I know that you want to listen to your podcast, so I will keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a durore choices, can ASR maybe help? I think, how then? Well, for example, when you're doing something that's your favorite, you're loving to be. Will you know more about the instructions where a durore schadethereistel can be? Go to asr.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This does ASR for you and a durore family. ASR does it. So, then you can now listen to your podcast. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. Welcome back to Directly Current. I'm your host, Max Patton. We're presented by EVs for All America. This week, I'm speaking with Corey Cantor, Research Director for Zeta, also known as the Zero Emissions Trade Association. They are what they sound like. They have members like Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, as well as suppliers and OEMs like Panasonic and ABB. Zeta has been advocating for EV-forward policies and advancing things that we care about here, like American manufacturing. They put out a lot of great research and their members are fighting the good fight. Today, I wanted to talk to Corey about some positive trends for the EV market going into 2026 that he's noticed from data and from his experience presenting on these issues. Some of the big highlights include the charging industry surging ahead of deployment of fast charging along America's highways, as well as very competitive models coming out from both the likes of premium brands like BMW and Mercedes, as well as mainstream brands like General Motors and even Rivian with the exciting launch of their R2 mainstream vehicle. Corey is super plugged into the industry, so this is a great episode and I'm really looking forward to it. So please enjoy Corey Cantor from Zeta. All right, Corey Cantor from Zero Emissions Trade Association, welcome on to Directly Current. Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks for coming on. So we have some doomsday seeming news for EVs, some actually really good news. I know there's been, I think, a parent report that just came in about fast charging. So before we get into talking about a little bit of the vehicles, some of the state policy, I do want to touch on fast charging because that's a trend we saw, I think, in 2025 get better. Even as EV sales, people were forecasting, oh, the subsidy is going away. They're going to shrink. manufacturers like Mercedes, other Charge One operators, were pretty bullish on we're going to invest heavily in this. Yeah, Perrin's report, which is out just today, shows 30% growth year on year for the public EV charging network. They look at fast charging. So they saw about 18,000 public chargers added in the past year and driven by the private sector. Groups like Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging, then you mentioned IANA, Electrify America, EVgo, and of course Tesla. really, despite the kind of policy changes we'll get into, have pushed forward seeing demand for electric vehicles and electric vehicle charging. And yeah, it's good news. I think for years, we've been hearing about how the public charging network is lacking. And to see the private sector step in and see that it's a growth opportunity is a really, I think, strong sign of confidence in the EV kind of adoption here in the US. Yeah. And you said like growth opportunity. Do you think it's that they see they obviously don't want a repeat of what happened, I think, in the early 2020s where EV adoption did take off really quickly? Everyone was buying Tesla Model Ys. But then especially outside of Tesla, right, the public charging networks weren't really adequate to meet the rising demand, especially in states like California. Is it that they don't want a repeat of that? Or is it that they also are they investing where the puck is going? They realize, especially now with federal policy, it may be slower than they thought, and yet they are OK to build a little bit early. There's always been a chicken and egg analogy around EVs and EV charging. Do you build the charging first to go where the puck will be and meet future EV demand? Or does the EV sales have to occur first to see the kind of importance of a public network? It's been a little bit of the latter, I think, how it's played out here and in Europe historically. And so I think a lot of the charging demand is meeting the kind of existing fleet, as well as this potentially robust used EV market. But there's still a lot of work to do. I think there's a lot of charges being built in California, for example, where the EV market is pretty heavy. Programs like the National EV Infrastructure or NEVI program are aiming to fill in the gaps. And we just saw some of those fundings beginning to flow and get obligated this year. So it's a combination, but I think that you're seeing high enough utilization, at least according to Perrin's report, that the private sector is going to continue investing. And I think that is a pretty big change from five years ago where, yeah, the sales were happening, but you were getting reports of either really slow EV charging or first generation networks that still had to grow and learn how to operate. Now, again, it isn't perfect, but the trend is positive. And I think the mood and vibe around EV charging is beginning to change