Good morning Grid Connections listeners.
Welcome back to Grid Connections, the podcast where we explore all things transportation, clean energy, and our power grid connecting all of these systems together.
The U.S.
auto industry is at a crossroads with new tariffs shaking up supply chains, domestic automakers retrenching, and EV adoption evolving.
We sit down with veteran journalist John Voelcker, host of Tempting Fate Tours and contributor to Car and Driver, Inside EVs, Soon Wired, and many more to make sense of it
all.
In this episode, we break down the real impact of tariffs on vehicle prices and supply chain, the state of EV charging and why Ionna new charging network could be a game
changer, whether plug-in hybrids are the best of both worlds or just a regulatory workaround.
What's next for affordable EVs and how automakers are adjusting their global strategies.
If you're an electric vehicle enthusiast, policy wonk, or just a curious car fan, this episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss.
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All right, John, I know we've got a few different topics we want to cover today, but
just even some short term thoughts on where some of this stuff might be going.
Sure.
And your question is perfectly timed because I actually had to write a piece this morning for a newsletter all about tariffs.
So it's very top of mind.
I should say right off the bat, I am no longer making any kind of predictions about any kind of US politics.
There's no win.
But what I wrote and what I think is important for people to understand.
is that above all else, the auto industry globally, but in North America in this particular case, craves above all else, regulatory consistency because they make bets that
are measured in hundreds of millions to billions of dollars on new car platforms, new engines or electric power trains, new...
production plants, new segments, new vehicles that get renewed every five to seven years.
These are all really long launch, very expensive bets.
Auto industry isn't actually that profitable compared to a bunch of stuff like consumer electronics, which is why Apple would have been idiotic to go into the car business as I
hope their board told them.
So what they want is to know
the regulatory landscape that will affect what the cars that are that they're going to build in the next five to 10 years.
Beyond 10 years, you can't really project.
And in terms of emissions, they haven't had that for 20 years because think about the second Bush administration from 2000 to 2008.
And they slow walked
new gas mileage regulations, even after the Supreme Court decided that CO2 was a pollutant that the EPA not only could, but had to regulate.
And so in October 2008, before that election, they had no idea what the regulations were affecting the fuel usage of the vehicles that they could start selling on January 2nd,
2011.
That's insane.
that keeps CEOs and CFOs and lead engineers up at night because they literally didn't know what fuel economy and emission standards they had to meet.
So one of the things the Obama administration did in addition to restructuring two of the three domestic makers is lock EPA, NHTSA, CARB, and the automakers into a conference room,
metaphorically, and
say don't come out until you have settled on a set of regulations that everybody buys into.
In that case, for the 2012 to 2018 regs, the automakers weren't in a great position since two of the three of them had just been restructured out of bankruptcy.
But then the second Obama administration did the same thing for 2019 through 2025, and then Trump got elected and he promptly attempted to reverse all of that.
And then Biden got elected and he put it back and put another truncheon of regulations in.
And now Trump is vowing to reverse all of that again.
This stuff makes auto executives nutty.
And now it's happening in tariffs.
If you think about NAFTA, which we had, that was a new set of rules.
It was signed off by everyone.
And automakers will build whatever they need to build to stay legal.
in whatever places they feel will be the least cost and most appropriate for their markets, right?
NAFTA set the rules.
The first Trump administration made a lot of noise about, in fact, how awful this was, but the USMCA trade agreement that emerged, which is essentially son of NAFTA, didn't change a
massive amount of stuff, but it did
alter the rules slightly.
I think there were some domestic content requirements that went up.
The automakers who pay their lobbyists really well got some tweaks they wanted.
In the end, has happened.
Everything moved along.
Now, all of a sudden, here we come in with tariffs.
Under both NAFTA and the USMCA, the Detroit two and a half, as I now call them,
have moved production of some vehicles, especially the least expensive ones, to Mexico and they still produce in Canada, which has been part of the North American production world
for many decades.
Yes, on the campaign trail, our current president said we're going to impose tariffs.
Given the general consensus among pretty much every reputable economist that an overall tariff war is destructive to trade, increases costs, etc., etc., cost to consumers, I
don't know that anyone really believed that they were going to do it, but lo and behold, bang, the tariffs dropped.
25 % on Mexico 25 % on Canada and the auto industry I Think was deeply unhappy would be the polite way to say this but basically the auto industry said
Would you say they were unhappy or do you think they were genuinely surprised?
Or both?
I haven't spoken to their C-suites of late.
And so I can't really say, you know, there is an old saying, that when an absolutist tells you what he is going to do, you should believe him.
And, you know, possibly by about November 10th, they should have been making preparations for that.
don't know.
but here we were with Tarifs.
The auto industry had stock, and this is not just cars by the way, this is parts.
There are immense amounts of parts.
Yeah.
For those listening, we've got this great infographic.
I'll try and attach into the show notes, but essentially it's showing kind of the path and supply chain impacts of the domestic automotive industry.
