Some countries have bet big on EVs

Whether you drive one, ride in one, or wait for one to pass, cars are a constant in modern life and it's easy to think of cars as a simple machine. You turn it on, you press the pedal, you go. But behind every vehicle on the road is a sprawling, complex web and Camilla Dominovsky covers this world for NPR, even though she started out in something very different. Camilla studied poetry. I started NPR on the books and arts team and I loved working specifically on the poetry coverage at NPR. Unfortunately, the poetry journalism world is extremely small, so I did have to eventually diversify. And now she covers cars. What keeps her with the automotive beat is the complexity of it all. The sheer number of parts that go into a car and each part having its own supply chain, its own network of people who touched it in various ways, going all the way back to the raw material getting pulled out of the earth, it is improbable at the end of the day that your car drives, let alone that it has the safety features that it does. These things work is incredible. Consider this, the automobile industry is changing and changing fast. Companies and countries that have bet big on electric vehicles are facing new, quickly moving variables in the market and the world. From NPR, I'm Emily Kwanke. It's Consider This from NPR. Camila Dominozki covers cars for NPR and how cars reflect important changes in the global economy. So I started our conversation by asking her about the most surprising development coming out of the automotive industry. When you talk to car executives about electric vehicles, a lot of them maintain this belief that electric vehicles are the future and they say that not necessarily for environmental reasons. Car companies are making a consumer good and electric vehicles are really nice to drive. They're very smooth, they're very quiet, the acceleration is really quick, they're very low maintenance, you never have to do an oil change if you can charge at home. That's actually way more convenient than going to a gas station. I love how you're whispering this. I know like secret. There's a lot of things that drivers really like about them and the data shows, this is something that GM CEO, Mary Barra, was pointing out recently. When people are in an EV, they very rarely switch back to gasoline and so that element of the appeal of EVs to people who have driven them is actually something you hear about a lot from executives when they're thinking about why they can't, no matter what, the policy is in the US, ignore this market. You're saying the product in its own right is winning new fans. And again, I'm saying that the car executives say that. I've heard the same argument from people who are thinking about this with billions of dollars on the line at their companies. That's interesting to hear because the origin point of EVs, at least from like the perspective of policy, was they produce less emissions and that makes the air cleaner and that led to support for EVs. That's been rolled back by the Trump administration. What does that mean for Americans when it comes to electric vehicles? What the policy under Biden was really trying to do is to push the market to move faster than consumer demand alone was going to. And by faster, is that like making more cars? Specifically selling more EVs than they would if it was just pure market demand. So functionally, they would have to sell those EVs for less money, really push them, encourage them, advertise them. And that's something that we've seen that policy go away under President Trump, which does mean in the near term, fewer full EVs than there would have been under the policy otherwise. But what President Trump has done is not just change the policies to make them more achievable, but eliminate these emissions requirements altogether. I will flag what this means near term versus long term is sort of an open question. They have to be prepared for the possibility regulations could change again. It has been whipsawing back and forth with every administration. And they're also looking at staying competitive globally with the rest of the world still having a real focus on EVs with Chinese automakers making very competitive EVs. These are things that you hear about a lot from the auto industry, this fear about global competitiveness. So they can't walk away and they won't walk away from EVs and cleaner vehicles altogether. What's your favorite part of cars from a supply chain perspective? I was actually going to say that my favorite part about cars is people. That like car people are my favorite part of covering. Why are people your favorite part of the car beat? I was doing this story in December where I was meeting with a group of K-Car enthusiasts. You know K-Car is the tiny little Japanese cars. They're just these teeny tiny little cars. Very common in Japan, very hard to get in the US. President Trump commented on how we should have more of them here. I went and I just talked to these people about their cars. Sounds kind of like an angry sewing machine. That's Andrew Maxson. We're riding in his red AutoZam AZ1, a vehicle he lovingly calls ridiculous. We're sitting a few inches off the ground with the turbo engine a few inches behind our heads, racing at 40 miles per hour. Maxson founded the Capital K car club, which gathered at a park in northern Virginia this month to talk with me about their beloved little vehicles, which are best described as tiny. Very tiny. It's so fun to talk to people who are as excited about something as anybody who loves their cars. You have reported on how Tesla is no longer the global leader in EV sales. That is because of cars, EV cars manufactured in China. The US has been very determined to keep those China made cars out of the American market. How much longer do you see that as being possible? I'm obsessed with this question. It's one of the most interesting questions in the auto industry right now, I think, because it doesn't seem sustainable long term for there to be vehicles that are cheaper. By all accounts, just plain better that the US is keeping out. This is something that the auto industry is acutely aware of. Whether it's probably not under the Trump administration allowing a huge number of EVs to be imported from China, but could a Chinese automaker take up shop in the US and build vehicles in North America for North America? Could Chinese companies partner with US companies, which is incidentally how Western automakers entered China was in partnerships with Chinese companies. Could the same thing happen in reverse where a Chinese automaker strikes a joint venture with say Ford? There's been some reporting that Ford is actively talking about this with the administration. Right now these vehicles are essentially impossible to get in the US, but that could change at really any time, especially with President Trump at the helm. And if it changes, it's going to be a huge disruptive shift to the existing automakers. Camila Dominozki, cars and energy correspondent, thank you so much for talking to us. Thanks for having me. Great to chat. This episode was produced by Lena Muhammad and Gabriel Sanchez. It was edited by Sarah Robbins. Our executive producer is Sammy Yanagin. It's Consider This From NPR. I'm Emily Quong. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Consider This sponsor-free through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Consider This Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.