Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm set out on a four-day trip this summer. The trip was to prove the worth of the Biden administration's spending a ton on pushing and "investing" in electric vehicles.
NPR's Camila Domonoske went along on the trip and revealed, "Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy."
What happened on the trip says everything about the Biden team's delusion and entitlement. The trip revealed immediately that the system is not ready to handle even what they have to deal with now, much less with the number of vehicles that you would have to cope with with the complete switchover that they want.
But between stops, Granholm's entourage at times had to grapple with the limitations of the present. Like when her caravan of EVs — including a luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150 and an affordable Bolt electric utility vehicle — was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Georgia.
Her advance team realized there weren't going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station's four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy.
That did not go down well: a regular gas-powered car blocking the only free spot for a charger?
In fact, a family that was boxed out — on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle — was so upset they decided to get the authorities involved: They called the police.
Doesn't that say it all? There weren't enough chargers to deal with the demand, and they tried to block out other people to reserve a spot for Granholm at the faster charger. That screams entitlement and thinking they get to do that because of their power. When you're stealing a spot from a family with a baby, you just might be pretty scummy. They're denying a family the very service they claim to be helping to provide because the family was in the way of their PR stunt. And the Biden team did it with a vehicle that wasn't even electric.
Good for the family who wasn't taking that nonsense and called the police on them. The police couldn't do much, however, because it's not illegal to do what the Secretary's team did. But realizing they had a potential PR nightmare on their hands, they "scrambled to smooth over the situation, including sending other vehicles to slower chargers, until both the frustrated family and the secretary had room to charge."
Notice -- no Teslas. Why, when that's the most common electric vehicle that Americans drive? Do they not want to feature anything related to Elon Musk? We've already seen how they're targeting Musk with multiple government actions and investigations after his takeover of Twitter (now X).
The hilarious NPR article covers in detail how Tesla has much better chargers than anyone.
— Max Meyer (@mualphaxi) September 10, 2023
But Granholm is a union goon so she refuses to include Tesla. She just wants to brag about subsidies pic.twitter.com/DkJRDSQC4W
Domonoske was honest about the problem.
I drive an electric vehicle myself, and I've test-driven many more as NPR's auto reporter. I know how easy it can be to charge when everything goes well and how annoying it can be when things go poorly.
Riding along with Granholm, I came away with a major takeaway: EVs that aren't Teslas have a road trip problem, and the White House knows it's urgent to solve this issue.
People compared it to an episode of VEEP. They laughed at the incompetence while blasting the sense of entitlement. Talk about a clown show.
Hahahahahahahaha. https://t.co/0MQt0kjr1k
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) September 10, 2023
The new world. #EnergyFreedom https://t.co/e8vl86l5MX
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) September 10, 2023
The Energy Secretary’s advance team prevented a family with a baby in the car from charging their EV so the Secretary’s team could get access
— Jesse Hunt (@JJHunt10) September 10, 2023
All time bad optics https://t.co/NubrmeE4oe
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