The Last Optimist The Manhattan Institute

At the core of the belief that EVs inevitably displace conventional cars is the claim that EVs are, inherently, just simpler machines. That means, we’re told, fewer jobs—hence the ostensible reason for the UAW’s anxiety. But the simplicity claim is a canard. EVs entail a complexity swap, not a simplification.
Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream, Manhattan Institute Policy Paper, July 2023.

We talk with Harold Hamm, founder and former CEO, now Exec Chairman of Continental Resources.

Hamm, one of the key pioneers of the American shale revolution, has written a book about his life’s journey and the critical role of the U.S. oil and gas industry.
Game Changer: Our Fifty-Year Mission to Secure America's Energy Independence, Harold Hamm, Forefront Books, 2023.

The refrain, the claim, from EV and green-tech advocates is that EVs and the massive alternative energy subsidies will free us from “our geopolitical adversaries” and the “manipulation of the price of oil.” Instead, supply chain realities show just how profoundly misguided those claims are.

Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream, Manhattan Institute Policy Paper, July 2023.

The ubiquitous clickbait headline about some new battery innovation that “changes everything” is just that; clickbait. The underlying realities of energy physics and electrical engineering determine the usefully foreseeable future and it’s not one with EVs cheaper, better and universal.



Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream, Manhattan Institute Policy Paper, July 2023.

The entire motivation for government subsidies and mandates to pursue an all-EV future is the claim that it will result in radical reductions in CO2 emissions. But known unknowns in EV supply chains show that all EV emission claims are ‘guesstimates’ based on averages, approximations, or aspirations. Pushing an all-EV world is likely to increase CO2 emissions.


Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream, Manhattan Institute Policy Paper, July 2023.

With a dozen states planning to ban the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines and massive subsidies for electric vehicles (EV) from production to infrastructures, it’s time to dig deep into whether the facts support claims about EV emissions reductions and operational superiority. We start with a review of the state of play.

Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream, Manhattan Institute Policy Paper, July 2023.