here. Yeah, I can speak to that firsthand. Last year, I went back to my stomping grounds of D.C. to do an internship driving from Colorado. And that's a drive before I done in EVs. And my EV is not particularly like super efficient or fast charging. And yet I think it felt a lot better than other long distance trips I've done. Like I think in 2023, when I got my EV, because there was there were Iona stations around, there were the pilot flying go GM ones. So there were lots of really good ones right off the highway. Great amenities. I think that really does make the experience better for someone like me, who is living the early adopter life of an EV as my only vehicle. And I think that's important too, for a lot of the US where the geography is more spread out. What do you think are some like trends we can see? Is it like maybe more retail charging? Is it more convenient store charging? How like, where do you think we'll see growth? Because I think one of their criticisms early on was just like, hey, I'm in the Walmart parking lot, it's 10pm and there's no lights. And we're seeing the experience of charging seemingly get better than that. Yeah. And one point before I can answer your question. I think the importance of this public charging network growth is not only for those new EV sales, but we saw a kind of record used EV sales according to Cox Automotive around 370,000 units. So you're not only serving new customers, but you're serving a used market that will become more robust. So you're getting two bang for your buck in terms of EV drivers who buy new. If they're going to buy a second new EV, they're probably more comfortable with charging in the experience. But the used market is a bunch of kind of maybe less experience with electric vehicles, or maybe it's their first EV as well, and they've waited a couple years for prices to come down. Having a good public charging experience is only going to improve the kind of network effect of EV adoption. In terms of like trends in charging, I do think you're going to continue to see groups like IANA and Mercedes-Benz with the kind of high power charging in specific locations build out. But one that was interesting in the parent report, I think I've heard it incorrectly, like Red E, which I think is focusing around like dealer charging. Walmart, I think, continues to invest. So it's a little bit of everything. But I think that's how you take charging from being a net negative to a net positive compared to your kind of traditional gas cars. You have many different ways that you can charge. And we know that 80 to 85 percent of charging still happens at home. but you if you want to go to a fast charging station like an Ayana you can if you want to home charge you can if you want to go to Walmart and go shopping you could charge there yeah and you're giving consumers a lot of choice it's a different challenge getting people in the car and getting them to make the EV buy but once you're in it and you get used to it you treat it more like a cell phone you don't think I need to just take my cell phone to the cell phone fast charging station, you top off, you do it on the go, depending on what works best for you. Yeah, there can be more of that kind of behavioral opportunities to just get used to charging, like you said, as the market gets more and more used to it, as it becomes more of a first-class experience I think that important not to slander Walmart In my previous example the difference was I think in the early days right they would license part of their lot towards Electrify America who also made improvements but it would be in a non spot in their parking lot where you walk sometimes half a mile to get to the store And of course, when these retailers do charging for themselves or they make larger partnerships, they tend to invest with better locations, maybe having a canopy like the Iona stations have, just a much nicer experience, I think, or at least a trash can, which is very nice on a road trip. Yeah, Iona's done a bunch of great kind of overviews of the amenities that I think really make it a more enjoyable experience. You had a trash can, restrooms, safe lighting, which you want to reach out to a lot of different drivers. We're both male here on the podcast today, but a lot of studies have shown female drivers have been nervous around some of the kind of back of the parking lot with like low lighting. But you had different people's like level of safety because you don't know who the other drivers are necessarily. And you're there for quite a bit. So it's good to see a lot of kind of improvements being made to the sites themselves. For sure. And you made a good point earlier that I think is great to pivot to with the used EV market kind of being healthy, right? There's a lot of what I think we're seeing like 2020, 2021, and up, right, model year cars coming off of leases, off of their first owners into the used market. Somewhat of a loss of those owners in terms of depreciation, in part because the technology of EVs advances so quickly. And in other parts, I'm guessing because the market's not very proven yet. But that's a great thing for someone who's getting into an EV and wants affordable transportation. So do you have any like interesting data or trends you think are going on with used EVs? Because I remember when I was getting my used