Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, for whatever reason, decided that she would take a summer road trip — something that, along with everything else in Biden's America, has gotten more expensive — and declared that she would do it in an electric vehicle in an apparent attempt to show their capabilities and somehow convince Americans to drop some major moola on new EVs for their own lives. Things, however, did not go according to plan. In fact, they went so horribly bad that at one point police had to be called.
These revelations come courtesy of a National Public Radio reporter who gleefully joined Sec. Granholm for her EV roadtrip. As NPR explained, "Granholm's trip through the southeast, from Charlotte, N.C., to Memphis, Tenn., was intended to draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars."
Instead, Granholm's publicity stunt drew attention to the trials and tribulations of electric vehicle ownership — especially for those with non-Tesla EVs.
"I rode along with Granholm during her trip, eager to see firsthand how the White House intends to promote a potentially transformative initiative to the public and what kind of issues it would encounter on the road," NPR's Camila Domonoske effused. "Granholm is in many ways the perfect person to help pitch the United States' ambitious shift to EVs," she gushed, tossing her partially taxpayer-funded NPR objectivity out the EV's window.
But even NPR could not avoid retelling what happened when the trip intended to show off EVs had its proverbial wheels come off:
Granholm's entourage at times had to grapple with the limitations of the present. Like when her caravan of EVs — including a luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150 and an affordable Bolt electric utility vehicle — was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Georgia.
Her advance team realized there weren't going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station's four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy.
That did not go down well: a regular gas-powered car blocking the only free spot for a charger?
In fact, a family that was boxed out — on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle — was so upset they decided to get the authorities involved: They called the police.
The sheriff's office couldn't do anything. It's not illegal for a non-EV to claim a charging spot in Georgia. Energy Department staff scrambled to smooth over the situation, including sending other vehicles to slower chargers, until both the frustrated family and the secretary had room to charge.
While highlighting one set of issues with the Biden administration's attempts to force an energy "transition," Granholm showed why such attempts to force Americans into buying only government-approved items — cars, appliances, food, etc. — don't go well. Without the free market moving along with demand from consumers, the system just won't work.
As the NPR reporter noted, "EVs that aren't Teslas have a road trip problem." That's because Tesla has seen wild success without — and even in spite of — a lack of public support from the Biden administration which seems to go out of its way to avoid even mentioning Elon Musk's success getting Americans to switch to EVs without forcing them to do so.
As more people bought Teslas, more charging stations were established, contributing to more people buying Teslas, and even more chargers being added. The market met demand from consumers and the system works. But the clumsy and overreaching federal government is attempting to bind Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and force the market and consumers to follow its will. That just doesn't work, as Granholm discovered and demonstrated.
More on Granholm's disaster of a roadtrip via Fox News:
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm's EV road trip earlier this year was a complete mess.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 12, 2023
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