potential buyers, it found that from now until 2020,

• only "young, very high income individuals"—those from households making more than $200,000 a year—

would even be interested in plug-in hybrids or all-electric cars. This "small number" of people will provide "nowhere near the volume needed for mass adoption."

• They will be concentrated in Southern California, where weather, state regulations, and infrastructure are all favorable to electric vehicles—

"adoption is already being popularized by high-profile celebrities.""...

• 8/2, "Green Machine: Plug-Free Electric Cars' Hidden Cost," New Scientist