EV in 2023, that still felt early to the market. If I was spending a little less than I did, my only options would be like a first generation Nissan Leaf, which is like fine for getting around maybe Boulder or Washington, D.C., but not something you would like take cross country as your only vehicle. Yeah, I think a couple of interesting trends. One is the stat that I've definitely been harping at Zeta and to some of my colleagues that the kind of overall sales of used EVs last year, that 378,000 figure, is actually higher than all new used EV sales in 2019 and 2018. And so this idea that it's been five years and the used market is now as robust as all new sales were just five years ago is really exciting to see. And I think you'll see it continue to go up, given the fact that a lot of people have been leasing EVs over the past two to three years, and most leases are two to three year leases. You'll see people who will re-up with a new EV lease. You'll see those EVs roll over to the used market. There's still a lot, I think, of data to gather around battery longevity and the residual value of EVs, but the products that are rolling off now are different than the kind of first-gen EVs that you were referring to, longer range. And we've seen battery degradation be less than unexpected, which is a good thing. But you need to build that kind of confidence in consumers and show over time to improve the value. The good news is all these used EVs have likely eight-year battery warranties. So if they're after a two- or three-year lease, you still have five or six years left without any concern. So that's a positive for a lot of those used buyers. Yeah, I know there's sources of used market data like Recurrent who monitor lots of folks' batteries, and they've shown some pretty positive studies about, I think it was after 2019, when you got beyond the very kind of first gen pilot EVs for most manufacturers, you got more sophisticated battery management systems. Long story short, a modern EV, seemingly the battery will last easily a decade with normal use. I think we've seen many, we started to see the Tesla Model S's. Now we're seeing like Audi e-trons, other very early models that are premium, their battery still holds up. Maybe it's 10 to 15% degradation, but it's like very much usable. So it's not the same kind of sphere as I think some people fear it of a cell phone battery of, oh, I need an iPhone 17 this year because my 15 is getting really low. EV batteries don't seem to suffer that quickly. It's interesting on both the themes of used EVs and the charging network, this idea, I'm borrowing this from Stephanie's Valdez-Street at Cox, but of confidence plays in, right? It's like confidence in a bigger, more reliable charging network and confidence in the EV battery. The more confidence you give used in new buyers, I think the better off the US EV market and frankly, global EV market will be moving forward. I think in both kind of the battery improvements and the charging improvements, we're making progress, which is a good thing. That's great. And pivoting towards the new end of the market, but also the confidence, right? We're seeing more and more both premium and mainstream brands, I think really bring competitive offerings to the table. So I mentioned the first gen Nissan Leaf. Nissan has a new generation, which is much more compelling, I think for the modern market. It's a long range, fast charging EV. Volvo, Mercedes, BMW at the premium end of the market have really compelling, I think like midsize crossovers, which is what like everyone buys in the United States. So that's really important. GM finally has a stable lineup of pretty mature, full fledged vehicles. They used to call it Altium. I don't know what they call it now. They're the Chevy Blazer, the Equinox. Those have been sales hits almost coming up to Tesla's success with Model Y as maybe that brand has plateaued a little bit. They've been very successful. You're seeing others finally be competitive. And I think that's great. Yeah. And across the board, it's really interesting model diversity, which you're finally seeing in a bunch of different brands. Equinox last year, 58,000 units or so on its own is really impressive. And I think when you're looking at kind of crossover SUVs and where you want to get to, it's approaching this 100,000 unit kind of mark. Not everyone's going to be a Tesla Model Y, right? Not everyone's going to be a Toyota RAV4 or RAV4 hybrid, but if you're making profit and you're doing high volume, it's a good place to be. And when you kind of work around cars enough, you realize that some people are very brand attached. So for years, for example, you've seen Toyota and Honda do very well on like who makes the best EVs, right? You'll see Tesla, then you'll see Toyota and Honda. Problem was Toyota and Honda really didn't have many EVs and really highly reviewed ones, but now you've got Toyota coming out with a suite of kind of three EVs between the kind of BZ, which is the kind of renewed for BZ, 4X, the CHR, and I think the Woodland and Subaru has got a couple of EVs coming out. So those brands that people are really behind have at least more competitive offerings available. You got the new Chevy Bolt, which is a limited run. So I want to see how much they actually end up selling there. But if you add that to