President Joe Biden plans to replace the government’s vehicle and truck fleet with electric vehicles assembled in the United States, he said Monday when he signed a new “Buy American” executive order.
The government is the main buyer of vehicles. However, replacing this fleet with American-made electric vehicles will be costly and time consuming. Currently, there are only a handful of all-electric vehicles assembled in the U.S. Tesla, General Motors and Nissan Motor produce electric vehicles nationwide, while Ford Motor and others have announced they will.
“Current offerings are quite small, but the industry is about to trigger an avalanche of new products and many of them built in North America,” said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research . CNBC. “Almost every plant in the United States will have a hybrid or electric product.”
It is unclear whether Biden’s plan includes plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, which use a combination of EV engines and traditional internal combustion engines. When discussing the plans, he referred to the fact that the new fleet consists of electric vehicles “that have zero net emissions”.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A man drives his Tesla car while looking behind SpaceX’s Starship SN8, days before the launch of tests of the company’s new Starship super-elevator rocket from its facilities in this small town of Boca Chita, Texas , on December 4, 2020.
Gen Blevins | Reuters
Biden did not specify a deadline for changing the government’s “huge fleet” to electric vehicles, which cost substantially more than traditional vehicles. He said the fleet change will help his administration plan to create a million new jobs in the U.S. auto industry.
Biden also announced plans for stricter use of U.S.-made parts in government-purchased vehicles, which will make it even harder to change the fleet. He said current standards require that parts of a vehicle be at least 50% from the U.S.
“50% content threshold [isn’t] high enough and the way the content is measured does not take into account jobs and economic activity in the United States, “Biden said.” We will change that as well. The executive action I sign today will not only require companies to make more of their components in America, but the value of those components will contribute to our economy, as measured by things like a number of American jobs created and / or supported. “
GM, in a statement, said it is “encouraged by President Biden’s commitment to support U.S. manufacturing and hopes to review the details of the order.”
Ford, which last year launched an “Built for America” advertising campaign, said it “believes that investing in America, its people, goods and services, should be a national mission.”
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.