Moderator edit: This post has been un-deleted but ALL further reacting posts utterly instantly violated TMC’s No Political statements. Zero tolerance.
I figured this comment would be controversial. It definitely got a reaction. But I got overwhelmingly favorable responses from Americans. Oddly, I got a bunch of "disagrees" from Europeans.
Lemme add a little more color on why Biden believes (correctly) that it's important for Detroit automakers and the UAW to buy in to the EV transition. It's not that traditional auto is going to crush Tesla and the startups. It's got to do with labor and wages. See, a big problem for green energy is that fossil fuel jobs are heavily unionized and high paying, while solar jobs aren't. Moreover, ICE auto production is heavily unionized and high paying, while although Tesla Fremont's total comp is actually higher than the UAW, the wages Tesla is said to be offering in Texas are definitely not.
There's a narrative being developed that the green energy transition is going to lead to lower wages. The fossil fuel industry is already heavily pushing this narrative, and it has a receptive audience among working class people whose wages have been stagnant for a long time. These are the same people who were receptive to Donald Trump's message.
The backlash isn't some minor factor. There are millions of workers directly employed by fossil fuel and ICE auto industries. Tens of millions whose livelihoods indirectly depend on them. If the message catches on, this group of people is going to stick to ICE even as EV becomes better, as a badge of cultural identity. It sounds irrational for 30-40% of people to cling to ICE out of cultural resentment, but hey look a similar percentage refused a vaccine during a pandemic for the same reason. 30-40% sticking to ICE means climate doom.
By getting the Detroit 3 and the UAW to commit to all-EV by 2035, at that White House EV summit, Biden has taken away that option. There will be no American brand ICE cars on sale at all. He has anticipated and mitigated the anti-EV backlash.
Biden's been pushing EVs for over a decade. Biden's ATVM loan program funded Tesla's first factory! You really think Biden hates Tesla? Really? Lemme show you my ski condo in Delaware.
Now, there's another potential source of anti-EV backlash, one Elon Musk has noticed and worked to mitigate. All of the top-tier EV-only automakers are based in California: Tesla, Lucid, Rivian, even Fisker, Canoo, and Faraday. Imagine a future where the fossil fuel industry is gone and traditional auto is gone. Imagine all the wealth from the fossil fuel sector in Texas and the South, plus all the wealth from the Midwestern auto industry, instead being funneled to California. On top of all the truck, taxi, and bus driving jobs, being replaced by autonomous tech also coming from California. How's that gonna play in Middle America?
Elon Musk moved to California with nothing but a suitcase of clothes. He moved out a quarter century later the richest man in the world, richest because so many thousands of Californians worked their tails off for him for so many years. And he dated a string of hot celebrity chicks along the way! You really think Elon hates California? Really? You wanna see my oceanfront property in Austin?
So all of this, Biden hugging the UAW and Detroit 3, Elon putting distance to California, plus the climate bill being worked out between Manchin and Biden that's basically a payoff to fossil fuel workers, this is all about protecting the march to a zero GHG economy from being undermined by a backlash.
If you think Biden really hates Tesla and Elon really hates California, feel free to click disagree so I know who the suckers are.