Toyota again calls for Congress to avoid creating unequal incentives for electric-vehicle purchases

As Congress begins to wrap up business later this month, it is still considering a new incentive to encourage people to buy electric vehicles. But, instead of giving the same cash-incentive for all electric vehicles made in the U-S, some Democrats want to specifically give an extra 45-hundred dollars—if the vehicle is made by unionized workers. Susan Elkington—the president of Toyota’s plant in Georgetown, Kentucky—says that this is unfair to half of the nation’s autoworkers… “Our facility here in Kentucky is Toyota’s largest auto-manufacturing plant in the world—and I have the privilege of serving as its president. More than nine-thousand workers proudly build half-a-million vehicles, each year, at our plant. But, as we transition to an electric future, how do I explain to our employees that some in Congress believe [that] every vehicle [that] they make is worth 45-hundred dollars less—just because they decided not to join a union? Not only that, but as taxpayers, they’re actually paying to give an unfair advantage to their competitors at Ford, G-M, and Chrysler. That’s just wrong. Half of America’s autoworkers aren’t part of a union. Congress should give the same incentives for all electric vehicles made by American workers—no matter who their employer is. Let’s make the environment, consumers, and all [of] the nation’s autoworkers the priority—not the politics of promoting unionization.”