Former President Donald Trump has warned that Michigan’s auto industry would suffer if President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle push succeeds, with most of the EV production going to China.
United Auto Workers (UAW) is one of the largest trade unions in North America.
Michigan is a key swing state in the upcoming 2024 presidential race. In the 2020 election, Michigan voters sided with President Biden.
On Aug. 31, UAW President Shawn Fain extended support to the Biden administration’s EV transition program, stating that the organization is “ready for the transition to a clean auto industry.”
“There is already a giant ‘E GLUT,' they don’t go far or long, are very expensive, and the consumer must be given a CHOICE. Vote for TRUMP, and I will stop this Madness, IMMEDIATELY! Mexico & Canada LOVE Biden’s idiotic policy. SAVE MICHIGAN and the other Auto States. SAVE THE AMERICAN CONSUMER!!!”
The former president’s statements come as the Biden administration is pushing the use of electric vehicles in the United States.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projects that by 2032, 67 percent of new light-duty passenger cars sold in the United States could be electric as a result of the agency’s clean car regulations, The Hill reported.
Benefiting China
President Trump’s warning that switching to EVs will end up benefiting China is in line with expert observation.Mandy Gunasekara is the director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at the Independent Women’s Forum.
“It benefits the Chinese Communist Party because they control the critical minerals supply chain that is going to be necessary to build out the batteries for those electric vehicles,” she told The Epoch Times in April.
Ms. Gunasekara argued that the Trump administration did a better job of taking into account the economic, strategic, and other considerations when it came to critical materials used in EVs and other technologies.
“There was a concerted effort to ensure we weren’t setting regulations that shut down industrial activity here in the United States, knowing good and well that productivity doesn’t go away—it just materializes somewhere else, and typically a place like China,” she said.
Ms. Gunasekara was the chief of staff in the EPA under the Trump administration.
“The level of concentration is even higher for processing operations, where China has a strong presence across the board,” the IEA said, adding that China’s share of refining is about 35 percent for nickel, 50 to 70 percent for lithium and cobalt, and nearly 90 percent for rare earth elements.
High Cost EVs
The Biden administration’s plan to force Americans to buy EVs could be a costly affair for people.
In the entry segment, a gasoline model was found to cost an average of $9.78 per 100 miles to fuel, cheaper than the $12.55 to charge per 100 miles for an electric vehicle. The cost of EV charging goes up to $15.97 if the owner decides to charge at a commercial location.
The results were similar for the mid-segment and the truck segment, with gasoline vehicles turning out to be cheaper. The only segment where EVs were cheaper was in the luxury class.
The results “underline the importance of considering real-world costs before making a buying decision,” AEG said in the study.
“These include knowing how often you travel away from home, your ability to install and rely upon a home charger, the costs and availability of commercial charging, and any road taxes levied on EV drivers in your state.”
Only 19 percent said they were “very” or “extremely” likely to buy an EV while 47 percent said that it’s not likely they would choose electric. High cost was cited as a major reason for not choosing an EV by 6 out of 10 respondents.
