Two months into his Presidency, Joe Biden announced a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that included $174 billion in grants, subsidies, and other payouts to encourage Americans to switch to battery-electric vehicles (BEVs). Since that initial “investment,” billions and billions more have been poured into what is increasingly a failing effort to convince or cajole auto buyers to switch.
These huge expenditures, together with COVID and war monies, have ballooned the national debt to the point that 76% of income taxes are needed just to pay interest on that debt. Many fear that profligate spending has the nation’s economy on the verge of collapse.
The fault lies with the very concept that Government Knows Best. Nothing is proving that tautology wrong more than the plethora of alternatives to BEVs – including a wide variety of hydrogen-powered engines and a new self-rotating engine– that are emerging on the world scene. None of these have been “blessed” with massive subsidies, and none would require a heavily subsidized nationwide charging station network.
It may be surprising to some, but even The New York Times back in 2021 questioned the wisdom of Biden’s bold BEV plunge. Niraj Chokshi wrote both that the $174 billion “might not be enough to push most Americans toward EVs.”
Chokshi was doubtful that “federal largesse,” which merely shifts part of the cost of a BEV from the buyer to the public, would convince consumers of the benefits of electric vehicles. That Biden then resorted to near-term mandates for a technology lacking a track record “only reinforces Chokshi’s observation.
Chokshi’s report made it clear that the $15,000 EV battery and its constant need for recharging would remain the biggest obstacles to public acceptance of what was at the time deemed the “only” pathway toward a cleaner energy future. There was no talk of support for other low- or no-"carbon” engine technologies on Capitol Hill or in the media.
Yet it is obvious today that multiple companies were already at work to develop alternatives to a vehicle that has to be recharged nearly every day. That may be convenient enough for the wealthy whose garages and home electrical systems can accommodate two charging ports but is quite difficult and time consuming for just about everyone else.
A recent article noted that Stellantis is investing $6 billion to build a generation of motors capable of running on gasoline or Brazilian ethanol and combined with plug-in hybrid technology. Kohler Engines last year unveiled a KDH hydrogen internal combustion engine, and BMW, Toyota, Triton EV, Hyundai, and many other automakers are also building hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines.
Despite the federal push for a “one size fits all solution” to the presumed problem of carbon dioxide emissions, these and other automakers went ahead with unsubsidized alternatives for reasons they may be keeping to themselves. Did they “know” the BEV would never take hold universally?
Just this week, a new report touted a liquid nitrogen engine based on 1990s research at the University of Washington that, even with a 100-gallon nitrogen tank, is cheaper and lighter than the BEV. The operation is akin to that of a steam-driven engine and generates zero pollutants. Refueling, at existing gasoline and diesel stations, takes only a few minutes.
The prototype liquid nitrogen engine is nowhere near highway ready, but like other alternatives to grid-draining plug-ins, was ignored as a potential solution in the federal budget. And, like all of the other alternative engines, it does not rely on a lithium market controlled by China.
The “wisdom” from Washington has long been to create an all-electric motor vehicle fleet wholly dependent on an electric grid that is today on the verge of collapse, as baseload power plants are being shuttered in favor of intermittent wind and solar generation. But research from Oak Ridge National Laboratory published in 2021 made it clear that multiple pathways to cleaner burning vehicles was a far superior approach.
ORNL scientist David Cullen stated that, “Hydrogen fuel cells are ideal for the trucking industry because the refueling time and driving range are comparable to gasoline-powered (well, diesel-powered) trucks and travel routes are predictable, which lowers the barrier for developing a fueling infrastructure.” [Read: Every truck stop in America could easily accommodate hydrogen-fueled trucks.]
ORNL noted that hydrogen fuel cells (or any other hydrogen engine) contain a higher amount of energy per unit mass than a lithium battery or diesel fuel. More energy with less weight is gold for the trucking industry, which consumes a quarter of all U.S. fuel consumption while traveling only 10% of total vehicle miles.
Hydrogen would likely be an equally better choice for other heavy-duty vehicles, including school buses, but the Biden Administration has provided huge subsidies for BEV school buses, often with less than satisfactory results (despite glowing endorsements from the Vice President).
The Montgomery County, Maryland, public school district is the nation’s largest purchaser of electric school buses, with 326 ordered, delivered, or operating as of December 2023 at a cost of $168 million. But the county’s Office of Inspector General reports that the district’s rush to BEV buses has “led to millions of dollars in wasteful spending,” in part causes by late deliveries and maintenance issues.
From February 2022 to March 2024, these BEV buses failed to complete routes 280 times, with repairs taking an average of 13 days. Last October, the school board felt the need to buy 90 diesel buses to make up for the BEV bus failures.
Nationwide, over 90% of the 21 million-plus bused students ride in diesel buses, with most of the rest relying on propane. Fewer than 1% of children today ride on BEV buses, and many of the 12,000 “committed” BEV buses are not yet operational. Despite billions in federal largesse, Hydrogen-powered buses could likely be much more quickly delivered, likely cost less to purchase, and might be much more reliable on a day-to-day basis.
Two-thirds of the “committed” BEV buses were funded by the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, which in 2022 awarded more than $900 million for nearly 2,300 buses in 365 school districts. The EPA spent another $1 billion the next year to add another 2,700 BEV buses in 270 school districts, and a third round threw another $900 million for 3,177 BEV buses in 500 districts.
The Biden Administration’s parting shot includes another round of Clean School Bus Program funding together with the EPA’s new Clean Heavy Duty Vehicles Grant Program, which targets refuse haulers, dump trucks, bucket trucks, utility trucks, and other box trucks. School buses get the biggest subsidies from this $1 billion package. Biden did belatedly throw a few billion at hydrogen producers, but little if any went to bolster hydrogen engines.
Has the federal government even looked closely at cost and performance comparisons among the various low- and zero-emission engines that are already on the market or being field-tested? Have administration officials consulted with automakers worldwide to learn why they are developing non-BEV engines?
Or is there some other reason that the Biden Administration, for which Vice President Harris has been a major spokesperson for the battery-electric school bus, has placed all of its bets on a technology controlled so heavily by China?
Duggan Flanakin (duggan@duggansdugout.com) is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues.
