As Townhall has reported previously, President Joe Biden's attempts to force a "green" (read: not green) energy "transition" on the United States as part of his crusade to "end" fossil fuels has not been going well. And now, another automaker has taken action showing that his progressive, climate alarmist pipe dream is just not going to happen — at least not when he wanted it to.
On Thursday, Mercedes-Benz announced it was joining other automakers, such as Ford Motor Company, in rolling back its planned production of electric vehicles — the ones the Biden administration sought to force Americans to get regardless of whether families could afford them or the U.S. transportation system could handle the switch.
Mercedes-Benz had previously announced an aggressive plan to turn its company into a major EV producer by 2025 but realized — just as Ford Motor Company did previously — that shunning gas-powered vehicles was not such a grand idea.
Now, according to the company's leadership, its at least 50 percent EV production goal has been pushed back by at least five years to 2030 due to weaker-than-anticipated consumer interest in making the transition.
According to Fox Business, "[i]n the meantime, Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kaellenius reassured investors that the company will continue to manufacture combustion engine cars and improve its technology well into the next decade" and "current plans for updates mean 'it is almost like we will have a new lineup in 2027 that will take us well into the 2030s,' Kaellenius said."
While Biden has managed to implement some of the climate alarmists' policies, several executive actions have been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court — and his administration's draconian electric vehicle mandate has all but flopped.
In December, Ford announced its second action rolling back EV production as a result of high costs and low demand, along with the untenable reality that it was losing $36,000 per electric pickup truck it produced. Ford's decisions, along with Mercedes-Benz and other auto industry players paired with Biden's unpopularity in an election year led his administration to tease relaxing its EV mandates.
As it turns out, Biden's plan to force everyone into electric vehicles is not, unsurprisingly, something that can be accomplished with the stroke of his pen or a bureaucratic regulation.