Biden’s EV Pledge Bumps Against Realities of Bureaucracy, Market

President Joe Biden’s call for the federal government to stock up on electric vehicles is running headlong into two harsh realities: the marketplace and the bureaucracy.

The president, in an executive order aimed at combating climate change, requesteda plan by the end of April to add zero-emission vehicles to the government’s inventory. Yet from Inauguration Day until mid-March, the General Services Administration—the agency that does most of the government’s vehicle buying—spent $439.7 million on passenger vehicles, with only 13% going for products that use at least some electric power, according to Bloomberg Government’s federal contracts database.

That’s ...