South Carolina is a Republican state. But it likes electric vehicles, especially EV plants that bring thousands of jobs. Texas is also a Republican state, but it likes Tesla a lot. And North Carolina likes EVs, especially its legislative leadership, because of the jobs they are bringing to rural counties like Randolph.
I find this interesting, because it sets up kind of an existential conflict with one of the pillars of the modern Republican Party, the energy industry in the U.S. For a long time, the most powerful players in Republican politics have been the big oil companies. They are one reason why Republican politicians have been reluctant to acknowledge global warming, sea level rise, the role of humans in climate change, etc. They have been one reason that Republican politicians were slow or resistant to solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy. In 2015, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma famously brought a snowball to the Senate floor as evidence the globe is not warming.
But the electric vehicle industry is growing, and so are solar and wind. Governors have a tendency to want to be on the right side of economic change, regardless of party affiliation. The governor of South Carolina is a loyal Republican, but the automobile industry is important to his state. If the industry is pivoting to electric vehicles and away from internal-combustion engines, then he is going to pivot twice as fast. It does not matter that James Inhofe believes global warming is a hoax. No Republican governor with a brain is going to tell Toyota or BMW or GM to stay away with their new EV plants and thousands of good jobs. And they are going to want to support policies that benefit the growing electric industries in their states.
This is problematic for the oil industry and its political power. If, by the mid-2030s, most of the new cars being sold in America are electric cars, who are the oil companies going to sell refined oil products to? And if the revenue of oil companies stagnates and begins to steadily drop, what will happen to their clout? A much smaller oil industry will employ fewer people, will have less money to contribute to political campaigns. It will be a much smaller player in politics. It has been a long time since we have seen American politics without a dominant oil industry involved. What will Texas politics be like? We don’t know.