America just passed a tipping point.
New EVs account for more cars on the road than the growth in the auto market. In other words, there are fewer gas-powered cars on the road every day. With the demand for EVs continuing to rise, the investment in their manufacture, and the government incentives to make the switch, it’s hard to imagine the trend reversing. All that means that sometime in the past year or so, the U.S. passed peak gasoline. We are never going to buy as much gasoline as we once did.
That’s good news for air quality and climate change but what will it mean for the American economy and the country’s politics when the fossil fuel industry starts to behave like a shrinking sector?
At the same time, the renewable energy industry is only limited by its own supply issues. Solar is inevitable. Factories are breaking ground in once-moribund regions of the country, bringing good-paying technical jobs for non-college workers. What kind of political realignment will come from that kind of economic revitalization flooding into the heartland? The rhetoric of grievance that has driven our national conversation for decades will change. Will it make a difference?
