Cuban Americans have long been among America’s most fervent patriots. They’ve had the very great advantage of life under Communism, and they have no doubt life in America is leaps and bounds better. Still, in some ways, Cuba is very like California. Both are single party, socialist/communist polities and like California, Cuban government policy has all but destroyed the market for gas powered vehicles while mandating electrics:
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Graphic: YouTube Screenshot.
With rising fuel costs and shortages across Cuba, the island nation has turned to electric motorcycles en masse. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the streets of Havana.
The rise in electric motorcycle usage is largely thanks to government policy, which has regulated the pricing of electric motorcycles while placing limits on imports of gasoline-powered motorcycles.
Due to pricing policy, electric motorcycles were cheaper than gasoline-powered motorcycles for years. Eventually the government outlawed the import of gasoline-powered motorcycles all together, leaving electric as the only option for new purchases.
From where do these electric scooters come? From China, a communist ally, transshipped through Panama. But aren’t many vehicles in Cuba American makes from the 50s, kept running with chewing gum and bailing wire? Indeed, but:
Pricing regulation has kept them affordable for citizens and has helped the electric two-wheelers become a dominant form of transportation in the country.
Estimates put the total number of electric motorcycles, locally referred to as motorinas, at around 300,000. To put that in comparison, there are around 500,000 cars registered in Cuba, according to ABC News.
“Pricing regulation,” yet another communist economic miracle.
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Graphic: NewsNation Screenshot/
There’s just one catch. OK, OK, in any communist country everything has a catch, but for EVs the pertinent catch is the electric grid can’t handle charging them. California has mandated all new vehicles sold in the state be either electric or hydrogen(?!) powered by 2035. But as early as 2022, California was telling EV owners to cut back on charging the EVs already in the state, mostly in the evenings when EV owners need to charge their vehicles. California’s green lunacy has forced the state to buy at least a quarter of its electricity from other states. California doesn’t have sufficient electric generation capacity to charge the EVs already present, and is not building new power plants. More EVs will hopelessly overwhelm the grid.
Cuba is doing worse right now:
The national electric power system (SEN) completely collapsed again early Wednesday morning due to an unexpected shutdown of the country’s largest thermal power plant, Antonio Guiteras.
The Electric Company of Havana communicated this through its Telegram channel, stating that the outage occurred at 2:08 AM and that efforts are underway to restore service.
This new collapse of the SEN, the third to occur in Cuba since October 18, reflects the deep crisis facing the country’s electricity sector. The Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant, located in Matanzas, has repeatedly been at the center of these events due to its structural deterioration and the challenges in ensuring proper maintenance.
California and Cuba share deteriorating infrastructure and corrupt, feckless government. Their essentially shared system of government—it’s a matter of degree—relies on centralized planning, which always fails, as with California’s high-speed rail to nowhere. Perhaps the only thing keeping California’s infrastructure from total collapse is the huge numbers of Californians becoming ex-Californians. It’s harder, and wetter, for Cubans to escape their worker’s paradise, but they still try.
It’s ironic that with the American electric vehicle industry in a death spiral, the Harris/Biden Administration, in its last days, continues to push EVs as the future of American transportation, as does California and Cuba. American consumers, finally catching on that EV cheerleading is largely lies, don’t want and won’t buy EVs they can’t afford, which can’t meet their needs and might burn down their houses. Ford and GM, having lost billions on EVs, have all but totally shut down EV production and Ford is paying dealers to put EVs on their lots. Most dealers aren’t buying. Stellantis, which has never pushed EVs as hard as Ford and GM, has also quietly left the field, leaving domestic production almost entirely to Tesla.
Donald Trump has promised to end federal tax credits for EVs, which will eliminate the domestic EV market. California Governor Gavin Newsom is planning to pick up that slack but not for Teslas, the only EVs made in California. That’s Newsom’s sour grapes over Elon Musk’s relocation of Tesla’s headquarters to Texas.
In Cuba, reflected in California, we can see the EV future America might now avoid: government mandated EVs and no electricity to charge them. Just another bit of D/s/c utopia we can do without.
Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
