Future of EVs, chargers helps power Biden’s Mich. message
DETROIT — President Joe Biden punched the accelerator on a battery-powered Hummer on Wednesday, causing the wheels to squeal and the truck to jet forward as he tried to drive the country toward an electric vehicle future.
The engine was quiet as the president pulled up to a waiting delegation of reporters and officials.
“Anyone wanna jump in the back?” Biden asked.
The president had just toured a General Motors plant in Detroit to showcase how his newly signed $1 trillion infrastructure law could transform the auto industry.
He is highlighting billions of dollars in his giant bipartisan infrastructure deal to pay for the installation of electric vehicle chargers across the country, an investment he says will go a long way to curbing planet-warming carbon emissions while creating good-paying jobs. It’s also an attempt to leapfrog China in the plug-in EV market. Currently, the U.S. market share of plug-in electric vehicle sales is one-third the size of the Chinese EV market.
As Biden toured the plant, he noted that the U.S. was not yet leading with electric vehicles, something he believes his infrastructure package and additional investments in clean energy can change. The Hummer he drove has a starting price of $108,700, as the electric market seems designed so far to serve luxury buyers instead of a mass audience.
“China got way ahead of us,” the president said.
Republicans, even some of those who voted in favor of the infrastructure package, are criticizing Biden for being preoccupied with electric vehicle technology at a time when Americans are contending with a spike in gasoline and natural gas prices.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell took the Senate floor Tuesday to make the case that “the Biden administration doesn’t have any strategic plan to snap its fingers and turn our massive country into some green utopia overnight.”
“They just want to throw boatloads of government money at things like solar panels and electric vehicles and hope it all works out,” said McConnell, one of 19 GOP senators who voted in favor of the infrastructure bill. He added, “American families are staring down the barrel of skyrocketing heating bills, and the Democrats’ response is to go to war against affordable American energy.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has stressed that the administration is looking at “every tool in our arsenal” to combat high gasoline prices, saying that Biden and his economic team are “quite focused” on the issue.