Last week, Ford announced that it’s changing its plans for electric cars. Instead of making an all-electric three-row SUV, Ford will focus on creating hybrid SUVs that use electricity and gas. This decision is a setback for electric car projects, many of which Harris supported during her time as vice president. 

John Lawler, Ford’s vice chair and chief financial officer, says his company is working to transform itself into a “more successful and efficient company.” This means making sure its vehicles are profitable. If a vehicle isn’t making money, Lawler said Ford will adjust its plans and make tough choices based on what customers want and need. 

And consumers have repeatedly said that EVs are not what they “want or need.” 

Earlier this year, data showed that electric vehicles hurt Ford’s profit margins. Ford’s EV division, Model E, lost $4.7 billion last year, more than $1.6 billion of which occurred in the past three months. Lawler said in February that the losses were due to challenging market conditions and investments in new types of vehicles. Ford, the second-largest EV brand in the country after Tesla, announced last week that it will face a $400 million loss from canceling the EV SUV project. 

As Democrats keep pushing for more electric vehicles, former President Trump has promised to stop the Biden administration’s plan to increase their sales. Trump talked about electric vehicles in his recent interview with Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, the biggest electric vehicle maker in the country. Trump praised Musk’s cars as “incredible” but argued that fossil fuels are still important for making electric vehicles and that the U.S. needs to keep drilling for oil. 

Car industry leaders have long said that Democrats’ push for electric vehicles, especially the Biden-Harris administration, was introduced too quickly and would fail. 

In April, Bob Lutz, a former executive at Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors, said that there was a lot of excitement about EVs, mostly from what he calls the liberal mainstream media. He noted that the push made it seem like everyone would soon drive an electric vehicle. He added that the government supported this push because of its climate change policies. He said he knew it wouldn’t work out as planned from the start. 

Lutz observed the push came “too soon and too fast.” 

In December 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris was tasked with leading the “Electric Vehicle Charging Action Plan” to ensure that half of all car sales would be electric vehicles by 2030. This year, the Biden-Harris administration added a major climate regulation requiring half of all new cars and trucks sold by 2030 to be electric. 

Biden said in March that they’ve made “great progress with this plan,” including new factories, significant private investments, and many new jobs. He said then that he believed they would meet the 2030 goal and continue making progress. 

The $7.5 billion federal program from the 2021 infrastructure bill aimed to set up 500,000 EV charging stations across the country. 

By May, it had only installed eight federal charging stations. 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was questioned on CBS’ “Face the Nation” about why only up to eight EV charging stations had been set up so far. Host Margaret Brennan pressed him on the slow progress. 

Buttigieg explained that setting up a charging station requires utility work and is a new type of federal investment. He mentioned that they are working with all 50 states. 

When Brennan laughed about the small number of stations, Buttigieg assured her that by 2030, they plan to have 500,000 chargers. 

Harris also led the Clean School Bus program, which was funded with $5 billion and aimed to replace diesel school buses with electric ones. The EPA has provided $1 billion in grants to help bring nearly 2,500 electric school buses to schools nationwide. Harris said this funding will help improve children’s health and education and boost American manufacturing and jobs. 

The program has delivered only 60 battery-electric or low-emissions propane-fueled school buses so far. But it did deliver a viral moment of Harris singing “The Wheels on the Bus” at a press conference. That alone was worth every cent.