What Trump And Biden Really Mean When They Fight About Electric Vehicles

President Joe Biden sketched out his vision for the future of America’s auto industry during a visit to Detroit in late 2021 . And he couldn’t have picked a more appropriate spot to do it.

He spoke on the assembly floor of “ Factory Zero ,” a plant that General Motors had just retooled in order to produce electric vehicles (EVs) and their batteries. Factory Zero sits on the site of an old Chrysler plant that during World War II supplied the “Arsenal of Democracy.” Now, Biden said, he wanted to enlist the auto industry in a different kind of war ― a war against climate change ― while providing reliable middle-class jobs and restoring some of the industry’s lost global stature.

“I want you to feel the way I feel: pride in what we can do when we’re together as the United States of America,” Biden said. “And it starts here in Detroit.”

Many of Biden’s predecessors made similar vows. Few (maybe none?) followed up with such a flurry of regulatory action or by signing anything as ambitious as the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Today that law is pouring tens of billions of dollars into EV subsidies, just like Biden promised, as part of what is arguably the single biggest bet on industrial policy in recent American history.

The effect is not hard to spot. Facilities such as Factory Zero are under construction or in operation across the industrial Midwest and a new “ battery belt ” in the South. The United Auto Workers (UAW) has won the right to organize in many of these plants and just a few weeks ago secured a new contract at an Ohio facility that should help set new standards nationwide. EV sales continue to go up.

But sales aren’t increasing as quickly as analysts or the industry predicted . The UAW is still