GM and Rivian’s CEO have something in common, based on comments made in recent days: Neither thought EVs would become a political lightning rod.
On Thursday while speaking at the New York Times’ Climate Forward event Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said “I think it’s really important that we don’t make EVs a political thing, and I’m saddened that they are.”
“It doesn’t make any sense that they are,” Scaringe said.
But EVs have become political. Election 2024 has two candidates with very different stands on EVs, climate science, and democracy itself. Trump plans to gut EV policy. Harris backed the proposed Green New Deal and was a key figure behind VW’s emissions-cheating scandal.
Pushing back on EVs has, in this last term of Congress, become a Republican position point beyond the top office in the nation—even though polling has pointed out Republicans’ aversion to EVs may be a generational one.
To that point, and veering away from the pull of partisanship, Scaringe offered that “the beauty of that is that whether you’re on the right or the left you care about creating a better future outcome for your kids.”
Asked specifically about the reasons behind why EVs have become such a partisan issue, Scaringe pointed to how a “massive amount of misinformation exists on electrification,” related to a lack of understanding of the battery supply chain and the scale of the challenge.
Scaringe isn’t alone in expressing a level of surprise over the pushback related to EVs and clean energy. On Sunday GM CEO Mary Barra told Kris Van Cleave during an interview “I never thought the propulsion system on a vehicle would be (a political) issue.”
