President Joe Biden will begin the process of eliminating the use of gas-powered vehicles by the federal government and replacing them with electric-powered vehicles. The announcement is the fulfillment of a promise made by Biden during the campaign to exchange vehicles from the government fleet for American-made EVs.
“The federal government also has a huge fleet of vehicles, which we are going to replace with clean electric vehicles made here in America, by American workers,” Biden said during a news conference on Monday announcing his executive order “Buy America.”
This is great news for EV manufacturers based in the United States, such as Tesla, Rivian and Lordstown, as well as for traditional car manufacturers such as Ford and General Motors, which are in the midst of multi-billion dollar investments in vehicle production. electrical.
In 2019, there were about 650,000 vehicles in the federal government fleet, according to the General Services Administration. This includes 245,000 civilian vehicles, 173,000 military vehicles and 225,000 postal vehicles. These vehicles covered 4.5 billion miles in 2019.
Biden also promised to create a system that offers discounts or incentives for consumers to replace gasoline cars with electric ones – although there are no further details on that plan at the moment.
The details of both plans are still being worked out, but taken together, they represent a major victory for investments in EVs made by automakers in recent years. Ford said it would spend $ 11 billion launching a series of new EVs, including the Mustang Mach-E and an electric version of its best-selling F-150 pickup. GM has pledged to spend $ 27 billion on electric and self-driving vehicles by 2025.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s notable rise in the stock market throughout 2020 has made it the most valuable automaker in the world, and its CEO Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet.
Biden’s request may not be a direct victory for Tesla, which has focused mainly on luxury and performance vehicles. Carmakers that could benefit include Ford, which recently unveiled an electric version of its Transit vans, and GM, which has just created a new company called BrightDrop focused on electric delivery vehicles.
One federal agency that could desperately use a new fleet of zero-emission vehicles is the United States Postal Service. Hundreds of agency mail trucks, which are made by Northrop Grumman, have caught fire in recent years, Vice recently reported. And the USPS deadline for official bids to make its next generation mail truck was delayed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The program to replace current USPS trucks was launched in 2015. But it dragged on, forcing the postal service to keep its current trucks in service for longer than expected – despite the fact that they were introduced in the late 1980s and in the early ’90s and lacking features like air conditioning. Two of the original six companies dropped out.
One of Biden’s goals is to create 1 million new jobs in the automotive sector and “position America as a global leader in the manufacture of electric vehicles and their inputs and parts”. The president said he will achieve that goal by switching from the government fleet to electric vehicles and through a “money for scrap” plan to ensure that all vehicles on the road have zero emissions by 2040. And he promised to spend billions of dollars. dollars to add 550,000 EV charging stations in the United States.
Biden also said he supports the $ 7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles and would be open to considering new incentives to encourage car buyers to consider switching to electric. Former President Donald Trump tried to end the federal EV tax credit in his 2020 budget proposal, but was unsuccessful. Also under Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency has repealed the Obama-era emission rules, designed to force the automotive industry to manufacture less polluting vehicles.
Biden has already taken steps to reverse Trump’s reversal (move forward?) Of the Obama era emission rules. On the day of his inauguration, Biden ordered federal agencies to review fuel efficiency standards, as well as rules governing emissions from airplanes and appliances and energy efficiency standards for buildings.