Biden: ‘The Future of the Auto Industry Is Electric, and There’s No Turning Back’
President's factory tour aimed at selling public on greentech, full spectrum of infrastructure
President Biden travelled to Michigan to tour an automotive plant and test-drive Ford Motor Co.'s new all-electric F-150 pickup truck.
Tuesday’s in-person event was an effort to demonstrate solidarity with US manufacturers and the American manufacturing workforce, while simultaneously signaling that jobs could be plentiful in a future with a clean, non-fossil fuels-based economy.
And Biden didn't limit the occasion to corporate bigwigs — members of the UAW labor union, including union President Rory Gamble — greeted Biden at the plant.
“What you see before you are the efforts of great teamwork between the UAW and Ford Motor Company. This is what teamwork can accomplish: Building world-class vehicles that meet the needs of America and are ready for the challenges that the new technology will bring for us all. And at the same time, protecting good-paying American jobs and the workers have the right to unionize and have a voice in the workplace,” said Gamble.
Biden is in the midst of selling both the public — and lawmakers in Washington DC — on his $2.2 trillion American Jobs Plan aimed at refurbishing and updating US infrastructure of all kinds. Meanwhile, he is also at work to cut US carbon emissions as part of the battle against global climate change.
Congressional Republicans, unsurprisingly, are skeptical of Biden's ambitious plans.
UAW member Angela Powell, a forklift operator at Dearborn Truck UAW Local 600, introduced Biden, calling him “a friend of UAW members and their families,” urging Congress to pass the American Jobs Act.
“I just got a tour of the groundbreaking electric vehicle center here along with UAW workers, and they showed me the technology they are using to build their first ever fully electric F-150. I was able to sit in it, and quite frankly, they let me see it and I apologize you won’t be able to see it until tomorrow, and let me assure you you will like it, and I would sure like to drive it, and I wonder whether or not I would be able to lose the Secret Service and go out to the track, but you all think I’m kidding, don’t you?” Biden teased. “The press knows I’m not. Look, the future of the auto industry is electric, there’s no turning back. And as Rory says the American auto industry is at a crossroads. The real question is whether it will lead or it'll fall behind in the race of the future.”