Buttigieg: Gas Too Expensive? Just Buy a Tesla!

CLAY: I like to think that Buck and I have a sense of what the larger world is like, that we connect with a lot of you in so many different parts of the country even though we may have differences (laughing) and I can be quite confident that we never are going to come on this show and say, “Hey, if you’re worried about gas prices, just go buy a super expensive electric vehicle!” That way you’ll never have to worry about paying for gas again, which is what Mayor Pete said, and I believe we have the audio of that.

BUCK: Technically, he’s the secretary of transportation — when he’s not on parental leave for months on end during a supply chain crisis, I might add. But I’m psyched that they have a former junior management consultant running a huge federal agency of which he knows nothing and has no previous understanding or experience whatsoever because, remember, the Biden administration is the “serious” people.

BUTTIGIEG: But there is more envisioned in the Build Back Better law. I’ll give you one example. It contains incentives to make it more affordable to buy an electric vehicle, up to a $12,500 discount, in effect, for families thinking about getting an EV. Families that once they own that electric vehicle will never have to worry about gas prices again. The people who stand to benefit most from owning an EV are often rural residents, uh, who have the longest distances to drive — they burn the most gas — and underserved, uh, urban residents, uh, in areas where there are high gas prices and they’re lower income; so they would gain the most by having that vehicle. But these are the very residents who have not always been connected, uh, o electric vehicles that are viewed as kind of a luxury item.

CLAY: They are a luxury item! (laughing) They cost a ton money. The idea that poor people in inner cities or poor people in rural areas are going to be freed from the cost of gas by buying super-expensive electric luxury vehicles is so insanely tone-deaf, I don’t even know how you can make that argument.

BUCK: There’s other problems. So, first of all, you know, we have, for example, a great station in Omaha, KFAB, Omaha, Nebraska. I just wonder, how many electric-charging stations are there an hour outside of Omaha? You know what I’m saying?

CLAY: Not easy to find. Yes.

BUCK: I’m wondering how many of these charging stations are out there. I think you can set it up so it’s in your home. It’s not as easy as just finding an electrical outlet when you’re on the road. But beyond that, where do they think…? Sso, yeah, if you’re in New York or Los Angeles, they’re setting up more and more of these stations all the time. But I think it’s funny, ’cause if you’re rural, you’ll “never have to worry about gas prices again.”

Does Mayor Pete, which I still think is his technical title even though he is the secretary — or rather, that should be his title even though technically he’s secretary of the transportation department. Does Mayor Pete know where electricity comes from, really? Does he know the breakdown of it? And also making fossil fuel more expensive actually makes electricity more expensive too.

You do have to wonder about this. Teslas don’t run on solar, Mayor Pete. There’s not like a little panel on top. They’re being charged somewhere. But they never think this stuff through, because it comes from — once again — a religious belief. That’s what the climate change philosophy has turned into.

CLAY: It also is reflective… Let’s just use rural people who might have an electric vehicle. I believe these things go like 250 miles, right? So to your point there are not, probably, a lot of charging stations in rural areas. So you have to drive a long way to a charge station, and then you have to spend substantial amounts of time charging.

BUCK: I think it’s 30 minutes, right?

CLAY: Yeah, 30 minutes to get a full charge assuming that there’s an open charging station available.

BUCK: You got a gas-guzzling SUV, Clay, ’cause you’re an American.

CLAY: Yeah, we have a couple of them, actually.

BUCK: Yeah, you’re an SUV guy. But what does it take, three minutes, four minutes maybe with something like that to charge. Yeah, you gotta sit there for 30 minutes. That’s another part of this. But I do have another question, though. Is it a lib move because I have posed this to a few friends, is it a lib move akin to getting a Prius back in the day. Remember the Prius?

CLAY: Oh, yeah.

BUCK: Which was fascinating because the Prius outsold I think it was the Chevy Volt dramatically. And people wondered why ’cause the Prius was a, in my opinion and many others, a particularly ugly car, right? The original Prius was just an ugly car. But it was all about showing everybody at that early stage that you were driving a hybrid electric car, right?

You were a hybrid driver. So everyone who bought them wanted everyone to see, “Oh, look at my ugly Prius. I care about climate change.” Teslas are kind of cool. I’m just putting this out there. Is it possible…? If you get a Tesla, is it a statement of lib allegiance, or do you just think that they’re kind of fun to drive, it’s like a souped up go-cart? I kind of like ’em is what I’m getting at here.

CLAY: I looked at the idea of getting a Tesla. I got a Range Rover instead to go ahead and prove that I at least am aware of how out of touch I am. The Range Rover is obviously, very expensive. The Tesla, that’s how I know how expensive the Tesla is; so why it would that you would be saying, “Hey, poor people, go buy a Tesla so you can save money on gas is a broken fallacy. In fact, the argument is if you look at how much you spend on the vehicle versus what you would be paying in gas, it takes a long time to actually earn back the money that you would be spending on gas.

BUCK: Apparently those batteries, too, and the rare earth metals that go into them are terrible for the environment, which is also very funny, right, because for a lot of people it’s an environmentalist move to get these.

CLAY: No doubt. I also think to your point on, “Is it a lib move?” I think Elon is enough of a open-minded thinker.

BUCK: He’s a capitalist.

CLAY: Yes. I don’t think of him as a left-wing loony bin member. In fact, I think he has a lot of the same opinions that you and I would have, and I think he tries to hide them a little bit in an effort to run as effective of a company as he can.

BUCK: I might have to mix it up and get, like, a Ford Mustang that makes a lot of vroom-vroom noise. And then get a Tesla so no one gets the wrong idea.

CLAY: Do you even have a car?

BUCK: No. My wheels got stolen, Clay. It’s still a point of sadness.

CLAY: Your “wheels,” meaning your scooter?

BUCK: My Mrs. Clinton scooter was stolen. Very sad.

CLAY: Yeah. We need to talk about your electric scooter getting stolen. By the way, as the Hollywood celebrity Seth Rogen says, that just happens.

BUCK: It does.

CLAY: Just deal with it.