USA EV sales surging, page-2

An issue at the core of Joe Biden’s presidency that former President Donald Trump is zeroing in on with increasingly violent rhetoric could have outsize influence in critical battleground territory: the effort to accelerate the U.S. transition from gas-powered automobiles to electric vehicles.

For Biden, the combination of subsidies to boost electric vehicle manufacturing, new federal standards aimed at further cutting emissions, investments in charging infrastructure and tax credits to encourage electric vehicle purchases amounts to arguably his most ambitious industrial policy and climate change agenda. He has made repeated trips to electric vehicle assembly lines and newly built battery plants as he and his administration tout the new jobs his agenda has fostered and the increased share of Americans now driving electric vehicles.

Still, Trump has warned the policies would lead to a “bloodbath” in the U.S. economy, “kill” the auto industry and trigger an “assassination” of jobs. At an event last week in Grand Rapids, Michigan, framed around immigration, Trump repeatedly lambasted Biden’s electric vehicle incentives, calling them “one of the dumbest [decisions] I’ve ever heard” and predicting they would be a boon for Chinese and Mexican auto manufacturers.

“Isn’t it a shame we play away from our strength?” he said, pointing to oil and gas reserves in the U.S. and pledging to “end” the policies immediately. “And we play right into their strength by doing this.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-fights-electric-vehicles-defeat-biden-michigan-violent-rhetoric-rcna145689