TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY • November 11, 2023
Automakers are learning an important lesson: Not all car buyers are wealthy environmentalists. This should be obvious but apparently isn’t, which is why the auto industry is now wringing its hands over electric vehicle sales problems. This was obvious for Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, founders of Tesla Motors. By driving the streets of the wealthy suburb of Palo Alto, California, they found tucked between the $2 million homes Priuses. Economists have identified this as “conspicuous conservation,” a way of displaying green virtue. Eberhard and Tarpenning concluded they could sell electric cars to the affluent. Now the time has come for the EV to trickle down — and it’s not happening. Middle-class consumers need their vehicles to go to work, to Grandma’s, to college and to go on vacation. Yet they need them to be inexpensive. An EV’s initial cost is still too high and its practicality too low, especially for the less affluent.