Evan Roth Smith on the implications of Musk’s popularity decline for the EV credit-trading market

Evan Roth Smith spoke with Politico’s Alex Nieves about a report from a Slingshot project, the Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report, which found that support for credit-trading was the minority position among Democratic, Republican, and independent voters.

“More than half of Democrats surveyed — 56 percent — said they oppose ‘allowing carmakers to sell their extra credits to other carmakers’ that don’t hit their sales targets, while only 20 percent said they support the concept, according to the poll from Democratic consultant and pollster Evan Roth Smith.”

“But Smith said the damage has already been done, and California officials now need to go on the offensive to create daylight between Musk, Tesla and the larger EV market. ‘We have the president of the United States selling Teslas from the White House,’ Smith said. ‘So if Democrats want to preserve a political environment where they can enact real climate policy around EVs, they have to be a little more courageous and play a similar game.’”

Read the full Politico story here.