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After months spent bashing electric cars and the measures the Biden administration has brought in to speed up their adoption, presidential hopeful Donald Trump changed his tune last month and became an EV fan out of the blue. The convicted felon claimed he was “totally for” electric cars and even went so far as to call them “incredible.”
Now, Trump has shared a little more about his sudden change of heart, and it’s related to the backing he’s gained from Tesla boss Elon Musk, of course. The Republican nominee admitted he felt he had “no choice” but to support EVs after the Tesla boss pledged his support to the Trump campaign, reports Business Insider. As the site reports:
At a rally in Georgia on Sunday, Trump told the crowd he supported electric cars but thought people should still have access to gas vehicles.
“I’m for electric cars. I have to be because, you know, Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump told the crowd. “So, I have no choice.”
He then clarified that he only supports them as a “small slice” of the larger auto industry.
“You want to have gas-propelled cars. You want to have hybrids. You want to have every kind of car,” he said.
This marks a serious turn in opinions from Trump, who has previously called for an end to an EV mandate that doesn’t exist, branded the electrification of the auto industry a “green new scam” and even went so far as to pledge an end to EV sales.
Still, Trump does at least have one EV that he actually likes, and it’s the one you’d expect it to be: the Cybertruck. Trump said he was a “huge fan” of the divisive truck earlier this year, according to Musk.