the Blazer and Equinox, you get a really compelling kind of trio of GM vehicles. And then And of course, folks like Rivian, Lucid, talking about their plans to not hit the kind of affordable segment or entry level segment, but really that kind of average vehicle price of approaching $50,000, the newer Rivians and Lucid should be right there as opposed to way above in the premium space. when you're thinking about the chevy bolt you brought up as an example like limited run that i think would have been competitive two years really competitive two years ago now it's almost i hesitate to say this but like disappointing compared to all of the other great stuff because there's been so much new work on new sheet metal new batteries new like a lot of other things that sway buyers so when it comes to like just that kind of technology getting better so that someone gets a vehicle today that will go further on a charge, will charge faster at a fast charger in 15 to 20 minutes. Do you think like buy, does it seem that buyers are getting awareness that the ease themselves are improving so much? Like you brought up Toyota, Honda, great brand loyalty. And yet it wasn't until probably the last year that they had EVs worth buying. And because in Honda's case, they have a rebadged General Motors vehicle. In Toyota's case, they're finally getting serious about their own EV platform. Do you think that it's the consumers are waking up like, hey, this product is actually like really good now? Or do you think maybe that awareness still has to build in the market? I think there's a lot of brand awareness across all of the EVs. And yeah, I'm not going to pick and choose and say who's doing it right or who's doing it wrong beyond what the data shows. But I think there is going to be trade-offs with different EVs at different price points. If you're releasing a kind of more affordable EV, and you've seen this with both kind of the Bolt in its new iteration, but as well as some of the Kia EVs that haven't been released here yet, but might like the EV3. If you're hitting 30 to 35,000, you're doing probably slower charging. Maybe it's 150kW max. Maybe it's not an 800 volt kind of architecture, which requires a little bit more. Although I think it puts the Ioniq 5, for example, in a pretty interesting spot given that they reduced the price of that and it can charge more quickly than some of those kind of near prices of electric vehicles I be interested to see how savvy consumers are getting about the different kind of EVs in terms of charging power because I haven seen too much It almost like more of an early adopter behavior. But there's, I think, we did basically this webinar with Jessica Caldwell of Edmonds and talked a lot about vehicle economics. Around 64% of EV transactions in 2025 happened at or below $50,000. So that's where a lot of the market is. And I think a lot of the growth opportunities between that $30,000 to $40,000 range. So who's going to be able to hit that price point? And more importantly, who's going to be able to hit it sustainably? It's one thing to take a loss on a vehicle, but it's another to build up a platform where you want to sell as much volume as possible. Yeah, you mentioned it before, right? Scale is everything in the car business. And I think like having the compelling platform in the first place, having the confidence and to put it out for years on end and see it. I think the Bolt you saw, right? The first generation, I remember when that came out in 2017 or 2016 thereabouts, it was not an instant success for Chevy. And yet buyers did eventually like really actually that model so much that when they were gonna sunset it, buyers said, no, we really liked the Bolt. And so like, it does seem when you do stick with a program, especially in the segment of the market, like affordability, which hasn't been served that well before, people actually do get loyalty and do really get attached even to new model names. You don't have to take combustion model or do what looks like I can do with the buzz and like retro style. You can just make something new that's affordable. And it turns out people really like that. We're in a really interesting moment. And I think despite some of the policy stuff that is making, I think, a more challenging environment in the U.S. at the moment, the new products is, I think, what will ultimately prove to be a positive trend. We haven't talked about Slate, for example. That's a whole new way of building a vehicle. and customizing that could be a different consumer meet. Some of these Kia vehicles, which have done well, the Bolt. And then there's some stuff on the higher end, right? We haven't mentioned the iX3, for example, which is a really interesting kind of premium BMW coming to market. And so taken together, you now have a wide open kind of space for consumers to make a choice and maybe pick new brands or find their existing brand that they like and find an EV option. And so I'm just fascinated to see what happens. And if we come back and talk in a year, who had success? Why did they have success? What kind of strategies did they employ? Just because I don't think there's been the overall consumer stickiness to any brand yet. And while you've seen Hyundai and Kia be an early leader, of course, Tesla, with Rivian, Lucid, Slate, and many others bringing new