The battle for the climate will require electrifying America’s transportation system. But the Biden administration’s effort to push drivers into electric vehicles is unrealistic — and it risks setting back the country’s whole climate program, legitimizing Republican arguments that the energy transition needed to prevent catastrophic climate change is an ill-wrought, heavy-handed intrusion by the government into Americans’ lives.The administration appears to be getting the message.
Washington’s push for full electric vehicles is already forcing a costly reorganization of industry and mining around the world to reduce reliance on China, the world’s overwhelming leader in battery production, which controls much of the existing mineral supply chain.