They are being declared NRE - which in this case isn't Not Really European, the NRE that white liberals on The Continent use to refer to immigrants, but Not Really Electric.
Electric Car Government Relations get paid to pave the road for their clients/employers, so they do what you probably expect; create trade groups and even entire nonprofits to advance their agenda. And pay those naturally inclined to help, or even those who are 'useful idiots.'(1)
Public Citizen - helping make Elon Musk richer, by telling Prius owners they are killing earth.
With mandates and subsidies in place, Big Electric Car should be riding high. Car manufacturers are happy, they can charge whatever they want because their customers are wealthy and poor people help foot the bill, so they're making everyone basically part of their client base. Infrastructure companies are happy; with so many electric cars yet no way to drive them, government will have to do what they never did for any part of the conventional automobile industry - subsidize charging stations.
Yet a lot of government money is never enough so electric car PR outfits are now trying to force hybrid owners to buy new cars as well. The way to do that is to use the engine of politics. You often see bizarre outliers, like Endangered Species Act listings climb dramatically during certain administration, or more regulations and use of agencies to act outside Congress. So Public Citizen hopes that going into an election year they might be able to hold President Biden's feet to the fire. They filed a lawsuit with the FTC to stop Toyota from noting that their hybrid cars also use electricity. The Biden administration is down on China, and progressive trade groups know that their voting bloc probably doesn't know the difference between China and Japan, either is a language they use for tattoos in Frisco, so Toyota works. Lexus sounds too 'American' to work for their purpose.
They are further calling on political allies in states like California, Massachusetts, New York, and Oregon to also prevent car manufacturers from claiming hybrid vehicles are as awesome for saving the planet as electric cars.
Of course, the science community knows it's ridiculous. Conventional energy has only dropped by 0.1% worldwide despite alternative energy getting $4 trillion from taxpayers forced by progressive governments to subsidize them. Electric cars are not electric cars, they are incredibly inefficient modes of transportation that rely overwhelmingly on conventional energy, except with even more emissions than combustion engines.
If I were an advisor, I would tell POTUS to ignore them. He's gotten a lot of bipartisan support by defending Israel against mideast terrorism and what are electric car trade groups going to do, vote Republican?
NOTE:
(1) They are not alone. A former Clinton administration appointee, Eric Kessler, has a new marketing campaign out to promote concern about climate change. The irony is that a man is behind the "Science Moms" campaign and that he created his group to combat disinformation. What is greater evidence of disinformation than a man running a group that sounds like it is run by women which is targeting women because he thinks they know less science and are therefore easier to manipulate?
By creating a veneer of women to be the public face of a front group, Kessler is hoping to prevent clear the appearance of Dark Money manipulation so overt even the New York Times was critical.
"Science Moms?" More like fake group number 341. It will be interesting to see how much money this nonprofit pays for 'consulting' and advice to an Arabella subsidiary.
The Atlantic called Arabella’s network “the massive progressive dark-money group you’ve never heard of” and multiple former Arabella employees work inside the Biden administration. Other causes they have heavily funded include the 2020 election, redistricting to try and manipulate Congressional results in 2021, supporting Obamacare, and blocking judicial nominees of Republicans.
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