models, and you could see a kind of reshuffling this year. Again, if they execute for any of these guys, right? They're still not easy to build cars. It's still not easy to necessarily navigate things like inflation and tariffs. But if some of these folks do well, not only do you see a lot of car sales, but a lot of new facilities, both on the battery side and on the auto side, have opened up to support this EV transition here in the U.S. Yeah, it's great. And getting into the realm of policy, you teased this earlier, right? The federal policy has backslid on EVs. That's just been the position of this administration. And meanwhile, you've seen, I think, early adopter big market states for EVs like my own Colorado, California, even in some cases, states like Florida where EVs are highly adopted and yet the politics are counterintuitive to what you would think. EV sales are strong there. Like there's good charging there. And some of those states like California do seem to be doing pretty ambitious things with their budget. We just had a podcast on with Mike Murphy to talk about that and some of his work there. But what do you think about states stepping into maybe work with dealers, work with manufacturers, work with consumers to make EV transitions easier? Yeah, I think you've seen states do a couple of different things. I think the most costly and frankly, the most interesting in this kind of moment is how do you fill the gap after the kind of federal pullback of the 7500 30D credit, which I'll add didn't just support sales, but really why a lot of these companies have moved onshore to the U.S. was to meet the 30D requirements. So how do you feel demand for building cars here and also the sales of EBS here? California's in particular, not just given this involvement, listen to your last pod with him. And I'm really curious what the details look like, because I think California drives so much of the U.S. market. They typically make up around 11% of all car sales in the U.S. What California does is often emulated by other states. So that's important. Colorado has done a really good job even before the removal of the federal credit. in thinking about subsidies in a different way and encouraging EV adoption through charging build-out. So they've been and become a leader, which is exciting to not just see this as a California story. Not every state necessarily can do a subsidy. And we have seven to 10 states from time to time that do have some type of incentive for electric vehicles between $1,000 to about $4,000 or so. Beyond that, charging, when we've talked to a lot of states, whether it's using the NEBI funds that have been unlocked and will hopefully continue to roll out to the states. That will make a big difference. And then even like some states are working together on charging, around charging corridors. I'm thinking of my home state in New Jersey out here on the East Coast, right? They're thinking about how they can work with partners. It's not the same as having a kind of federal government leaning in. And there's competitiveness reasons why it's really important to continue to push forward at the federal level. And things like fuel economy standards have been thrown into a bit of uncertainty, which doesn't only harm how we sell EVs, but really what plans automakers are going to make for the next five to 10 years as it's gone back and forth between less stringent and more stringent. It's not an easy kind of policy landscape to navigate. No, not at all. And obviously, you can only do so much about Washington. I know Zeta and its members, of course, advocate for their interests, but you have this, you have Washington being what it is right now. And yet, like, I think auto manufacturers probably behind the scenes understand that even though, okay, we're not tied to the California CARB standards with the waiver programs anymore. The EPA's own standards are non-existent or backslid. We don't have to comply. So in the short term, if you're Stellantis, you can say, we've got Hemis, right? But you know that they probably realize they have to invest in new vehicle programs. I think you've seen some like Ford, sorry, be more aggressive about saying plug-in hybrids. We slept on that. Maybe we should wake up to that market because US consumers seem to really like that with Scout where a bunch of people were reserving those kinds of vehicles. So when it comes to maybe this like new mixed category of E-Revs and plug-in hybrids, we're going to have a podcast out with Kevin Williams from Inside EVs who's driven a lot of Chinese vehicles. That's been a trend in Asia. It turns out like there aren't even in markets like that only so many people right now who want to buy a full battery EV. And there's some interest, at least right now, tepidly, in extended range EVs. Nowhere near the scale of full EVs. However, it seems like manufacturers are dipping their toe, and that might be like a diversification, a thing they can do while they are not tied with their feet to the fire to do full EVs. