Biden wants US electric vehicle production to zoom past China's

WASHINGTON • President Joe Biden has said the United States must ramp up production of electric vehicles (EVs) to catch up with and then surpass China after he virtually toured an electric bus and battery manufacturing plant.

"We have a lot of catching up to do but we're going to be in a position where we ought to own the future," Mr Biden said during the tour on Tuesday. "We ought to be the single most significant suppliers of electric buses and vehicles in the world before it's over. Right now, we're running way behind China."

Automakers in China sold about 1.3 million passenger EVs last year compared with 328,000 in the US, according to research firm Canalys.

Mr Biden has proposed spending US$174 billion (S$231 billion) to boost the production and sale of zero-emission buses and cars and increase EV charging stations, including US$100 billion in consumer rebates.

Mr Biden toured a facility of US electric bus manufacturer Proterra in South Carolina. Of the US$174 billion, Mr Biden has proposed spending US$20 billion to electrify at least 20 per cent of school buses and US$25 billion to electrify some transit vehicles as part of his US$2.3 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan. He said Proterra "is getting us in the game".

The White House's push to electrify vehicles comes as China dominates the world electric bus market. Proterra estimates 50 per cent of all new North American-built buses in 2025 will be electric.

The US has over 475,000 school buses and 65,000 transit buses and most run on diesel fuel, the White House said.

Mr Biden has made a "commitment that all American-made buses would be zero-emission by 2030", the White House said, but it is not clear how that will be accomplished.

Vice-President Kamala Harris toured a Thomas Built Buses facility in North Carolina in person on Monday to tout the company's electric bus manufacturing.

The White House has declined to endorse setting a firm date, like California has done, to phase out petrol-powered passenger vehicles.

Proterra agreed in January to go public through a merger with ArcLight Clean Transition in a deal valued at US$1.6 billion, including debt.

Meanwhile, the US government swung its support back behind the multibillion-dollar Green Climate Fund (GCF) on Tuesday, with US climate envoy John Kerry promising that Washington would put more money in to help developing countries tackle global warming.

He told an event hosted by the GCF that Mr Biden's request of about US$1.2 billion for the fund in the coming fiscal year's budget "is just the beginning of what we intend to do".

Mr Kerry noted in a video message that the money, if approved, would go a "good way" to paying down what Washington still owes to the GCF from an initial US$3 billion pledge the US made in 2014, of which only US$1 billion was delivered.

Former president Donald Trump, a climate change sceptic, refused to pay the rest. For more than four years, the US has made no contribution to the flagship fund set up under United Nations climate talks to help poorer countries pursue clean growth and adapt to a warming planet, Mr Kerry noted.

Green groups and aid agencies have called on the Biden administration to put in an additional US$6 billion, doubling its initial pledge as other major donor countries did in 2019.

REUTERS