Trump Calls EV Drivers 'Crazy,' Says They Have a 'Disease'

U.S. President Donald Trump used an August 5 speech in Las Vegas to mock electric vehicle owners, telling the crowd that EV drivers "have a disease" and calling them "crazy" for their choice of vehicle. The remarks, delivered at the Red Rock Casino during a speech on the administration's tax cuts agenda, extend a well-documented pattern of hostility toward electric vehicles that has already reshaped federal policy during Trump's second term.

Trump did not name the "disease" he described, but the symptoms he outlined point to range anxiety. "You ever see the signs? You're driving along in an electric car? They have a disease, you know, it's a disease where it's called, like, they get screwed up, they're driving, and they realize their battery's getting low and they start thinking about it when it's three-quarters full, it loses a little bit and they say where am I gonna [charge]?" Trump said.

He then followed the comment by calling EV drivers outright irrational. "And you're driving down the highway and you'll see a sign electric charging station with an arrow 89 miles to the right. These people are crazy," Trump said.

The rhetoric arrives against a backdrop of concrete policy moves. Trump's administration terminated the $7,500 federal EV tax credit and relaxed EPA greenhouse gas and tailpipe standards that previously pushed carmakers toward electrification. Furthermore, the administration froze or cut federal funding and approvals for expanding the national fast-charging network. As a result, those measures have contributed to a significant slowdown of the U.S. EV market.

Trump also made claims about domestic energy reserves during the speech, stating that America holds "60 percent of the world's oil and gas, including Venezuela." The inclusion of Venezuela's reserves follows the January 2026 U.S. military intervention that led to the forced removal of President Nicolas Maduro, though Venezuela remains a sovereign nation under international law. As such, counting its oil and gas as part of U.S. holdings is a considerable stretch.

"We have a thousand years of gasoline and it's what people prefer," Trump said. However, as of early August, the U.S. national average for regular gasoline stood at $4.06 per gallon, according to the AAA Gas Prices Report.

The comments continue a consistent line from Trump, who has repeatedly criticized electric vehicles in public appearances even as his administration dismantled the policy framework that supported adoption. Therefore, the tax credit repeal and the rollback of tailpipe standards removed the primary regulatory pressures that had steered automakers toward electrification investments over the past several years, and the charging-infrastructure freeze compounded those effects at the consumer level.