Photo: Twitter/ABC News
One week into the Presidency, POTUS Joe Biden is living up to his campaign promises by announcing plans to replace the entire U.S. Federal fleet with all-electric vehicles.
That’s the good news, as delivered by the President himself in a press conference. You can see this exact part of the briefing in the ABC News tweet at the bottom of the page (hat tip to Electrek).
Biden told the media that his administration had plans to replace all current vehicles in the Federal fleet with all-electric variants that would be made domestically. He called it the “largest mobilization of public investment and procurement infrastructure and R&D since World War II,” and that’s no exaggeration.
There’s some bad news to the announcement, too. As easy as this sounds in theory, the entire U.S. Federal fleet counts over 645,000 vehicles for civilian and military use and over 140,000 aging mail trucks. The mail delivery trucks are perhaps the first in line for replacement since they were due for an upgrade already, but for the others, the switch could very easily span an entire decade.
Electrek notes that Pete Buttigieg, the current transportation secretary, echoed the President’s sentiment in a recent statement, saying he aimed to put “millions” of EVs on U.S. roads.
The announcement, as vague as it is, should hardly come as a surprise. Biden has been talking about domestically-made electric vehicles throughout the campaign, and switching to EVs is definitely in keeping with current trends, when most countries and carmakers are focused on wider EV adoption. Financially speaking, while the switch will represent a considerable initial investment, it would translate into millions saved on costs and maintenance in the long run.
The President didn’t offer as much as a tentative deadline for the planned switch to EVs, so in a way, this is still just a campaign promise – but with a slightly more formal touch now.
Biden told the media that his administration had plans to replace all current vehicles in the Federal fleet with all-electric variants that would be made domestically. He called it the “largest mobilization of public investment and procurement infrastructure and R&D since World War II,” and that’s no exaggeration.
There’s some bad news to the announcement, too. As easy as this sounds in theory, the entire U.S. Federal fleet counts over 645,000 vehicles for civilian and military use and over 140,000 aging mail trucks. The mail delivery trucks are perhaps the first in line for replacement since they were due for an upgrade already, but for the others, the switch could very easily span an entire decade.
Electrek notes that Pete Buttigieg, the current transportation secretary, echoed the President’s sentiment in a recent statement, saying he aimed to put “millions” of EVs on U.S. roads.
The announcement, as vague as it is, should hardly come as a surprise. Biden has been talking about domestically-made electric vehicles throughout the campaign, and switching to EVs is definitely in keeping with current trends, when most countries and carmakers are focused on wider EV adoption. Financially speaking, while the switch will represent a considerable initial investment, it would translate into millions saved on costs and maintenance in the long run.
The President didn’t offer as much as a tentative deadline for the planned switch to EVs, so in a way, this is still just a campaign promise – but with a slightly more formal touch now.
Pres. Biden: "The federal government also owns an enormous fleet of vehicles, which we're going to replace with clean electric vehicles made right here in America, by American workers."https://t.co/figJbDMrpt pic.twitter.com/racgwk9VGw
— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) January 25, 2021
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