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. Yeah, I think there's two things with the plug-in hybrids. I'm glad that you differentiated range extended EVs and plug-in hybrids. Even though theoretically they both involve gas, there's structured a little bit differently with the EREV having a lot longer battery range, which typically makes the driver behavior a little bit different. So on PHAP drivers, studies have shown that they actually think more closely to BEV drivers and are more open to EVs. We'll get the question a lot if is a PHAP driver going to, is it a good gateway? Is it a good bridge to EVs? From a kind of consumer survey style, they're more similar. So that's a good thing. On the other hand, from a sales perspective, plug-in hybrids in the traditional sense haven't really taken off. And I'll use California as an example because I like looking at the California new car dealers report. If you look at the last five years, BEVs have taken off and done really well in California, and traditional hybrids have done really well in California. Your old school Toyota Prius style are now, you're seeing hybrids in a lot of Toyota products across the board as a base entry. So both of those have made up around 20 of California market share last year Plug hybrids have been stuck at about 3 And you just saw Stellantis who was a big kind of producer of plug hybrids in the form of the Jeep Wrangler 4XE and the Chrysler Pacifica now cancel those models So you know there is still a kind of selling point you have to do on traditional PHEVs, and you have more maintenance challenges, right? You see a lot of benefit from removing one of the drivetrains and just having a fully electric kind of battery in there. With range-extended EVs, I think it'll be interesting to see how they do and how Scout does it in particular, and in the pickup segment, as that kind of rolls out. And so it seems like Scout is an example. I forget what price they've said they're going to come in at, but it's like Rivian territory, right? It's expensive. And yet there does seem to be a buyer they're going after, the off-roader who wants to go to Moab and have less range anxiety that is interested in that. And so even though E-Revs is such an unproven thing in the U.S., do you think this will be something we just see out of Scout and maybe more limited experimentation? Or does it seem like trucks and other markets might be actually looking at this more seriously? I forget if it was Ram may have delayed or canceled the program for that, or I believe it was they canceled their full battery electric truck. And they've said they're just going to do the extended range EV version of 90 miles of EV range. So how seriously do you think we should take the flirtation so far we've seen with that from the auto companies? Yeah, I think you've seen Hyundai bring up E-Revs and you've talked about, or you've seen Ford interested in it. And even with the Lightning, I think they said the new version of it will be an EREV. Kevin's going to have some really interesting perspective on this, given that, for example, BYD has seen half BEV just about and half of these range extended EVs. So at least in Asia, there is a proven kind of use case for it. From an analyst perspective, I always want to exercise caution before we just say, this is the new trend. Just because five years ago with traditional PHEVs, I feel like there was the excitement there and it didn't really bear out in the same way that it has for BEVs. But I think the segment that you see the most benefit would be pickups, just because really the challenges there are you have to have a pretty big battery to meet the towing needs and the kind of specific range and weight requirements. Is it possible to do that with a battery that is powered by a gas backup? We'll see. I think with crossovers and the kind of medium and small segment, having two drivetrains is just going to complicate things. Not to say it can't be done for some of those bigger cars, but that's where I look at it as a use case. And from that standpoint, what Scout and Ford are doing makes a lot of kind of intuitive sense. We'll check back and see how it rolls out. But again, you have to educate the consumer, whether you're talking about a BV, a PHAV, an EREV, just on the changes that they'll have to make. The last thing I'll say to you, refs, is at least the charging, given that you have a longer range, is a little bit more intuitive. I think with too many of the US P-HIVs, you're at 20 to 30 miles all-electric range, which unless you are very diligent and have a home charger every night, it's very difficult to keep up that behavior. If you're talking 100 miles, it's a little bit easier. Yeah. And on the P-HIVs, I'll note, I think we finally got some validation several weeks ago. I think it was Volvo shared for their plug-in hybrids, some usage data, which I think indicated what a lot of folks like John Volcker, who we've had on here, have speculated in the industry is that like PHAs are really cool for some enthusiasts who have home charging, who know how to use them. And yet the majority of people buying them seemingly don't plug them in, not really extracting a lot of benefit out of it. So it is more expensive, more complicated, seemingly for most people who can't really shift their habits to these more kind of complex vehicles. At least that's what Volvo showed. And I think lots of folks have suspected that may be the case for other brands as well. Lastly, I just want to get your thoughts on this moment we are at right now going through into 2026. We mentioned, right, there are compelling new products coming out. The used EV