Trump is buying a Tesla. A look at the harsh things he's had to say about EVs over the years

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump, who's buying a Tesla to show loyalty to company CEO Elon Musk, has had plenty to say about electric vehicles over the years. Most of it is not good.

Of course, Trump was once a sharp critic of Musk, too, which is especially notable given how tight the pair are now.

A look at some of Trump's comments on EVs — and Musk:

Trump includes electric cars in a sour Christmas message

Trump marked Christmas 2023 with a social media post lumping “All Electric Car Lunacy” in with a number of political enemies that he said “are looking to destroy our once great USA. MAY THEY ROT IN HELL.”

A few weeks earlier, during a rally in Ankeny, Iowa, Trump said of EVs: “They don’t go far. They cost a fortune.” He also suggested that the U.S. military was looking at making “Army tanks all electric” and scoffing, “you’re in the middle of the desert and you say, ‘You know what, we’re running low on electric. Do they have a charger around anywhere?’”

In November 2023, at a Claremont, New Hampshire, rally, Trump similarly picked up on distance being an electric vehicle issue: “You can’t get out of New Hampshire in an electric car.”

“Where are you going? ‘I’m going to Massachusetts.’ Well, you better get yourself a gas turbine because this car is not going to get you there," he said. “Well, you could, if you stop about four times.”

That followed his joke during an event in Clive, Iowa, the previous month: "Electric cars are good if you have a towing company."

Trump bashes Biden's electric car ‘Hoax’

Electric vehicles were an especially attractive Trump target during the six-week United Auto Workers strike in September 2023. That's when he told a rally in Clinton Township, Michigan, “You go all electric so you can drive for 15 minutes before you have to get a charge.”

Trump, a Republican, also posted on his social media site that then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, sold autoworkers "down the river with his ridiculous all Electric Car Hoax." He suggested that promoting electric vehicles “was the idea of the Radical Left Fascists, Marxists, & Communists" and that "Within 3 years, all of these cars will be made in China.”

Trump has also praised EVs at times

As on many top issues, Trump has been inconsistent on electric vehicles. During his first term, in September 2020, Trump cheered an all-electric Lordstown Motors Endurance truck at an event outside the White House, calling it an “incredible vehicle.”

After Musk endorsed the former president's bid to return to the White House, Trump began suggesting that electric vehicles could work for some buyers.

“I’m for electric cars. I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly," Trump said during an August rally in Atlanta.

In a subsequent conversation on X, the social media platform Musk also owns, Trump called Tesla a “great product” while noting, “That doesn’t mean everybody should have an electric car.”

During his inaugural address, Trump promised, “We will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry," but he also said that Americans will "be able to buy the car of your choice.” While there was no Biden mandate to force the purchase of EVs, his policies were aimed at encouraging Americans to buy them and car companies to shift from gas-powered vehicles to electric cars.

Trump has previously pilloried Musk, too

Just like he had a change of heart about EVs, Trump has changed his tune about Musk, who's now one of his advisers. When the pair got into an online feud in 2022, Trump ridiculed Musk for seeking support during his first term.

“When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects, whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it,” Trump wrote then.