Electric Cars: Powering Down the Nation

The Marshall Policy Institute has released a new study weighing the costs and benefits of the U.S. government’s subsidization of the electric car.  Their damning analysis exposes the initiative as one which harms American producers, consumers, and taxpayers, all the while failing to substantially address the environmental issues at which it is aimed. In 2010, one fourth of GM and Ford’s hybrids were purchased by the federal government.  Nissan got a $1.4 billion dollar loan from the feds to develop their electric car, the Leaf.  Several thousands of dollars in tax credits per car have to be shelled out to make these models saleable.  These and other measures, the Marshall paper notes, are spurred largely by the altruistic wish to save the environment, regardless of whether the cars have any real effect...more