Bumpy roads remain for electric vehicles
The push of the fossil fuel industry against electric vehicles (EV) didn’t stop with the destruction of GM’s EV-1 program. Two years ago, the American Petroleum Institute spearheaded the launch of the Transportation Fairness Alliance, as brazen a front group as any. The group argues that gasoline or diesel-driven vehicle owners pay fuel taxes at the pump. EV owners, they reason, cheat the system by not pitching into the tax pool that funds road construction and repair. (In all fairness, EVs also don’t contribute to ground-level ozone pollution or “smog.” And, depending on the source of the electricity, EVs ideally don’t spew carbon into the air.) However, investigators at DeSmog found that “the coalition is being managed by FTI Consulting, a DC-based international consultancy firm that has a long history of running front groups and PR campaigns for the oil and gas industry.”