Marjorie Taylor Greene Mocked for Saying the Gas Prices for Electric Cars Are Too High

Bad Math

At a Sunday rally for former reality TV star and current presidential candidate Donald Trump, far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene attempted to dunk on electric vehicles, arguing that — well, it’s hard to say what she was arguing, exactly. But rest assured, she doesn’t like ’em!

“If you think gas prices are high now, just wait until you’re forced to drive an electric vehicle,” Greene told rally-goers, who, after a brief pause, began to boo in agreement.

“America is sick of it,” she added.

Of course, as electric cars are powered by electricity and not by gasoline, it’s unclear what her point is or what Americans are sick of. Is she confusing EVs with hybrids, which use gasoline to generate electricity? Is she claiming that powering electric cars is more expensive than fueling up a gas-guzzler, which it definitely isn’t?

Or — as the congresswoman is no stranger to transportation-related conspiracies — is the language that EVs are being “forced” upon Americans a dog whistle to an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory claiming the Biden administration is artificially jacking up gas prices as a means to push Americans towards the electric market, where the government is offering certain tax credits to facilitate a national shift to clean energy?

Unclear. But at the end of the day, the audience seemed to like the buzzword-loaded soundbite salad.

Gas Guzzlers

We weren’t the only ones with questions about the Georgia rep’s statement.

“You can’t make this crap up,” famed novelist and anti-Trump poster Stephen King responded on X-formerly-Twitter.

“Not an economist,” added another X user, “but I believe she has supply/demand backwards.”

But while many mocked Greene’s words, we should note that a sizeable amount of the internet referenced that aforementioned conspiracy as they flocked to support the congresswoman.

“Of course they’re raising gas prices as an ‘incentive’ to buy a shitty EV,” another netizen wrote in response to King’s denouncement, further claiming that the alleged incentivization plot is connected to a still-in-pilot-testing California effort to tax gas and electric drivers on miles driven, as opposed to a tax on fuel usage.

Our heads hurt, so in sum: electric cars are powered by electricity. The current presidential administration is offering tax credits to American consumers looking to purchase greener, American-made electric vehicles, but that’s because global warming is real and burning fossil fuels contributes to most of it. Much of the electric grid is still powered by fossil fuels, but there are state and federal efforts to reduce those dependencies, too.

Anyway. Be skeptical, not conspiratorial. And please, touch grass.

More on non-conspiratorial EV concerns: Electric Cars Are Twice as Likely to Hit Pedestrians, Researchers Find