Trump Planning to Cut Funding for EVs and Chargers

Ouch.

Cord Cutters

President-elect Donald Trump is hellbent on reversing any progress current president Joe Biden has made by extending the national electric vehicle charging network.

According to a document obtained by Reuters, Trump's transition team is recommending to cut off any federal funding for both EVs and chargers, while actively blocking any cars or EV batteries coming from China.

The plan is to funnel any available EV and battery resources toward the military instead.

If they come to pass, the plans could make electric cars substantially more expensive for American consumers, further entrenching existing slowdowns in EV demands and limiting adoption.

And it's not just EVs, according to Reuters — the price of any piece of technology relying on batteries could soon spike, because the transition team also recommends placing tariffs on any battery materials globally.

EV Unplugged

Where the recommendations could leave Biden's promise to roll out half a million EV charging stations by 2030 remains to be seen. Despite a massive $7.5 billion being allocated by Congress, there are only seven stations operational across four states, as of March.

The new rules could also hurt Tesla sales. But while Musk has put his entire weight behind Trump's reelection, the mercurial CEO has maintained that subsidies hurt Tesla more than they help.

Earlier this year, Musk abruptly fired the entire 500-person team working on its vaunted Supercharger network after receiving more than $17 million in federal grants.

Trump, a longtime climate denier, has long pushed for a renewed focus on the oil and gas industry, calling for the country to "drill, baby, drill."

Apart from giving up on EVs, Trump is also widely expected to roll back environmental regulations, giving Musk's SpaceX the green light to launch rockets without abiding by strict environmental rules.

And that could potentially apply to the car sector as well. The transition team recommends loosening environmental review processes to boost "federally funded EV infrastructure projects," such as battery production.

Unsurprisingly, the team is also looking to end Biden's policy to require federal agencies to electrify their fleets.

Whether these new plans will kickstart a globally competitive EV production supply chain in the US is unclear at best.

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