By Mark Sumner
Daily Kos Staff
Donald Trump’s recent rambling about sharks vs. batteries has become such an incoherent mess that it’s hard to remember that this story, which has been a part of Trump’s rally speech for years, once had a point. The point was the batteries: Trump hates them, and he hates every form of electric vehicle that they might be placed inside.
Hating on batteries is Trump’s way of signaling his allegiance
to fossil fuels. Trump has repeatedly said that electric cars can only “drive for 15 minutes”
before they need to be recharged. In contrast, Trump says that a diesel
truck—complete with an apartment you would be “proud to live in”—can drive across the nation without refueling once.
The list of Trump’s EV lies was lengthy a year ago, but it just keeps growing. And like the shark vs. battery story, it keeps getting more bizarre. Now Trump is attacking the Pentagon for its electric tanks—a thing that absolutely, positively does not exist.
Letting Trump get away with lies is practically the favorite sport of the national media, but Trump's lies about electric vehicles are so obvious that some of them should be the subject of questions during the debate.
Trump regularly claims that "all EVs are made in China." This isn't true. In fact, the number of EVs sold in the U.S. that originate in China is exactly zero. Most of the electric cars sold here are made in the U.S. This seems like something he might want to explain during his next breakfast with Elon … and it also seems like Musk should be explaining to Tesla stockholders why he favors the guy who keeps attacking the industry.
Trump means to slam the brakes on EV sales at a time when Americans are buying record numbers and consumer choice of electric vehicles is rapidly expanding. That includes ending federal policies that help lower the cost of electric vehicles and develop networks for recharging, adding a 100% tariff to EVs built in Mexico where both GM and Tesla plan to assemble lower-cost vehicles.
While Trump’s effort to secure a $1 billion bribe from oil and gas executives has been well reported, many of those reports leave out just what Trump was promising in exchange: ending EV incentives and making sure they stay dead.
But in recent rallies, Trump has added military electric vehicles to his attack list, not just because they contain his hated batteries, but because they do something else he hates—try to improve the environment.
As Politico reports, Trump has claimed that both electric tanks and sustainable jet fuel are going to cripple the American military.
“They want to make our Army tanks all electric so that when we go into a foreign country, blazing hot, we’re going in, we keep their environment and their air nice and clean,” Trump told a Wisconsin crowd in May. “Now how crazy is it?”
It was just one of several statements in which Trump talked about “their environment” or “our enemy’s atmosphere.” He apparently doesn’t understand that we all breathe the same air and that pollution can’t be limited by borders.
But that’s far from the most spectacular Trump lie about the military’s effort to develop new vehicles.
“They don’t go far and they have to pull a wagon because the wagon, the battery, is so big that the Army tanks will have a wagon like a child,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News. “He’s pulling a wagon.”
This child-like tank is completely nonexistent: No such tank has been built, no such tank has been planned, no such tank has even been thought about.
The closest the military has come has been considering using the same kind of hybrid diesel-battery technology found in trains. Those systems have proven so effective that they are expected to replace conventional diesel in the near future because they provide more power and greater range. And when it comes to tanks, even this alternative is only in the early stages of consideration.
Trump's statements about EVs are clearly meant to signal his support for fossil fuels, but his statements aren't just wrong, they're complete fantasies. He’s promising to set back American industry by decades, forcing American companies to produce vehicles that few other countries want, while spewing lies about a tank that pulls a wagon.
It’s a promise to build another kind of wall around America; One where the products inside are so backward that no one outside wants them. And it’s all based on lies.
It would be nice if someone called him on it.
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