Donald Trump says he has ‘no choice’ but to back EVs after Musk endorsement. For months, Trump has denigrated electric vehicles, suggesting their supporters should “rot in hell” and calling assistance to the industry “lunacy”. However, he now seems to have shifted his view due to Elon Musk’s endorsement.
“I’m for electric cars, I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump, the Republican nominee for US president, told supporters at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday. The former president and convicted business fraudster emphasized the transactional nature of this support. “So I have no choice,” said Trump, adding that electric vehicles were suitable for a “small slice” of the population and that “you want every type of car imaginable” to be available. He also claimed that $9 trillion would be needed to build a network of electric car chargers, a figure not cited by the industry or White House. Joe Biden’s administration has vowed to build 500,000 chargers, far fewer than the approximately 28 million needed, and secured several billion dollars for this, although progress has been slow.
Musk, Tesla’s CEO, has backed Trump’s return to the White House despite Trump’s repeated antipathy to electric cars. Last month, Musk denied reports he was planning to donate $45 million a month to a Super Pac focused on getting Trump elected; he declined to clarify how much he planned to donate. Trump has warned that Biden’s embrace of electric cars will bring a “bloodbath” to the US automotive industry, falsely claimed that battery-powered cars don’t work in cold weather, and that they can’t travel long distances. “You’re not going to be able to sell those cars,” he warned of Mexico-made EVs in the US market.
A new Trump administration will “immediately terminate Joe Biden’s insane electric vehicle mandate,” Trump has said. There is no such mandate, although Biden has tightened vehicle pollution rules and signed legislation providing a tax rebate for new EV buyers.
Last year, more than 1 million electric cars were sold in the US for the first time, and analysts expect numbers to climb further this year. Several barriers still remain, such as the high cost of electric cars compared with gasoline models, a lack of chargers, and supply chain issues. Environmental advocates argue that more needs to be done to shift Americans away from gas-guzzling cars.
“The writing is on the wall: around the world, the future of personal transportation is electric,” said Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse last week. “They’re quieter, faster, and more fun to drive. They don’t have tailpipe emissions stinking up highways and neighborhoods. Repair and maintenance costs are nearly nonexistent.”