America Is Still Stuck on Prius vs. Pickup

EV Politics Project’s founder Mike Murphy is featured in a recent article in The Atlantic. The piece walks through the current political divide on EVs. Newsflash: the divide is real, and needs to be addressed head on.

We highly recommend reading the piece in its entirety, but find this important take below:

Mike Murphy, a longtime Republican political consultant, has spent much of the past year reminding members of his party just how much they should like electric cars. It’s nice to save money on gas and repairs, he told me, and a widening lineup makes these cars practical for all sorts of lifestyles. Plus, many of them are made in America. So take the wheel and let a few thousand pounds of torque finish the pitch. What’s not to love?

A lot, apparently. Donald Trump has referred to a “ridiculous all-electric-car hoax” and recently declared the rise of electric vehicles a “bloodbath” for American workers. Senate Republicans are attempting to roll back EV subsidies and, in one report, tied the cars to a “radical green agenda.” According to a Pew Research Center poll published yesterday, only 13 percent of Republicans consider themselves “somewhat” or “very” likely to go electric the next time they buy a car. EVs are not perfect, of course, but “the tribal position is that Biden’s EVs are a bad idea,” Murphy, who runs an advocacy group called the EV Politics Project, told me.