Joe Biden cannot ignore Tesla and Elon Musk if he is serious about electric vehicles and climate change

The US president has been pushing the electric vehicle transition without the biggest EV player, Tesla
While it is true that rich Americans like the Tesla CEO are getting richer, blaming Musk for inequality is not the answer. Instead, Biden must work with him

Yunshi Wang

Published: 3:30am, 25 Feb 2022

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Last year, President Joe Biden set a goal for the United States’ transition to electric vehicles, while executives from carmakers General Motors and Ford joined him at the White House. Just last month, he met them at the White House again.

Elon Musk, chief executive of electric carmaker Tesla and the only industrialist among Forbes’ 15 richest Americans, has never been invited. Instead, under his Build Back Better plan, Biden proposed additional incentives for consumers to purchase electric vehicles made with union labour. He also said that “Detroit is leading the world in electric vehicles”.

As a researcher focusing on global EV deployment, I highlighted California’s clean vehicle policies and Tesla’s success in a 2019 op-ed in the Post.

Since then, Tesla’s stock price has increased more than tenfold. Today, I am asking Biden to please listen to thousands of petitioning Tesla fans and meet Musk.

To say that Musk is a modern-day Henry Ford is an understatement. In 2021, Tesla’s Model 3 was the top-selling EV in the world, while its Model Y came third.

In China, Tesla had the second- and third-bestselling EVs, only outsold by a microcar that costs about one tenth of a Model 3. In Europe, the Tesla Model 3 was the annual bestseller for the second time in 2021. It was the first midsize saloon in decades to beat the three German premium auto brands in this category.

In the US, while GM has discontinued the Volt and recalled the Bolt because of fire risks, Tesla continues to dominate, with 73 per cent of the EV market share in 2021. In California, the cradle of zero-emission vehicle policies that I earnestly defended during the Trump years, Tesla’s market share is 55 per cent.

Tesla achieved this feat without the US$7,500 federal tax credit still applicable to Ford and other car companies. The combined EV market share of Ford and GM in California is 8.6 per cent. It’s fair to say that, without Tesla, California’s zero-emission vehicle mandate would not be successful.

There is outrage among Democrats that the richest Americans have got richer while others, including union workers, have suffered. But blaming Musk is misguided. The man works hard and is known to sleep in his office or even the factory. Taking a huge risk, he does not accept a salary and has opted for stocks instead.

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Yes, Tesla stocks have made him the richest person in the world, but on any day, a chain of car accidents or fires could cause his fortune to slide by billions. Isn’t this the beauty of the unique American system that rewards the hard workers and risk takers?

And isn’t this the attraction that draws immigrants like him and me to the land of opportunity? If wealth is a reason to be scorned, then Benjamin Franklin shouldn’t be on the US$100 bill.

In the past several years, I have encountered two Tesla employees. One was a worker at Tesla’s Fremont factory. He was driving an Uber car at weekends. His salary was modest. Another installed Tesla solar panels on my rooftop.

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The two minority workers were smiling when they confirmed that they had stock options, and that the rapid rise of Tesla’s shares had made it possible for them to buy houses in the Greater Sacramento area.

I asked them where they thought they would be working if Tesla had not existed. The answer was simple: McDonald’s or Taco Bell. Today, Tesla’s Fremont facility is the most productive car factory in North America and the largest manufacturer in California, a state which is challenging for manufacturing jobs, unionised or not.

The lack of appreciation for Tesla’s success is also in contradiction to the Democrats’ long practice of encouraging job creation in the United States. Right after the Great Recession, the Obama-Biden administration shelled out grants and loans to a list of EV and renewable energy companies, including Tesla, Ener1, Solyndra, Beacon Power, Fisker Automotive, and A123 Systems.

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All but Tesla went bankrupt. Still, Tesla’s success more than offsets those failures. Isn’t it fair to say that, without Tesla, the Obama-Biden administration’s investment in clean energy could hardly be viewed as fruitful?

I understand that unions are something dear to Biden’s heart, but couldn’t he promote them in other ways, not at the expense of something even bigger – the need to form a broader coalition to combat climate change while creating jobs for middle-class Americans?

Like many great talents, Musk is sometimes eccentric, hard-driving and insensitive to hot social issues, but wouldn’t it be more productive for the president to share a beer with him and Senator Bernie Sanders?

In his first White House meeting with the executives of the Detroit Three, Biden set the target that half of all new vehicles sold in the US in 2030 should be electric. This goal cannot be reached without a company that has two-thirds of the US EV market share. So please, Mr President, send out your invitation today.

Yunshi Wang is director of China Centre for Energy and Transportation at University of California, Davis and a co-director at the US-China-UK Zero Emission Vehicle Policy Lab. He advises California government agencies on global ZEV policies. He owns a Tesla car and rooftop solar panels, but has no business relationship with Tesla