Letter: Charge the wealthy to recharge EVs
Politicians are fond of telling their constituents that rich people and greedy corporations need to pay their fair share.
So how come these same politicians gave a very rich person, Elon Musk, and corporations that make electric vehicles a $7.5 billion gift in the form of charging stations for EVs? Taxpayers will subsidize Mr. Musk and Rivian and GM and Ford.
The idea, of course, is that more people will consider buying an EV if they can take it on a trip. We will no longer be restricted to driving around town and recharging every night in our garage. I get it.
But if EVs are such a good idea, why don't rich people put up their own money to build that infrastructure? Could it be that they see something that the government doesn't?
How do you generate all of the electricity that will be needed to recharge millions of EVs? Sooner or later, the batteries will need to be replaced, so you are going to need an infrastructure to recycle them.
How do you plan to pay to upkeep our roads when much of the money to do that is generated by gasoline taxes?
How do you recharge millions of EVs and keep your house cool during a windless summer night when your source of electricity is generated solely by renewables?
China keeps building coal fired power plants. Brazil keeps cutting down the Amazon rainforest. Wealthy people keep flying around the world in their private jets.
Someone needs to explain to me how spending billions in America to fight global climate change is going to do anything other than make a few rich folks even wealthier.
John Malec
Bensenville