President Joe Biden (Joe Biden) attended the Detroit Auto Show on Sept. 14, thus making more people aware of the accelerating transition to electric vehicles by automakers and the billions of dollars companies are investing in building battery plants. At this year’s auto show, Detroit’s three largest car companies will showcase a variety of electric vehicles. The U.S. Congress and self-proclaimed “car enthusiast” Biden previously promised tens of billions of dollars in loans, manufacturing and consumer tax credits, and grants aimed at accelerating the U.S. transition from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles.

GM CEO Mary Barra, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, Chairman John Elkann, and Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. greeted Biden on the auto show floor. Biden spoke on the electric vehicle transition after visiting some eco-friendly models at the show.

Biden attends the Detroit auto show

Although Biden and the U.S. government are promoting electric vehicles, car companies are still introducing many gasoline-powered models, and most of the cars sold by the Big Three in Detroit are still fuel-powered. In the U.S. electric car market, Tesla dominates, selling more EVs than the three Detroit car companies combined. White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said automakers and battery companies have announced “a $13 billion investment in the U.S. electric vehicle manufacturing industry” in 2022. The Biden speech will focus on “trends” in electric vehicles, including the fact that battery prices have fallen by more than 90 percent since 2009.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced in July that it would provide a $2.5 billion loan to Ultium Cells, a joint venture between GM and LG New Energy, for the construction of a new lithium battery plant. In August, California required that all new vehicles sold in the state be purely electric or plug-in hybrids by 2035. (For more details, click) On Sept. 14, Biden approved the first $900 million in U.S. funding to build electric vehicle charging stations in 35 states as part of a $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved by the U.S. in November of last year. Congress approved close to $5 billion in funding for grants tEVEVo states to build thousands of electric vehicle charging stations over the next five years. Biden wants to have 500,000 new charging stations within the U.S. by 2030.

At the Detroit Auto Show, Biden also announced that electric vehicle purchases by the U.S. government had risen dramatically. in 2020, less than 1 percent of new vehicles purchased by the federal government will be electric, compared to more than double that in 2021. The White House said that in 2022 “agencies are procuring five times as many electric vehicles as they did in the previous fiscal year.” Biden signed an executive order last December requiring all government departments to choose electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles in their vehicle purchases by 2027. The U.S. government fleet has more than 650,000 vehicles and purchases about 50,000 per year.

The lack of sufficient charging stations is one of the main factors holding back the popularity of electric vehicles. Detroit Mayor Michael Duggan told the media on Sept. 13, “We need to see rapid growth in the number of electric vehicle charging stations.” It is believed that this encouragement from Biden can stimulate the development of electric vehicles to some extent, and also attract smart business owners to start laying out investments in EV charging stations.