In a sudden reversal, the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris is now distancing itself from Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates, a policy she has long championed as a Senator and in her role in the Biden administration.
According to a recent email sent to supporters, Harris’s campaign claims she “does not support an electric vehicle mandate,” a stark contrast to her previous stance. For years, Harris has advocated for policies requiring automakers to produce and sell a certain percentage of EVs to American consumers.
Just last month, it was reported that Harris’s 2020 Green New Deal proposal aimed to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035 and ensure that only EVs could be purchased by consumers. At the time, her agenda stated that “50 percent of all new passenger vehicles sold will be zero-emission by 2030, and 100 percent will be zero-emission by 2035.” Additionally, she sought to require all new buses to be zero-emission by 2030.
As Vice President, Harris has also supported President Biden’s EV mandate, which aims to have a majority of new cars produced and sold in the US market be EVs or hybrids by 2032. However, the U.S. Oil & Gas Association has publicly criticized Harris’s stance.
A recent Harvard-Harris poll found that a significant majority of registered voters, including 57% of Democrats and 83% of Republicans, oppose the Biden-Harris EV mandate. Critics argue that such policies could lead to the loss of millions of American auto jobs, as EVs require significantly less manpower to produce than traditional gas-powered cars.
Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, have vowed to end the Biden-Harris EV mandate if elected, claiming it would “save the U.S. auto industry from complete obliteration” and save customers thousands of dollars per car.
