Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump admits he is toning down his backlash against electric vehicles in order to gain support from billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
The former president was known for his transactional politics, championing an economic agenda that relied heavily on cheap, plentiful energy to drive climate change through fracking and the extraction of U.S. fossil fuel deposits. However, Tesla’s stated mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
Speaking to supporters in Atlanta, Trump now said electric vehicles are not that bad, adding that if he returns to the White House, electric vehicles will likely continue to account for a small portion of the U.S. auto market.
“I support electric vehicles. You know, I have to because Elon Musk supports me very strongly. Teslarati. “So I had no choice.”
“I support electric vehicles. I have to do it because Elon Musk supports me very strongly, Elon. So, I have no choice.
Donald Trump
pic.twitter.com/A0SfvDp5Al— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) August 5, 2024
Last month, the New York real estate mogul pledged to eliminate President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle subsidies on the first day of Trump’s second administration, calling it the “new green scam.”
In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Thursday, Trump explained that all future electric vehicles will be made in China because the United States does not have the mineral resources of its rival, the global market leader in battery-grade lithium processing.
“They won’t go far [and] They cost too much,” he said, referring to electric vehicles. “I like Tesla, but you know what? It’s limited.
Meanwhile, his vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance has pushed a bill called the Drive America Act that would repeal Biden’s $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles and turn it over to Traditional internal combustion engine vehicles.
That puts Musk in a difficult position, forcing the electric-vehicle champion to claim late last month that Trump’s hostility to electric vehicles is hurting his rivals more than Tesla itself.
Musk’s brand sells roughly as many electric vehicles in the U.S. as all other competitors combined. Along with China’s BYD, it is one of only two automakers in the world that is profitably producing electric vehicles at scale.
Consumers flee European brands
Still, Elon Musk’s increasingly fervent right-wing political style since acquiring Twitter in late October 2022 has divided the Tesla community between those who support its mission to phase out fossil fuels and those who support Musk’s tech hobby in the first place By.
Anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests this has led to a small but growing number of customers abandoning the brand for competitors such as Rivian, especially in Tesla’s own home state of California.
Europe’s electric car market is 60% larger than the U.S., and demand for Tesla has plummeted as the tycoon embraced far-right elements on the continent, allies of Trump, who is controversial in the continent. As president, Trump has courted Russian President Vladimir Putin while treating the EU as the real “enemy” of the United States in the region.
Musk’s contacts with politically fringe parties such as the AfD, under official observation by Germany’s domestic intelligence service, pose a threat to democracy, eroding support for the brand in an EV-friendly market where consumers are already spoiled for choice .
On Monday, registration data released by Germany, the United Kingdom and France, Europe’s three largest electric vehicle markets, showed that Tesla’s sales in the first seven months of this year fell by 41%, 13% and 28% respectively compared with the same period last year.
In comparison, the latest continent-wide data shows that electric vehicle sales increased slightly by 1.6% in the first half of this year, which means that all other brands performed significantly better than Tesla.
