President Joe Biden toured the Detroit Auto Show on Wednesday, praising many car manufacturers for their electric vehicle plans and claiming that “Detroit is back.”
Biden is a noted car enthusiast and since taking the reins of the Oval Office, has advocated for the U.S. to accelerate its shift to electric vehicles. Indeed, he wants EVs and plug-in hybrids to account for 50 per cent all U.S. new vehicle sales by 2030.
The White House states that since President Biden took office, companies have announced investments of more than $36 billion in electric vehicle manufacturing and $48 billion in batteries in the United States. Among the commitments made include Toyota investing $2.5 billion into its North Carolina manufacturing facility, Honda and LG Energy Solution investing $4.4 billion into a joint venture facility, Ford investing $3.7 billion into various assembly plans, Panasonic investing $4 billion into a Kansas factory, Vinfast announcing more than $5 billion in investments, and Hyundai investing $5.5 billion into building electric vehicles and batteries near Savannah, Georgia.
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“I believe we can own the future of the automobile market,” Biden said at the show. “I believe we can own the future of manufacturing. American manufacturing is back. Detroit is back. America’s back, and folks, we’re proving it’s never, ever, ever a good bet to bet against the American people.”
The U.S. government is playing an important role in electrifying the nation’s car industry. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will invest $7.5 billion into establishing a network of 500,000 EV charges while also committing over $10 billion for clean transit and school buses. The Inflation Reduction Act will also encourage carmakers to build more EVs in the United States while the CHIPS and Science Act will make important investments in building domestic capacity to manufacture semiconductors needed for EVs.
