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If you think about it, there aren’t many rational reasons for electric vehicles to be a partisan political issue. But, as we should all know by now, politics in an election year does not have to be rational. They just have to reflect what the players think they will win.
That helps explain why electric cars, trucks and SUVs have become a hot topic across the political spectrum. It seems everyone wants clean air and water, but many don’t want environmental improvements to affect their decisions about how to get around.
The longstanding conflict between the free market and government regulation helps explain much of the partisan divide over the future of the automobile in the United States. Add to this a high-stakes presidential election, and the debate starts to get strange. “Bidenmobiles,” a derisive nickname critics are now giving to electric vehicles, have become a new culture war battleground in the presidential race.
This despite surveys telling us that EV owners aren’t just tree-hugging, whale-saving, sandal-wearing liberals. Many conservatives also push them, including some who lean toward Donald Trump.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden’s administration announced one of the most important pieces of its ambitious climate agenda: new rules for passenger car and truck tailpipes intended to push the country’s auto market more quickly toward electric vehicles. and hybrids.
However, in a concession to complaints from automakers and unions, the rules are being implemented more slowly than originally proposed and also offer manufacturers more options for how they want to comply.
The new plan puts the brakes on another initiative the Environmental Protection Agency proposed last year as a faster move toward electric vehicles, a rule that would have ensured that two-thirds of all vehicles sold are electric by the end of this decade.
But these concessions are not enough for former President Trump, the Republican candidate trying to regain his old position. In speeches he has criticized electric vehicles. He recently characterized electric vehicles as “all” made in China, even though Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has pushed manufacturing and assembly of new electric vehicles to the US.
In a statement Wednesday, President Joe Biden promised that the cars would be made by American workers. “American workers will lead the world in making clean cars and trucks, each stamped ‘Made in America,’” Biden said. “You have my word.”
During a recent rally in Vandalia, Ohio, Trump caught our attention with his reckless use of the term “bloodbath” when he promised a “100% tariff” on cars made outside the United States, arguing that domestic auto manufacturing would be protected only if he I selected.
“Now, if I am not elected, it will be a bloodbath for the whole world; That will be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it.”
Least”? One shudders to imagine what he believes “most of it” might be.
However, contrary to many alarming headlines, the US electric vehicle market is not collapsing. Electric vehicle sales increased 40% in the final quarter of 2023 compared to the same quarter in 2022, according to Cox Automotive. U.S. electric vehicle sales also surpassed 1 million last year for the first time, but there are still questions about the health of the market and how quickly the transformation from powered cars can realistically take place. for gasoline to electric vehicles.
Perhaps cars were overrated to begin with and are therefore easy targets in an election year.
Surveys show that consumers’ biggest concerns include sticker prices, the availability of charging stations, anxiety about running out of power in the middle of nowhere, confusion about tax credits and, especially in places like Chicago, the Cold weather.
Automobiles have always been one of the most American products. Mom, apple pie and Chevrolet, right? But to some, if our wheels don’t shed carbon, they are downright un-American.
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