US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez famously drives a Tesla Model 3, which she vowed to replace with a union-made electric vehicle in May 2022 weeks after she clashed with Elon Musk on Twitter (now X).
Her publicly stated intention has not materialized yet, which is why she was asked about it recently on CBS‘ Face the Nation (via Bloomberg). As labor strikes organized by the United Auto Workers (UAW) against Detroit’s Big Three carmakers have entered the tenth day, Ocasio-Cortez admitted she still doesn’t own an EV made by union workers.
The Democratic congresswoman said she bought her Tesla Model 3 during the pandemic to commute between her New York City district and Washington, DC, but hasn’t replaced it with a union-made EV yet because not many of them offered comparable driving range.
“Our car was purchased during the pandemic before a vaccine had come out,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “So to travel between New York and Washington the safest way that we had determined was an EV, but that was prior to some of the new models coming out on the market that had the range available. But we’re actually looking into trading in our car now. So we’re looking into it and hopefully we will soon.”
Interestingly, there aren’t that many choices on the market if the Democratic politician wants to buy a union-made EV. The only currently available electric models built with union labor are the Chevrolet Bolt EV, Bolt EUV, Cadillac Lyriq, Ford F-150 Lightning, and Ford E-Transit – and the Bolts won’t be for much longer as they will go out of production by the end of the year.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with Ocasio-Cortez driving a Tesla Model 3, which is the most American-made vehicle sold in the US right now.
The only issue some people have raised is her lack of consistency in that she owns a vehicle that’s not made by union workers while she is actively siding with the UAW in the union’s strike against the Detroit Three.
Rather surprisingly given their previous dustup on social media last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk hasn’t reacted to Ocasio-Cortez’s comments yet.
In April 2022, the US representative complained on Twitter about “some billionaire with an ego problem” who “unilaterally controls a massive communication platform,” to which Musk responded by saying, “Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy.” AOC later insisted she was talking about Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg.