Biden to replace government fleet with electric vehicles

President Joe Biden will start the process of phasing out the federal government’s use of gas-powered vehicles and replacing them with ones that run on electricity. The announcement is the fulfillment of a promise Biden made on the campaign trail to swap government fleet vehicles with American-made EVs.

“The federal government also owns an enormous fleet of vehicles, which we’re going to replace with clean electric vehicles made right here in America, by American workers,” Biden said during a briefing Monday announcing his “Buy American” executive order.

This is great news for US-based EV makers like Tesla, Rivian, and Lordstown, as well as legacy automakers like Ford and General Motors that are in the midst of multibillion-dollar investments in electric vehicle production.

As of 2019, there were nearly 650,000 vehicles in the federal government’s fleet, according to the General Services Administration. This includes 245,000 civilian vehicles, 173,000 military vehicles, and 225,000 post office vehicles. Those vehicles traveled 4.5 billion miles in 2019.

Biden also promised to create a system that offers rebates or incentives for consumers to replace gas cars with electric vehicles — though there aren’t any more details about that plan at this moment.

BIDEN PROMISED REBATES FOR CONSUMERS TO REPLACE GAS CARS WITH ELECTRIC VEHICLES
The details of both plans are still being worked out, but taken together, they represent a huge win for the EV investments made by automakers over the last several years. Ford has said it will spend $11 billion introducing a raft of new EVs, including the Mustang Mach-E and an electric version of its best-selling F-150 pickup truck. GM has committed to spending $27 billion on electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025.

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