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DAVID BLACKMON: Europe’s EV Market Collapse Provides A Lesson For UAW Leadership
Daily Caller News Foundation
It is an ill-kept secret of American politics that most of the big labor unions in the country have long been client organizations of the Democratic Party. In presidential election years, endorsements from these unions for the party’s nominee have generally been foregone conclusions regardless of voting attitudes of rank-and-file union members.
Some are quicker to endorse than others. Vice President Kamala Harris barely had time to buy campaign letterhead before the United Auto Workers (UAW) weighed in on July 31 with its endorsement. The union’s bosses made the move despite the reality of the Biden-Harris electric vehicle mandates placing many of that union’s jobs at risk as the companies they work for lose billions each year on quixotic efforts to force the public to enjoy paying premiums for cars they cannot rely upon when the going gets tough.
Even with that early move, the UAW fell 9 days behind the AFL-CIO, which jumped on the Harris bandwagon so quickly it probably made union members’ heads spin. Hey, speed matters when your business model relies on constantly asking for favors and protections from the federal government, for which the Democratic Party has traditionally been the most fertile ground to plow.
Given that reality, the Teamsters Union made big news this week by endorsing — well, no one — despite overwhelming support among the rank-and-file for the Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump. It was the first time the Teamsters had failed to endorse the Democrat in a race since 1996, and only the second time in the union’s existence. Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican convention in July — and was snubbed by the Democrats at their convention in return. So, the refusal to endorse Harris was not a huge surprise. But O’Brien, fully aware of the vindictive nature of the Democrats towards their political enemies, apparently decided it would not be politically prudent to give a full-throated endorsement to the candidate his members so obviously prefer.
With the race shaping up to be another nail-biter, it remains to be seen whether any of these major unions’ decisions will prove to be wise. But for the UAW, the move to endorse Harris comes with increasing risk amid a softening market for the EVs being forced on U.S. consumers and the rising challenge by Chinese EV makers to the hegemony of domestic car companies in the U.S. market.
With legacy automakers like Ford and General Motors already bleeding billions of dollars in losses in their EV divisions despite heavy government subsidies in place, they can ill-afford an incursion into the U.S. market from Chinese carmakers who are able to make and sell quality EVs for far less than American car companies can. Right now, Europe is providing an object lesson about what happens in the EV space when governments allow that to happen.
EU countries were slow to move to protect their domestic car manufacturers when Chinese companies like BYD began to flood the European market with EVs. EV buyers in countries like Germany and France eagerly bought up the Chinese cars, saving thousands of Euros per unit in the process. When the EU belatedly moved to impose import tariffs on Chinese cars, the domestic car companies responded by raising prices for their own EVs in an effort to recover losses.
The result has been entirely predictable: EV sales in Germany collapsed by nearly 70% during the month of August. In France, they plunged by 33%. Clearly the appetite among EU car buyers for EVs is extremely price sensitive (no one could have possibly seen that coming), and consumers are more than happy to go back to buying gas-powered cars as cheaper alternatives.
Now, the climate alarmist central planners at the EU are proposing to respond to those uncooperative buyers by imposing massive fines on car makers for continuing to sell them the gas-powered cars they actually want to buy. Because, of course, that would be the response from power-mad apparatchiks.
Given that the Biden-Harris regime has basically followed the EU’s model on EV regulation, the EU’s struggles provide a preview of coming attractions for the U.S. auto market under a Harris presidency. It is hard to believe this is the future the UAW leadership really desires for its members.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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