Shocked, Shocked!! EVs Have Become A Target Of Right-Wing Rage Because Hurr Durr Hurr Durr Reasons!!!

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“Right now it appears that lack of experience with EVs may be acting as a bit of a brake on EV adoption,” says Chris Harto, senior sustainability policy analyst at Consumer Reports. “However, the data seems to be showing that once more consumers get some first hand experience with EVs, demand could accelerate swiftly.” And, as in so many topics these days, the more ignorant you are, the more likely it is that you are a Republican. With all due respect folks. I don’t make the polls.

As Green Car Reports has explained many times before, EVs used to exist as a potential that stood for energy independence and the smart use of innovation, both of which appealed to fiscal-hawk conservatives. Surveys as recently as 2019 showed that EVs weren’t really so polarizing, and several polls since then have still found bipartisan support among Americans for policies supporting EV adoption. However the elected officials representing them have indicated otherwise.

Anti-EV rhetoric started taking root in the GOP more than a decade ago. In a 2012 presidential debate, Mitt Romney called Tesla a “loser” company, implying that EV manufacturers couldn’t survive without government support. Tesla proved that wrong, and it was not a position that GOP party members stood behind in rank and file. But later in the decade, Trump’s derision of EVs became a perennial talking point and speech fodder.

So when did Republicans turn so strongly against EVs? GCR asked Murphy. “I think it is all part of the tribalism that has eaten our politics,” he told Green Car Reports this week. “The minute the Democrats began politically defining themselves as the green energy party there was a growing knee-jerk response from the GOP: ‘if they are for this stuff, we are against it.'” “Now EVs, which were initially sold by the industry as an environmental statement have become swept up in all that, and in the Trump era the whole feedback loop has been amplified,” he added. “Now EVs are no longer seen simply as vehicles to much of the GOP faithful, but instead as Biden/Democratic proxy-mobiles.”

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https://thinc.blog/2024/02/19/poll-knowledge-makes-for-greater-acceptance-of-evs/#more-95551