It's funny how the conservative anti-EV idealogues are all for tax cuts for the corporations responsible for fossil fuels and ICEs and pretty much anyone else but endlessly whine when individuals who drive an EV get a tax cut.
A few clarifications:
1. Don't confuse between libertarians and conservatives.
Fair point. I should have said conservative and libertarian. Although the truth is I find these political labels often fall short since their meanings have evolved. The policies of Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan would be considered liberal (or socialist!) by many of todays "conservatives". Likewise the policies of Clinton and Obama (forget the rhetoric look at the policies) are more to the "right" than most of what where previously considered moderate Republican views. Personally, some of my views fall under the "conseravtive" banner, some under the "libertarian" banner and some under the "liberal" banner.
2. I don't think anybody here is against EV. It's just a question of should the general public be forced to pay for it.
I'm not sure I agree with that. Ignoring what the public pays for ICE vehicles and only focusing on what the public pays for EVs qualifies as "anti-EV" in my book. Of course I think many with that view come by it from the politicization of the issue - leading them to believe what their favorite media pundits tell them and not focusing on (or willfully ignoring) the facts.
3. I don't think anybody here is for tax cuts and subsidies for fossil and ICE corporations.
Not subsidies - I didn't say that (though they do conveniently ignore them and only point out the EV subsidies) but clearly most from the "conservative" and "libertarian" camps are generally anti-tax and specifically for lowering taxes on corporations.
4. Don't confuse calling out corruption with 'whining'.
See above. The whining I referred to is the repeated complaining about the EV subsidies which mostly amount to targeted tax cuts.
As far as corruption and crony capitalism goes - there is plenty of that everywhere and whatever occurs in the EV world is a small fraction compared to what occurs in the fossil fuel industry or traditional auto maker world (and all that is dwarfed by what occurs in the financial services world). The share of EV industry money is, at this point, very small as compared to the ICE and fossil fuel industry. I have no doubt that once EVs become a larger portion of the pie, the associated crony capitalism will also grow proportionately but criticizing EVs on the basis of any that exists now is a weak argument since it is so ubiquitous and applies even more so to ICE vehicles.
That seems to be the common theme. Find some issue with EVs (or RE) and repeat it over and over while ignoring the same or larger issue as it exists for traditional ICE vehicles (or fossil fuels). It may fool some but I'm sure most EEV blog readers are smarter than that.
EVs (and RE) are not a panacea and have their own sets of issues, but they are a step forward.
In the spirit of presenting some facts. Here's a few nice graphs of the growth of EV sales.
The first is from
here and shows overall cumulative EV sales through the end of 2014 broken down into BEVs and PHEVs.
The second is from
here and breaks it down by specific vehicles. It only goes through mid 2014. I believe the Leaf has overtaken the Volt now for the lead.
Overall - these show healthy growth (even if it is too little, too late...)