If you haven't watched or listened to former President Donald Trump's recent rally speech in Pennsylvania, you may want to carve out some time, or not. Trump spent a great deal of time, once again, lying to his base about a number of topics and issues, though the only part we care to address is his claims about electric cars.
Fortunately, journalist Aaron Rupar took to Twitter to share a number of important clips from the speech, so we don't have to watch or listen to the whole thing. If you're interested in getting a decent dose of all Trump's wild words, click on the tweets below to check out the full thread.
Essentially, Aaron was listening to the speech and tweeting out key moments with commentary. He covers Trumpism in general, the FBI, Barron Trump, Hillary Clinton, dictatorships, Russia, Bill Barr, the China virus, and the list goes on and on and on. Perhaps you'll find the thread entertaining, or perhaps it will get you all worked up.
At any rate, let's hone in here on Trump's rant about EVs. He starts by touting how good things were when he was in office. He talks about gas costs being $1.87 per gallon. However, he made this claim a few times in the past, and fact-checkers quickly ruled that it was false.
Trump goes on to say his administration wasn't talking about going to all-electric cars. However, he showed them off at The White House and raved about them during his presidency. He also had Tesla CEO Elon Musk on one of his special advisory boards, though Musk left after Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord.
Trump says EVs are "twice as expensive," and they only get like “38 miles per gallon.” Electric cars and SUVs will definitely cost you more than similar gas-powered cars, but not twice as much, and they'll also save you money on fuel and maintenance. We honestly have no idea where 38 mpg came from, but there's no EV with that fuel economy. In fact, EV efficiency isn't measured in miles per gallon, since there's no gallon of electricity.
The speech moves to a story about a friend of Trump's who used his EV to travel from Kentucky to Washington DC. Trump said his friend complained about the road trip taking way too long due to the car's range and the time it took to charge. This could very well be true, and it has a whole lot to do with the lack of charging infrastructure in the US.
Thankfully, the current administration is aware of the problem with charging infrastructure and it's already working to fix it. Now that Trump has been made aware of the concerns, he could also work to help Americans by fixing it, especially if he were to get voted back into The White House.
Sadly, based on how he seems to feel about EVs, it's more likely that Trump will work to have them eliminated. In the speech, he actually does say we need to get rid of electric vehicles.
