- Presumptive Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden shared his plan for a cleaner future today that includes a push to expand electric-vehicle production.
- Biden announced a Cash for Clunkers–type plan to offer incentives or rebates to people to replace gasoline-powered vehicles with electric vehicles.
- Biden also announced that he wants to replace the United States' government fleet with U.S.-made electric vehicles to help spur demand.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden shared his goal for a climate change plan today. A large part of the plan involves electric vehicles and what Biden believes can make the United States the leader in electric-vehicle development.
The piece that would impact drivers the most is a plan to offer incentives or rebates for people to swap their older, less fuel-efficient cars for EVs made in America. It essentially sounds like the Cash for Clunkers scheme back in 2009 where people could replace their vehicles with more efficient ones. During today's speech, Biden didn't share details of the idea such as how much the incentives would be or what constitutes bad fuel efficiency.
The plan seems rooted in a proposal from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D–New York) that would cost $454 billion over 10 years to offer incentives for people to trade in their gas car for an electric, hybrid, or hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle.
Replacing Government's Own Fleet
Biden did announce that he would also push forward a plan to replace the United States' enormous fleet of government vehicles to electric vehicles that—like those in the rebate scheme—would be made and sourced in the United States. He stated that the government will provide the demand and grants to retool factories so that automakers and suppliers step up to expand capacity, "so that the United States—not China—leads the world in clean vehicle production."
As for infrastructure, the plan also includes building half a million new EV charging stations across the country. That boom in charging points would alleviate some of the range anxiety that continues to keep EV adoption low.
Biden said that his plan would produce one million good-paying jobs in the automobile industry.