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- President Biden called Ford’s new electric F-150 truck as a “big boy” while speaking in Michigan.
- Biden took the truck for a test drive in a visit to Ford’s Dearborn development center in May.
- The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill includes grants for electric vehicle charging stations.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
President Joe Biden praised Ford’s relatively new electric F0rd F-150 as “a big boy” and “a big one” during a Tuesday afternoon speech in Michigan to promote his infrastructure agenda in Congress.
“I got to drive that sucker,” Biden said. “It’s quick, zero to 60 in 4.1 seconds. And it’s a big boy, it’s a big one.”
Biden, who has a well-known love of cars, took the electric truck out for a spin during a visit to the Ford Dearborn Development Center in Dearborn, Michigan in May.
“It feels great,” Biden said when asked by a reporter how it felt to be behind the wheel of a car. He also requested that one of the assembled crowd use a stopwatch to time how long it takes for the truck to go from zero to 60 miles per hour.
When a reporter asked if she could ask him a foreign policy question before he floored the gas, Biden joked, “No you can’t, not unless you get in front of the car before I step on it. I’m only teasing.”
-JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) May 18, 2021
Biden is now attempting to steer the passage of his ambitious economic and infrastructure agenda through Congress, often finding himself on a collision course with Republicans and even some members of his own party.
The White House is both trying to maneuver a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill through the US House of Representatives, and pass of a larger, Democrat-only economic and social spending bill through both chambers of Congress by the end of Biden’s first year.
But, much like parallel parking into a tight spot on a city street, Biden has little room for error with a narrow majority in the House and a Senate equally divided between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans.
Biden focused much of his speech on Tuesday on countering China’s dominance in certain areas of technological development including in the electric vehicle space.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill includes $7.5 billion in grants to create a network of electric vehicle charging stations in rural and low-income areas, among other clean energy-related measures.
“The whole world knows that the future of the auto industry is electric, and we need to make sure that America builds that future instead of falling behind,” Biden said in his speech Tuesday. “I want those jobs in Michigan, not halfway across the board.”
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