Balancing Act: U.S. Government Pushes for Affordable, American-Made EVs Amidst Election Campaign

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The US government wants people to buy EVs - for cheap and American-made. It seems to be an impossible task, and it even shapes the upcoming election: Presidential candidates have to find a way to sell the EV story with an eye on the environment and the job market.        #OIDW #DWVideos #EVRevolution #MadeInUSA #GreenJobs #ElectricVehicles #AffordableEVs #EcoFriendly #SustainableFuture #EVManufacturing #ClimateAction #AmericanInnovation #CleanEnergy #ElectrifyAmerica #EVMarket #JobCreation #EV2024                 ~HT.178~PR.152~GR.125~ED.194~

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00:00In 2022, California was the first to announce that all new cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks

00:05have to generate zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, effectively banning the sale of new

00:10gas-powered cars.

00:12Many here are receptive to EVs for various reasons.

00:15So it's not just environmentally beneficial, but also enjoyable.

00:20Gas is much more expensive in California than the rest of the U.S. as well, so maybe that's

00:23why people were quick to adopt it as well.

00:27It's comfortable.

00:28It's nice, especially with the autopilot and all of that.

00:31The Biden administration's target is for 56% of all new car sales in the U.S. to be electric

00:37by 2032, with another 15% for plug-in hybrids.

00:42But with less than 8% of national sales going to electric cars, it's clear that Americans

00:47will need some convincing until then.

00:50Tyson Jominy is the vice president of consumer intelligence firm J.D. Power, and he says

00:54geography and cost considerations play a major role in EV acceptance.

00:59Rarely the coastal markets are the big EV markets, and what we're missing is everything

01:03in the middle, which tends to be a very big part of the markets.

01:07Then additionally, EVs are still fairly expensive.

01:10Your average EV loan in the United States is $52,000, compared to about $40,000 for

01:16an ICE loan.

01:17So there's a big gap there.

01:19But a recent decision to effectively shut cheaper Chinese electric vehicles out of the

01:23U.S. market via tariffs laid bare the difficult balance the Biden administration has to strike,

01:29between wanting EV prices to go down to help mass adoption, but also needing to protect

01:34the U.S. automotive industry in a way that ends up keeping prices higher than they would

01:39be than if there were more supply.

01:41The last thing we want to do is turn the whole industry over and have a significant unemployment

01:47on the manufacturing side of the auto industry while all that production shifts over to China.

01:52But critics of the Biden administration's EV policies say that the tariffs point to

01:56a lack of strategic coherence.

01:58Lawrence Fossey is an industry observer known for his vocal takedowns of Tesla and its founder Elon Musk.

02:05These tariffs would seem to be a policy at war with itself because on the one hand, we

02:10want to encourage, not my view, but the government's view, we want to encourage EVs and renewables

02:16with solar panels, et cetera, and on the other hand, we're making them more expensive.

02:21It's kind of internally inconsistent.

02:24It's illogical, in fact, okay?

02:26It's crazy.

02:27The bottom line is that Washington wants as many EVs on the road as possible, as long

02:31as they're American EVs.

02:33But how soon America gets there, or whether it gets there at all, will depend very much

02:38on Americans themselves and how much they're along for the ride.

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