Donald Trump wants to get rid of electric cars

05 September 2022

Writing about politics is never fun, in fact that’s probably the least interesting thing to write about despite the politics actually affecting our lives a lot. What is even less fun - if that’s possible - is writing about politicians. Sometimes it feels as if they were a different species of human kind all together and this isn’t a nature show, we talk about electric cars here. But when one of the most prominent politicians talks about electric cars, we take notice. Even if it is Donald Trump.

Former President of the US is currently campaigning ahead of midterm elections and we all know what he’s like in the full campaign mode. Ready to talk a lot but make as little sense as possible. It’s a real skill actually, making sure that no one can remember things he promised or even worse, someone actually trying to make sense out of his words. Because every time you look close enough, the whole thing just falls apart.

Let’s look and listen - short clip from Twitter is about as much as we can take:

Yikes…. So, Mr President said he never pushed for electric cars when he was in the office, the gasoline was $1.87 a gallon and electric cars are getting 38 miles per gallon. And then he says "we should get rid of them". All that in one minute and 29 seconds - see? That’s a real skill.

We should never really pay too much attention to what politicians are saying but when you have a former President, who most likely will be a President again if he gets his way, come up with this made up stuff and you see people cheering on - you kinda start thinking, what is going on?

First of all - last time a gallon of gasoline was $1.87 was April 2004 and briefly in February 2016. When Donald Trump was in office, gasoline went from $2.45 to $2.40 in the last month of his tenure. He could have claimed he lowered the gasoline prices and would have gotten away with it. $1.87 was 13 years ago under George W. Bush and people should remember that - not clap and cheer.

Watching Donald Trump, standing proudly above the blue sign that says “save America” and proclaim he never was pushing for electric cars feels weird. He must have forgotten already about the “big incentives” for electric car companies he was so proud about giving away only 2 years ago. He clearly forgot he even claimed the EV tax credit was his idea while at the same time trying to remove it from the 2020 budget.

And his story about the friend and his electric car adventures? Crikey… cringeworthy at best. Gotta give to Donald Trump though, he can tell a story, he can almost follow the plot without too many diversions. To cut the long and convoluted story short - his friend’s EV does 38 miles to the gallon and only drives for 2 hours on a full charge and then it takes even longer to charge it. Mr Trump - your friend got punked. Big time. He doesn’t have an electric car - he’s got some old tech hybrid. It happens in America, the older generation gets tricked often into buying stuff they don’t even understand.

There is no point trying to dismantle this short clip, there is no point trying to delve into details of the 38 mpg claim. None of it really matters. Mr Trump is a performer, he enjoys the sound of his own voice a lot and making sense and telling the truth is hardly ever his priority. We shouldn’t take it too seriously, rather enjoy another episode of this never ending saga, it feels almost like watching Donald's favorite Mexican telenovela.

Unless Mr Trump becomes President again - then we should worry about it. After all this is the man who built the wall, who divided America and the world. He did all that for his personal gains while supported by millions of people. People who took him for his word, a word he has no value for. Interesting times ahead for all of us.

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