Tesla CEO Elon Musk is under fire after suggesting that gas-powered vehicles would soon be obsolete.
“Won’t be long before we view gasoline cars the same way we view steam engines today,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday. “The residual value of gasoline cars bought today will be much lower than people think.”
The philanthropist’s comments angered conservatives in the wake of disputes over pushing towards alternative energy sources such as electricity.
“So far from reality,” responded one Twitter user. “Jet and diesel engines and demand for competitive freight will keep them around for another 50+ years. Tesla service uses Ford gas powered vans because EV isn’t there yet.”
“Not in my or your lifetime. There will always be an awesome market for gasoline-powered vehicles (and so many, many use cases where only they will work in many parts of the world),” wrote another.
Liberal states and Big Tech have been pushing for the use of electric vehicles lately. In California last month, lawmakers moved to require all new vehicles in the state to run on electricity by 2035 in the hopes of cutting emissions from cars in half by 2040.
President Joe Biden has also shown his support for electric vehicles following his visit to the Detroit Auto Show on Wednesday, where he tweeted a photo of himself admiring a non-electric Corvette.
“You all know I’m a car guy,” Biden said. “Today I visited the Detroit Auto Show and saw firsthand the electric vehicles that give me so many reasons to be optimistic about our future.”
Despite the left’s push for electric vehicles, however, many EV manufacturers have laid off a large chunk of their workforce due to supply-chain issues. Rivian Automotive Inc., for example, announced recently its plans to lay off hundreds of employees.
“Our core focus remains on ramping production,” Rivian said in the statement. “However, we believe that supply-chain constraints will continue to be the limiting factor of our production.”
Similarly, small EV company Lucid is also slashing its production forecast for 2022, revising its production expectations from 20,000 to just around 6,000.
Lucid also reported a $220 million loss on revenue of $97.3 million, having only delivered 679 vehicles to customers over the past three months. Overall, the company said it lost $4.8 billion in 2021.
