Why is New York City So far behind in Electric Cars?


A survey published in June by the Pew Research Center He noted that 51 percent of Americans oppose the proposal to completely shut down production of gasoline-powered cars and trucks, even though automakers are moving to do this on their own. For example, early last year General Motors He said he wanted to stop selling cars that depend on gasoline and diesel. within the next 14 years.

This week, we got a glimpse of just how contentious things can get when Vice President Kamala Harris and Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg unveil electric cars and buses at an event. Slammed by Republican commentators for “sound deafness”“The criticism was that as many Americans struggle with the high cost of gas, it was insensitive to say that zero-emissions transportation would save us from the vagaries of fuel pricing.

Before long, electric cars were at the center of the conspiracy theories spread on social media. As the Biden administration suggested, Especially treacherously increasing the cost of gas to get people into electric cars. Similar to the fantasy that Covid vaccines are really just a tool of government mind control, another conspiracy theory is that the government wants us to use electric cars so they can freeze them at any moment, a scenario straight out of the scenario.Minority Report

New York’s Republican strongholds – Staten Island and Queens and certain parts of Brooklyn – are places where public transportation is sparse and car use is high. I asked Ydanis Rodriguez, the city’s current transport commissioner, how realistic it was to imagine that drivers across the ideological spectrum would embrace electric cars. The commissioner was actually quite optimistic.

“Katrina, Maria, Sandy – these big events make people understand that this is real and not something invented by the Chinese,” said Mr. Rodriguez, referring to the climate crisis and the climate crisis. The idea was raised by Donald Trump that all this is a hoax produced by China.. When Mr. Rodriguez served as chairman of the City Council’s transportation committee, he told me he often met drivers in uniform who wanted to switch to electric cars. What we found is that there is an interest not only among upper-class New Yorkers to get off the gas, but also among working-class New Yorkers.”

While this is undoubtedly the case, even with falling prices and government subsidies – which could be around $10,000 in New York State – the price of a new electric car still exceeds $20,000, or about Twice the 2011 Hyundai Sonata This is in a city where hundreds of thousands of people are facing evictions and high rents. The road to virtue is long.



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