President Joe Biden plans to replace the government’s fleet of cars and trucks with electric vehicles assembled in the US, he said on Monday when he signed a new executive order “Buy American”.
The government is a big buyer of vehicles. However, replacing such a fleet with US-made EVs will be expensive and time consuming. Currently, only a handful of electric vehicles are manufactured in the US by Tesla, General Motors and Nissan Motor manufacturers, while Ford Motor and others plan to do so.
“The current supply is pretty slim, but the industry is about to unleash an avalanche of new products, and many of them are being built in North America,” said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research, told CNBC. “Almost every American plant is going to have a hybrid or electrical product.”
It is unclear whether Biden’s plan includes plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, which use a combination of EV cars and traditional internal combustion engines. In discussing the plans, he referred to the new fleet consisting of electric vehicles ‘which are net emissions.’
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A man drives his Tesla car while watching SpaceX’s Starship SN8, days before a test launch of the company’s new super-heavy-lift Starship rocket from their facilities in this small town of Boca Chita, Texas, December 4 2020.
Gene Blevins | Reuters
Biden did not set a time frame for converting the government’s “enormous fleet” to cars, which cost significantly more than traditional vehicles. He said the fleet conversion would help the government’s plan to create 1 million new jobs in the U.S. auto industry.
Biden has also announced plans for stricter use of U.S.-made parts in government-purchased vehicles, which will make it even more difficult to switch fleets. He said the current standards require a vehicle’s parts to be at least 50% of the US for purchase.
“The 50% content threshold is not high enough and the way we measure content does not take into account U.S. jobs and economic activity,” Biden said. “We’re going to change that, too. The executive action I sign today requires not only that companies make more of their components in America, but that the value of the components contributes to our economy, measured by things like a number of US jobs created and / or supported. “
GM said in a statement that it was “encouraged by President Biden’s commitment to supporting US manufacturing and looks forward to reviewing the details of the order.”
Ford, which launched an “Built for America” advertising campaign last year, said it “believes investing in America, its people, goods and services should be a national mission.”
Tesla did not immediately respond for comment.