AP FACT CHECK: Biden takes half-steps on electric vehicles

WASHINGTON (AP) — Eager to show benefits from his policies, President Joe Biden is overstating the number of electric vehicle charging stations that would be built with his infrastructure law and claiming a speedy shift to electric in the federal fleet that isn't so.

Biden says he is fulfilling campaign promises but does not acknowledge that several of his claims rely on passage of a $2 trillion climate and social safety net plan stalled in Congress.

His initiatives will take more than a decade to accomplish if they are completed at all.

Meanwhile, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., employed a false premise in assailing Biden's plans for EV charging stations along highways as a “government forced” Green New Deal. States don't have to accept the federal grants offered for the charging stations, and top automakers were already taking steps toward producing electric cars before Biden acted.

A look at claims on electric vehicles and jobs overall:

EVs

BIDEN, referring to his December order to make the federal fleet all electric by 2035: “We have 600,000 federal vehicles that we — the federal government owns. They’re going to all end up being electric vehicles.” — Feb. 8 remarks.

THE FACTS: Not so fast.

The U.S. Postal Service, whose 230,000 vehicles make up over a third of the federal fleet, has only committed to making 10% of its vehicles electric, citing cost.

It has already moved to award Oshkosh Defense $482 million as an initial investment to assemble 50,000 to 165,000 Next Generation Delivery Vehicles. The new vehicle is greener than current models, which date to the 1990s, but most still will be powered by gasoline.

Because the average age of a postal vehicle is 30 years, new vehicles purchased now aren’t likely to be replaced again until well past 2035.

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