On Thursday, Joe Biden, the President of the United States, celebrated striving electric vehicle objectives by auto manufacturers at the White House. However, the president did the summit without inviting Tesla, the world’s largest maker of electric vehicles. Instead, executives from Ford, General Motors as well as Stellantis joined the U.S. president.
Headline-Biden snubs non-union Tesla at White House electric car summit: CEO Elon Musk says absence of the world’s largest EV firm at the expense of US ‘Big 3’ is ‘odd’. Ron says “Besides being dumb, Democrats are petty. pic.twitter.com/qGnTKDs64q
— Ron Milner (@RonMilnerBoodle) August 6, 2021
However, electric automobiles are only a silver of U.S. sales of these companies – 1.5 percent for General Motors and 1.3% for Ford until now this year. Whereas Stellantis does not have any pure Electric vehicles for sale on U.S. soil yet. In the meantime, Tesla makes nothing but battery-driven electric automobiles.
Why would Biden not Invite Tesla to the Table?
Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that it seems off that the president didn’t invite Tesla. One possible reason for the snub from the summit: The union of United Auto Workers (UAW) will also be at the ceremony. It represents employees at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, but has been combating, thus far unsuccessfully, to organize the workers of Tesla at the Electric Vehicle manufacturers’ plant in Fremont, California.
Jen Psaki., the Press Secretary of White House, asked about the absence of Tesla at her press briefing Thursday before the event. Psaki said that they definitely welcome the efforts of carmakers who know the potential of an EV future and support efforts that will reach Biden’s goal, and surely Tesla is one of those companies.
Early Thursday, the three automakers issued a joint statement and announced their mutual aspiration for plug-in vehicles to comprise forty percent to fifty percent of their sales by 2030. However, that total number of sales would include plug-in hybrids that also have gasoline-powered engines. Moreover, the previous statement of the Biden government about promoting better use of electric vehicles indicated their importance in establishing good-paying, union jobs in the country.
Source: Web
Brian Rothenberg, the spokesman of UAW, proclaimed his unawareness to CNN that the president had not invited Tesla to the event. Volkswagen planned to start manufacturing an electric vehicle for the United States market at its Chattanooga plant in 2022. However, the United Auto Workers failed to win union representation votes two times at that manufacturing plant. Moreover, the German auto manufacturer was also not there at the White House event.
Where is Tesla constructing its two new assembly lines?
Tesla started its second assembly line of auto manufacturing in Shanghai, China, serving European and Asian sales, not the United States sales. Furthermore, Tesla has two car manufacturing plants under construction, once near Berlin, Germany, and another near Austin, Texas. On the other hand, General Motors is building United States battery factories with its partners that will escalate its local manufacturing in the future.
According to the U.S. government report, Tesla already gets fifty percent to fifty-five percent of their components from United States factories. The Biden government expected to announce a proposal to strengthen the national economy and emissions standards through the model year 2026. And those projected standards are dependent on a public comment period for final approval. Whereas the Trump government strongly opposed firming up fuel efficiency standards of the country and challenged California over an agreement it struck with some auto manufacturers to reduce emissions.
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