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Trump said at a rally on Saturday that he supports electric vehicles because Elon Musk supported him.
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However, he also criticized electric vehicle infrastructure and Biden’s electric vehicle mandates.
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Musk has recently publicly supported Trump, but denies allegedly donating $45 million.
Former President Donald Trump said he had “no choice” but to support electric vehicles after Tesla CEO Elon Musk “backed” him.
Trump then went on to extensively criticize the electric car industry.
Musk has long been a champion of the transition to electric vehicles. His company, Tesla, has largely led the way in developing the industry, making Musk a darling of the climate-conscious left for a time.
But Musk has recently embraced conservative politics, particularly on the topic of free speech. Musk bought Twitter in 2022, rebranded it as X and dismantled many of the checks and balances meant to limit hate speech and misinformation on the platform.
Musk has publicly supported Trump since the assassination attempt last month. However, Musk has denied that he pledged a $45 million donation to a pro-Trump super PAC.
At a rally in Georgia on Sunday, Trump told the crowd that he supports electric cars but believes people should still have access to gas-powered vehicles.
“I’m for electric cars. I have to be, because you know, Elon has been very supportive of me,” Trump told the crowd. “So I don’t have a choice.”
He then clarified that he only supports them as a “small piece” of the larger auto industry.
“You want gas cars. You want hybrids. You want all kinds of cars,” he said.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s regulations on electric vehicles, including its plan to grow electric vehicle sales to half of all new auto sales by 2030.
Trump made similar claims during a speech at a bitcoin conference in July, citing Biden’s regulations, which also make it harder for gas-powered cars to meet EPA standards.
“Not everybody has to have an electric car. I told him that,” Trump said, referring to Musk. “So we’re going to get rid of that mandate, if you don’t mind. Some people want gas cars, some people want a hybrid, some people like electric cars.”
Trump has also repeatedly criticized the cost of installing EV chargers across the country, falsely claiming the government built eight chargers in the Midwest at a cost of $9 billion.
He has given wildly inconsistent estimates of how much it would cost to install EV chargers nationwide. At the bitcoin conference, he said it would cost $12 trillion. At a rally in North Carolina on Thursday, he said it would cost $9 trillion. And at the rally in Atlanta on Sunday, he said it would cost $5 trillion.
The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 included $7.5 billion to fund thousands of electric vehicle charging stations across the country, Politico reported.
The White House infrastructure tracking website shows that only 15 charging stations have been installed so far. An analysis published by research firm Atlas Public Policy shows that each station received about $770,000 in federal funding, Politico reported.
Read the original article on Business Insider
