General Motors (GM) recently announced it was investing billions into a new eco-friendly “electric car” initiative to compete with the tech giant Tesla in an effort to go green, and tech media outlets are touting the change.
Both Axios and The Verge ran stories March 4 on GM’s $20 billion bet over the next five years on its new green initiative. And while Axios questioned the stability of GM’s commitment, and The Verge tried to play gotcha by criticizing how the company’s past positions have aligned with the policies of President Donald Trump, the outlets appeared to like the shift in focus for the car manufacturer.
Axios decided to infuse propaganda into its report headlined “GM begins historic shift to electric vehicles,” by saying that the company is walking a “tightrope” between maximizing sales of its “profitable” gas-powered vehicles and “delivering on a long-term vision for a cleaner, less congested world.” [Emphasis added.]
[ads:im:1]
Axios’ environmentalist critique about GM’s commitment to a “ less congested world” did not prevent it from selling the strange shift as “GM’s big day” in its March 4, 2020 newsletter.
The Verge took it a step further, criticizing GM’s past positions that have aligned with Trump: “[A]ll of this needs to be viewed in the larger context of the fight over auto emissions. Though GM has said its goal is ‘zero emissions,’ the company has sided with the Trump administration to do the exact opposite.” [Emphasis added.]
The liberal outlet proceeded to whine that “GM is supportive of the White House’s effort to eliminate California’s stricter emissions rules, arguing that the federal government, and not individual states, should set the requirements. Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, and BMW have sided with California in the battle.”
Is that because some of California's ridiculous emissions standards have “force[d] auto manufacturers to build more expensive cars in compliance with California’s regulations”?
The only legitimate criticism of GM’s move between both the outlets came from Axios, which noted that electric vehicles only make up about 1 percent of the U.S. auto market, “most of [which] are sold by Tesla.” Not only that, but “consumers have shown little enthusiasm to buy them.”
But both outlets ignored criticism of the dubious notion that a switch to electric vehicles would do anything to affect the environment positively. In fact, according to Business Insider on November 13, 2019:
“Studies have shown that in the US, Europe, and in China, producing an electric vehicle creates more greenhouse-gas emissions than producing an equivalent gas-powered vehicle," [emphasis added.]
Business Insider continued:
"The biggest reason for that disparity is an electric vehicle's battery, which can account for about a quarter of its weight, Colby Self, the managing director at the Automotive Science group, told Business Insider,” [emphasis added].
Big Tech mogul Bill Gates had just stated last September that “Divestment [from fossil fuels], to date, probably has reduced about zero tonnes of emissions.”
[ads:im:2]