And just even making something as simple as kind of like a piston or a rod in this case about just how one simple part can bounce back and forth between the U S Canada and Mexico
a couple of times.
Right.
And combustion engines are now so sophisticated and to such high tolerances that not everybody can make a conrod.
And so automakers are going to focus their part sourcing on the people who have the best and highest quality results and shipping of parts, especially something small like a
conrod, isn't that expensive across borders compared to getting the highest quality.
from your finished engine.
And I'm sure they have entire floors full of accountants who measure the cost of these, minimize cost and trade it off against getting the highest quality parts.
But the point really was to point out that tariffs don't just affect vehicles, they also affect a ton of parts that go into those vehicles.
And there is a study out there by something called Anderson Consulting Group.
And I have, I should point out, I have had my disputes with that group over some of their EV cost studies, but they estimated that the tariffs as imposed 25 % on anything from
Mexico, 25 % on anything from Canada, could add up to $12,000 to vehicle cost on some vehicles imported from Mexico or Canada.
The average vehicle price.
is about $48,000.
It has stayed there for three years if you sales weight it.
and I don't mean to interrupt you, but I think it's such a great call out to say that's vehicle combustion or electric, that it is around that $48,000 point, which is pretty
wild.
Yeah, and so you are looking at adding a quarter of that cost on top because the automakers are not going to pay that cost.
They'll pay it, but it has to be passed on to the consumer, which is why tariffs are considered so incredibly inflationary.
So that's basically the background on tariffs.
One note that I hadn't known until recently was that there is a separate set of tariffs on steel and aluminum.
and those stack on the automotive ones.
So in fact, if you're importing steel, that's 25 % more expensive and your car is too.
it's just, as someone who's covered the auto industry for a while now, it's incredibly disruptive.
And I don't necessarily think,
The auto industry is inherently averse to on-shoring.
I think we all learned starting with COVID five years ago that you need certain things.
You need the ability to produce them in your own country, right?
And there was a lot of focus on that in the last administration, including on batteries, both cell production and some of the other stuff for electric cars.
mostly carrots, incentives, cost reductions, subsidies, not sticks, which is what tariffs are.
So industrial policy broadly and on-shoring as a national security measure are reasonable policy goals.
People may differ, but you can't do them in a month.
And the auto industry, especially if in fact it has to move production of a vehicle from Mexico to somewhere
in the 50 states can't do that in six weeks.
We're talking, I would say, a minimum of 18 months up to three or four years, depending on the vehicle, whether they have a plant with capacity, whether they have skilled workers
who can actually build the thing, et cetera, et cetera.
So tariffs are generally considered inflationary, but the auto industry can and will respond
to whatever regulations are imposed on it once their lobbyists get done doing what they do, which is fight against all regulations of any kind on any product, business process or
service.
That's sort of wired into the DNA of the auto industry to fight all regulations forever.
But when you finally end up with regulations, they will build to those regulations, but it takes a long time.
And the way this has come
down from the current administration is almost maximally disruptive if in fact the tariffs stay.
I have had people say they don't think the tariffs will stay or there will be carve outs for specific companies or maybe it's only tariffs on things that don't comply with USMCA,
which of course most of the auto industry does.
So I'm not going to predict, but
it's also so hard to keep up with all this happening right now.
Cause I personally am professional.
I've been super busy the last month was kind of starting a new business and looking to buy a house, all this fun stuff.
And what's really interesting is I believe, and you may know this better, especially if you just wrote about, weren't the tariffs, wasn't there a carve out for the tariffs for
domestic automotive makers for a month pushed out or what?
Okay.
Yes.
what the off the top of your head with the new like cutoff date is for the automotive industry for those tariffs?
want to say it's...
yeah I was gonna say like the first 10, 12, 14 days of April because I think it was March 12th when they were originally gonna come in which is two days from now.
Again, you know, the current president historically has said many things and like Mr.
Musk some of them are true when he says them, some of them are
Proving false when he says them and a lot of them may be true at some point in the future But are not true at the time he says them they are Aspirations, so we'll see where it all
ends up
for sure.
And I think we'll leave it at that because as I agree with you, let's try not to predict anything because it'll easily be wrong probably before the time this goes live anyway,
which is only in a couple of days.
But I think one thing I do want to kind of take a step back.
mean, and first, yeah, thank you kind of that great context of the where we've kind of gone to with tariffs and how this plays into North America specifically.
I think what's really interesting too is
And that is a, and you also kind of bring up the counterpoint is like, yes, there will be increased prices.
The hope is that this will ensure more jobs and that should in some ways.
Counter things out, yada, yada, yada.
We won't get into that.
We'll see what happens.
It's kind of where we landed in the end.
But what I think is really interesting is as you even said, the Detroit 2.5, obviously all of these automakers don't just build in North America.
They build globally and
One of the things that kind of stood out to me is when you were talking about, especially with the history of income, the Bush era with the MPGs and how that's kind of evolved
under Obama and then kind of keeps going back and forth over the last couple of administrations.
