(WSYM) — It's a big day in Michigan as Ford is preparing to reveal the all-new, all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning on Wednesday night.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden was able to get behind the wheel of one during a visit to Dearborn, and now, Ford is getting huge support in Washington.
"My name is Joe Biden and I'm a car guy," Biden said on Tuesday.
He visited the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center while touting his electric vehicle agenda.
The federal government is pushing for the mass adoption of electric vehicles, also called EVs, and there's a push to create a charging network for EVs nationwide.
Democratic Rep. Andy Levin re-introduced the legislation weeks ago known as the Electric Vehicle Freedom Act.
"Within five years, we would have a comprehensive network of charges that were high speed so that you could get up to 80% charge in half-hour or 40 minutes. it would be interoperable, meaning they work with any vehicles," Levin said.
He added that the bill would also shift government tax breaks and funding away from traditional internal combustion vehicles to electric vehicles.
Levin says the biggest barrier to mass adoption of EVs is people running out of juice, but the planet depends on getting the charging network establish and making EVs the norm.
"Climate change is an existential problem. We must change so fast and so broadly to literally change life as we know it on planet earth. We're seeing all these floods, all these wildfires, all these hurricane and on and on but we can do this," Levin added.
The push toward electric vehicles has been getting support from states like California, which seeks to ban the sale of new internal combustion vehicles by 2035.
