We have millions and millions of people who are just so very worried about global warming #ClimateChange, but, for some odd reason, they don’t seem to be putting their stated principles into action. From The Wall Street Journal:

Electric Vehicles Are the U.S. Auto Industry’s Future—if Dealers Can Figure Out How to Sell Them

Car dealers say they are struggling to square the industry’s enthusiasm with shoppers’ reality

By Nora Naughton | March 7, 2021 | 5:30 AM EST

Car dealer Brad Sowers is spending money to prepare for the coming wave of new electric models from General Motors Co. He is installing charging stations, upgrading service bays and retraining staff at his St. Louis-area dealership to handle the technology-packed vehicles.

But when he considers how many plug-in Chevy Bolts he sold last year—nine, out of the nearly 4,000 Chevrolets sold at his Missouri dealerships—it gives him pause.

“The consumer in the middle of America just isn’t there yet,” when it comes to switching to electric vehicles, he said, citing the long distances many of his customers drive daily and a lack of charging infrastructure outside major cities.

I know of one person in my small parish who drives a plug-in Chevrolet Dolt Bolt. Decent enough looking car, but there are no commercial charging stations in our rural county. I asked him, and yes, he has a station at his house to recharge his vehicle.

Well, good for him: he has put his money where his mouth is, and adhered to his principles. But, I have to wonder: just how many people in our poor, rural county have the money to buy a new Bolt, MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) $36,500.

More, how many people here have the garage or safely dedicated parking space in which to install a charging station?

As auto executives and investors buzz about the coming age of the electric car, many dealers say they are struggling to square that enthusiasm with the reality today on new-car sales lots, where last year battery-powered vehicles made up fewer than 2% of U.S. auto sales.

Most consumers who come to showrooms aren’t shopping for electric cars, and with gasoline prices relatively low, even hybrid models can be a tough sell, dealers and industry analysts say.

That’s part of the reason that the Biden Administration wants gasoline prices to skyrocket, and they already have, though not due to Administration action. But if customers don’t want them, then customers don’t want them.

Auto makers are moving aggressively to expand their electric-vehicle offerings with dozens of new models set to arrive in coming years. Some like GM are setting firm targets for when they plan to phase out gas-powered cars entirely.

Many dealers say that puts them in a delicate spot: They are trying to adjust, but unsure whether and how fast customers will actually make the switch. About 180 GM dealers, or roughly 20%, have decided to give up their Cadillac franchises rather than invest in costly upgrades that GM has required to sell electric cars.

Translation: the dealerships are in business to, you know, actually make money!

Past attempts by car companies to expand electric-car sales have largely flopped, saddling retailers with unsold inventory. Even now, some dealers say they are reluctant to stock electric models en masse.

“The biggest challenge is that dealers have a bit of ‘boy who cried wolf’ syndrome,” said Massachusetts dealer Chris Lemley.

Car companies have promised for years to make electric cars mainstream, but produced only low-volume, niche models, he said. He recalls Ford Motor Co. rolling out an all-electric Focus that sold poorly and stacked up on his lot. It was discontinued in 2018.

As I have been saying for a while now:

Some shoppers also are unsure. Joe Daniel, an energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said he was determined to buy an electric car, but eventually abandoned his effort after realizing there weren’t enough public charging stations near his apartment in Washington, D.C. Without a place to plug in, the purchase made little sense, he added.

Even if there had been commercial charging stations near his residence, Mr Daniel would have soon discovered another problem:

Charging an electric car at a charging station can take as little as 30 minutes or up to a day depending on a number of factors. The car’s battery size, your battery’s current state of charge, the max charging rate of your vehicle and the charger you’re using, and even the weather — all play a role in how quickly you’ll be able to fill up. A typical electric car like a Nissan Leaf (62-kWh battery) would take about 11.5 hours to charge from empty to full at home on a 240-volt Level 2 charger or could get to about an 80% charge in just 45 minutes if using a public Level 3 DC fast charger.

Emphasis mine.

To solve problems like this, President Biden has said he wants to spend billions of dollars to upgrade the country’s charging infrastructure as part of a push to incentivize battery-powered cars.

Well, of course he does! But upgrading the country’s charging infrastructure doesn’t solve all of the problems:

Tesla Owners Wait in Long Lines to Recharge over Holidays

Institute for Energy Research | January 6, 2020

With over 400,000 Tesla vehicles on U.S. roads, Tesla’s Supercharger stations were overcrowded over the holidays and many Tesla owners faced an hours-long wait to recharge their electric vehicles. At one location in Kettleman City, California, a line of 50 or so Tesla vehicles awaiting a Supercharger stall stretched to about a quarter mile over Thanksgiving weekend. The station is located about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Its 40 stalls were insufficient to accommodate the demand, and the simultaneous recharging of the vehicles lowered the rate of recharging, frustrating customers even more. It takes about 52 minutes to charge a Model 3 to 80 percent at a 120 kilowatt Tesla Supercharger.

How many times have you gone to the gas station, and had to wait behind a vehicle or two to get your turn to fuel up. When it takes around five to ten minutes to pump gasoline into a vehicle, it’s annoying enough, but what if there was just one vehicle ahead of you . . . and it took the driver 52 minutes to recharge his car?

Even if you get to pull right up to the supercharger station, are you going to enjoy spending the better part of an hour to charge up your Tesla or your Bolt?

There’s a lot more at the Journal original, but it all comes down to one thing: as Mr Daniel said above, “For EVs to take off, they need to be as convenient as gas-powered cars—that’s the whole point of this big purchase.”

In the end, the left will find it necessary to force consumers into choices they do not want. The left are pro-choice on exactly one thing.