market's healthening up, charging is increasing. So what do you think we might expect to see? Not so much in terms of like sales, growth, or trajectories, but just what will the shape of the EV market look like? What do you think are the attitudes that we can expect going into the rest of this year? Yeah, I think you have two trends and two kind of macro stories. One is the global story, right? One in four vehicles sold last year were electric. It's full steam ahead. Europe, you saw last month for the first time EVs outsold, petrol cars, China above 50% with probably increased EV exports globally. So a world moving towards electric vehicles. In the US, we have a question of what is our kind of speed of adoption going to look like? I think from a policy standpoint, except for things like California that we've already discussed, you're not going to see too many changes. I know at Zeta we're working on what's called surface transportation reauthorization. So some policies around things like charging are going to come up this year. But really, the products are going to drive the story. And then, frankly, for the first half of the year, at least, they fall out from all of the rollback last year. When you see a subsidy ended in other countries, I think Germany is a good example. In Germany, you saw a contraction of around 30% of the market the year after the subsidy that was pulled out there. And so you can't just say that there's going to be no negative impact, given that all those policies taken together were a helpful framework for helping the U.S. compete. But I think the products are going to be exciting. I think that a lot of the automakers who are bought in are bringing these compelling products and have every incentive to really show their stuff over the next year to year and a half. And things like the charging network and improvements in battery technologies or new battery chemistries or improved battery chemistries are just addressing the fundamentals because this is a long game. I'm a big NBA basketball fan. I'm a sad Brooklyn Nets fan. And they're in a part of a rebuild process, right? That's going to take a couple of years. But you can't judge a process on one year or one quarter to take the analogy of the EVs. It's really what are you building towards? You go back to the original auto industry. It wasn't just five years, ICE engines took over the world and everything was fixed. It was really a 1900s to 1930s period of model introductions, of infrastructure build out, and the world changed for a good 70-year period. So depending on when you start, we're anywhere from eight years in, if you take the Model 3 as the launch point, we're 16 if you want to go back to your first-gen Nissan Leaf. There's a long way to go, but the U.S. and, frankly, groups like Zeta have to keep pushing to make sure that we don't fall behind what the other countries across the world are doing and protect the investments here by many U.S. companies, as well as offer a robust consumer market for choice and a better charging infrastructure experience for everyone. Yeah, absolutely agree. And it's good to see many manufacturers trusting the process. Like you brought up subsidy loss is a big deal. Hyundai, we brought up the Arnick 5, great vehicle. I think they dropped it like $9,000 to $10,000 MSRP after that, which you can't imagine was easy for them. Will it be long-term sustainable? I don't know. Obviously, they'll make some changes. But that is an interesting sign of confidence and a pretty, I think, good statement to say, hey, we want to remain competitive right now. It's a tough transition. Corey, thanks so much for coming on, sharing all this, and of course, all the work that Zeta is doing in this space. Thank you so much, Max. And I really love listening to the pod. Excited to hear all the folks you have on over the next couple months. Looking forward to it. And we'll have to have you on next year to see where we are at with the flying Tesla Roadsters as well. Have a good one. Thanks. That's all for Directly Current this week. Thank you again to Corey Cantor from the Zero Emissions Trade Association for his time, and for Alex Gibson, their comms director and everyone in that team. Again, they're fighting the good fight. We love what they do. We work with them a lot. And of course, many of their members. Stay tuned to Directly Current in the coming months for some inside profiles of the auto industry, where we're going to explore what's happening with EVs in this moment, without a federal tax credit, without any really federal support, but some very interesting market movements and ongoing progress in the race to EVs against countries like China, but the West isn't done fighting quite yet. Can't wait to share that with you. So please do subscribe if you haven't already in YouTube or your podcast app of choice, however you listen. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Max Patton. Again, we're presented by EVs for all America. We'll see you once more in the month of February with another special guest. And then we'll resume on a monthly schedule starting in March. Also, if you're coming to the EV charging show in Las Vegas, please see us there. We will be there EVs for all America, including Mike Murphy. Can't wait to see you if you're coming to Vegas, and see you on this podcast in two weeks.
