Should American Presidents Promote American-Made Green Electrified Vehicles? If so, why does the left-leaning media seem to report on this differently when President Trump does it?

Yesterday, President Trump had Tesla bring its battery-electric vehicles to Washington to showcase the leading American-made electric vehicle manufacturing company’s products. President Trump is, for the moment, a staunch ally of Elon Musk, who sorta does, sorta doesn’t officially work for the President, hunting for waste, fraud, and abuse in government agencies. Depending on who you ask, Musk has either been remarkably successful or is bringing about the end of the world. We’re experiencing a pretty bipolar moment in American history right now that started roughly around 1776.

Here’s part of NPR’s coverage of the event:

“It looks like a way of saying this economy will be driven by favoritism," Painter said. "It looks like government picking winners and losers, and the government saying, 'Tesla is the winner.'"

NPR went on to say, “Trump, who has revoked Biden-era efforts to incentivize electric vehicles, said he'd pay for the car with a check, and would keep it at the White House for staff to use.”

NPR seems a bit ahead of itself here. At this moment in the Trump 47 administration, our tax code still incentivizes EVs to the tune of as much as $7,500. That may soon change, but President Trump kept such incentives for the full four years of his first term, along with other green incentives like subsidies and trade restrictions to promote residential solar power.

Speaking about the top-selling American-made green vehicle, the President said, "Five years from now, when I'm not president anymore, I'll buy one and drive it myself." Sorry if we confused the story a bit, but that President wasn’t Trump, but Obama, who made the promise while promoting the Chevrolet Volt Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV). We used to call those “EVs” in America until the battery-only jihad took over the word and claimed it as their own. Was President Obama “Picking the winners and losers” in 2016 when he endorsed and promoted the Chevy Volt? We wonder which color he chose when he kept his promise and bought a Volt?

Following his comments to selected media outlets, the President himself took a ride in one of the many American-made battery-electric vehicles on hand. Sorry, we are off track again. That wasn’t President Trump; it was President Biden, who drove an all-electric Ford F-150. Was President Biden “Picking the winners and losers” when he promoted the all-electric Ford F-150?

The President also had a top-level cabinet meeting with Elon Musk, inviting the Transportation Secretary, Energy Secretary, National Climate Advisor, and Infrastructure Coordinator. The meeting was in 2022, the President was Biden, and the attendees were Pete Buttigieg, Jennifer Granholm, Gina McCarthy, and Mitch Landrieu. Mr. Musk was not alone. The CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra, also attended. 

In his first term, the Republican-led Congress passed renewed electric vehicle subsidies, and Donald Trump signed the bill, making the subsidies law. It ended up excluding Tesla from consideration for the consumer-facing tax incentive price subsidies. Every Democrat voted against President Trump’s renewed EV subsidies. We now have a much more complicated law passed by Democrats during the Biden administration  that does include subsidies for Tesla.

If this story was hard to follow, we apologize. It is truly challenging to put one’s finger on the pulse of the American heartbeat. One minute, we are instructed to love EVs, love Tesla, and having the President promote American-made EVs is a good thing. Then the next moment, the media would like us to somehow look angrily at this type of activity. We do our best to report on the changing times. 

Do you think Presidents should work hard to promote American-based companies that design, manufacture, and assemble vehicles in America?

How about green vehicles? Do you think President Trump's promotion of green vehicles was somehow different from Obama and Biden's efforts? Tell us in the comments below.  

Image Note: Rendering of Presidents Trump, Biden, and Obama with Tesla vehicle created using Grok by John Goreham.

John Goreham is a credentialed New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.