By Say what you will about Pete Buttigieg, but he’s always been a good company man, but during a recent interview on CBS, the Secretary of Transportation heard something he didn’t expect from the liberal host and he failed to deliver.
Trump is right.
Fox News explained that Secretary Pete responded to repeated attacks launched by former President Trump, who claimed Biden has been spending billions of federal dollars to push an unpopular car.
“‘You notice he’s trying to save the electric vehicle but not the gas powered which is the vehicle everybody wants. They’re going crazy with the electric car, costing us a fortune. We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing a car nobody wants and nobody is ever going to buy,’ Trump said.
‘He’s not wrong on the purchasing,’ CBS anchor Margaret Brennen told Buttigieg during a Sunday interview on “Face the Nation.”
‘He’s wrong,’ Buttigieg rebuffed.
‘He’s not,’ Brennen pushed back. ‘Of the 4 million vehicles purchased, 269,000 electric vehicles were sold in the U.S. Market. It’s up like 2%.'”
In November 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allocates $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Of this amount, $5 billion is designated for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, aimed at constructing a network of chargers along major highways.
CBS anchor Margaret Brennan asked a very simple question to Secretary Pete: where are the chargers? Newsweek wrote that his answer left a lot to be desired.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was pressed on Sunday about the low number of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations the Biden administration has rolled out across the country over the past three years, with his response garnering criticism and ridicule among social media users.
While appearing on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday, host Margaret Brennan asked Buttigieg, “The Federal Highway Administration says only seven or eight charging stations have been produced with a $7.5 billion investment that taxpayers made back in 2021. Why isn’t that happening more quickly?”
Buttigieg responded: “So the president’s goal is to have half a million chargers up by the end of this decade. Now, in order to do a charger, it’s more than just plunking a small device into the ground. There’s utility work and this is also a new category of federal investment. But we’ve been working with each of the 50 states, every one of them is getting formula dollars to do this work.”
He then reiterated Biden’s EV goal, “Again, by 2030, 500,000 chargers. And the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built. But again, that’s the absolute very, very beginning stages of the construction to come.”
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Despite being a major aspect of Biden’s “Green New Deal” that was pitched as the “Inflation Reduction Act,” electric vehicles have faced a huge downturn over the past year or so.
And that’s on top of a new study showing they are much worse for the environment than gasoline vehicles.
Business Insider reported that “several C-Suite leaders at some of the biggest carmakers voiced fresh unease about the electric car market’s growth as concerns over the viability of these vehicles put their multi-billion-dollar electrification strategies at risk.
Among those hand-wringing is GM’s Mary Barra, historically one of the automotive industry’s most bullish CEOs on the future of electric vehicles. GM has been an early-mover in the electric car market, selling the Chevrolet Bolt for seven years and making bold claims about a fully electric future for the company long before its competitors got on board.”
General Motors ended up cutting its initial target of making 100,000 EVs this year.
The bigger loser, however, was Ford. In January, the company saw major cuts in production of its highly anticipated electric F-150.
Ford made the official announcement that it will be reducing its F-150 Lightning output in 2024 amid slower-than-projected growth in EV demand. Biden test drove a F-150 Lightning in Michigan in May 2021 to promote his administration’s EV agenda, which aims for EVs to make up 50% of all new auto sales by 2030, reported The Daily Caller.
“Ford is reducing production of F-150 Lightning, the top-selling electric pickup in the U.S., to achieve the optimal balance of production, sales growth and profitability,” the company announced on Friday. “Ford expects continued growth in global EV sales in 2024, though less than anticipated, and is preparing to launch next-generation EVs.”
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