President Biden sits in a Cadillac Lyriq during a tour at the Detroit Auto Show in 2022. Former president Donald Trump has said electric vehicles should “rot.” Just two years ago, Senate Democrats banded together to push through sweeping legislation aimed at combating climate change in part by speeding the transition to electric vehicles with tax credits and other incentives.
The electric vehicle, or EV, issue combines several potent political ingredients — China, class warfare and what the GOP will probably describe as a spending spree by Congress. The policy’s defenders point out the EV transition is crucial to slowing the worst effects of climate change and note the tens of millions of dollars of investment in EV-related factories in the United States, which should create high-paying manufacturing jobs.
In Ohio, an auto manufacturing state where cars are core to politics, Brown’s GOP rival, Bernie Moreno, has criticized the “manic” move to EVs, saying it could destroy the auto industry. Brown allies have gone after Moreno forOhio is home to auto manufacturing plants, including some owned by General Motors, who have signed onto the Biden administration’s EV push.
Thompson defended his ads’ use of the word “ban,” which experts say is inaccurate, because the new emissions standards will require auto manufacturers to make dramatically more EVs and fewer gas-powered vehicles toThe EPA says EVs would account for approximately “30 percent to 56 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales” and “20 percent to 32 percent of new medium-duty vehicle sales” in 2030. That’s below Biden’s initial stated desire to have EVs account for half of all new car sales by 2030.
And adoption of EVs is not high in most red states. In Ohio for example, just around 3.25 percent of new vehicle purchases are electric vehicles, according to the Toledo Blade newspaper. In 2022, just 3,300 EVs wereRepublican strategist Mike Murphy, who is leading an effort to encourage more EV adoption among conservatives, says the gap between Democrats and Republicans on EVs is staggering.