For a long time, Donald Trump strictly rejected electric cars, but now he is suddenly speaking out in favor of them. He has “no other choice,” said the former president.
In the United States, mobility is also part of the political polarization. Donald Trump had long committed himself to one form of transportation. His conservative vision can be summed up as real Americans driving combustion engines from American manufacturers with gasoline from American oil. Electric cars had no place in it. But now he supports electric cars because he has “no other choice,” said the ex-president.
In public speeches, Trump has long taken a clear stance against electric cars. Their supporters should “rot in hell” and supporting the emerging industry is “madness”. In addition, the electric cars have too little range, are too expensive and come from China. During the election campaign, he promised to end state subsidies for electric vehicles, which is a central element of the Biden administration’s climate policy.
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Source: t-online
In recent months, however, Trump has changed his tone. At a rally in Michigan a few weeks ago, the former president said: “I talk about electric vehicles all the time, but that doesn’t mean I’m against them. I’m absolutely for them.” He also said he had now driven one himself and said: “They’re incredible, but they’re not for everyone.”
The trigger for the change of heart is probably a new major donor who supports Trump. “I am for electric cars. I have to be, because Elon has clearly taken my side,” Trump said of Musk, the head of Tesla, at a rally in front of supporters in Atlanta, Georgia. “So I have no other choice,” added the former president.
The rapprochement between Trump and Musk began in March when the two met at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, the New York Times reported. Since then, the billionaire and the convicted felon have reportedly discussed a number of topics, including electric cars. “He just calls me out of the blue,” Musk said at a shareholder meeting. “I don’t know why, but he does.”
Trump then shifted his attacks from the vehicles themselves to the government incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles. Anyone who wants to buy an electric car should be able to do so, but the government should not influence the car market. “Every car imaginable” should be available, Trump said in Atlanta.
Hardly any other country is as fundamentally dependent on private motorized transport as the United States. Joe Biden is therefore pursuing an electrification of the car fleet and has created economic incentives for this. His government has promised to build 500,000 charging stations and has made several billion dollars available for this purpose. However, the expansion is progressing slowly. In addition, 28 million charging stations would be needed for nationwide availability, the Guardian calculates.
Last year, more than 1 million electric cars were sold in the US for the first time. Trump has warned that the president’s enthusiasm for electric cars would cause a “bloodbath” in the US auto industry.