I've heard from a lot of people kind of say more and more.
That's like, yeah, we do have to follow these rules, but even the fact is we're global companies.
And so there's some stuff we can kind of do for the North American market that makes sense for the short term.
But given all the designs and everything we have to build anyway,
It's becoming more and more, have to meet global standards.
And so while there is maybe the jobs component for some of this, like where they're built, as far as like making more fuel efficient vehicles or more making electric vehicles, they
have to kind of build these global car programs anyway, that they're kind of like, well, we're just going to keep building these.
Some of them may not come to the U S immediately or take longer time.
I mean, how do you look at that?
Or what do you think of that?
As far as the larger global impact and obviously Europe and China kind of being further along in some regards for electric vehicle adoption and roll out a product that I
personally am starting to think more and more like I'm just not convinced with these because of the needs globally that the changes back and forth between administrations like
we kind of see really have that large of an impact.
There is definitely some sourcing and material stuff on the back end for sure that needs to be figured out that these can have an impact but
As far as the actual products that are being delivered to customers or being available to customers domestically, do you think that even with like rolling back as some of this
stuff around the actual, whether it be MPG or whatever metric you want to use for the efficiency to measure these new vehicles, do you think just inherently we're just going to
see more electric vehicles and even plug in hybrids domestically?
I think there's no question we will see more electric vehicles.
Plug-in hybrids are their own topic, which we can cover in a minute.
But the question is really the pace of the change.
The US...
that's a great point.
guess that's what I'm trying to allude to is like, at this point, does it really matter between administration administration versus when these companies have to build globally
for the most part anyway?
Well, but remember, I think the important context here is that increasingly the Detroit 2.5 have migrated away from building vehicles that are saleable globally because by far
their most profitable vehicles, which are full size pickup trucks, the Ford F series being the best selling vehicle line in America for 40 years or whatever it is, you know.
Those vehicles have gotten so big, they are unsellable in most of the rest of the world.
And so when your most profitable product is really only restricted to North America and a handful of other small markets, know, the Mideast, fine.
But, you know, you in essence have walked away from the rest of the world.
GM sold it to European operations.
They're going back selectively now with electric.
right.
GM's sales in China have more than halved in the last five years.
Ford still has a European presence, mostly building cars that they no longer sell here.
And I think the crossover is the Mustang and the Mach-E.
And Ford was never anywhere in China.
And Stellantis is the one that has the largest operations outside North America.
because it essentially matched a European maker into an Italo-American maker.
But again, Stellantis makes its money off Jeeps and Ram pickup trucks, and the rest of it is essentially irrelevant.
And they don't sell Ram pickup trucks outside North America, and the Jeeps that they sell have some crossover to what's sold in the States, but not entirely.
Yeah.
ain't seen a bunch of grand Wagoneers in Europe.
So, you know.
have sworn I saw a dually last time I was in the UK.
Maybe I was a...
You can, I mean, sort of startled.
saw three separate Ram 1500s in the Netherlands, but you know, they're incredibly unpleasant to drive and you are making a point by driving those vehicles.
They're also incredibly expensive to drive.
So especially in those countries that tax by weight, by fuel consumption and the rest.
you know,
There is the globalization thing.
think GM is probably furthest forward in that they have designed their Ultium platform to be a global platform.
They have Chinese versions of it, even as their sales in China plummet.
They intended to have a full lineup of Ultium vehicles in China.
They are now going up market.
They are more Cadillacs.
I've always maintained the Celestic, the $300,000 Cadillac sedan.
is way more about China than it is about the US.
Ford's electric vehicle strategy is a little less clear.
They have two vehicles in Europe that are actually built on Volkswagen EV underpinnings.
They rethought their North American EV program because Farley said, we're not going to sell any EVs that we can't be net profitable on within 12 months.
which meant that their three row battery electric SUV got killed.
so Ford's in a quiet period right now.
I'm gonna be very curious to see what they are bringing out.
The one thing they've talked about in 2027 is a battery electric midsize pickup.
And that should be, or a small pickup, and that should be interesting.
Well, that's kind of evolved too, because originally it was going to be like the next generation, like F-150 Lightning.
Like it was supposed to be a pretty big step forward.
And now as far as I understand, they've kind like, well, it will be a step forward, but it's not going to be of that same size.
Yeah, it's big trucks and the things people in North America do with big trucks are a tough problem for battery electrics.
There is more low hanging fruit and for to its credit, the whole Ford Pro thing where they are working on upping the revenue they get from fleet services because they have a bigger
footprint in fleet than anyone else, includes electric vehicles.
I was surprised to see
I went and researched a story on electric aircraft and the entire airport has Mach-Es as support vehicles.
There's some E-Transit vans and there's some F-150 Lightnings and a bunch of other electric stuff too because the fleet buyers understand total cost of ownership and EVs win
in a lot of circumstances.
But.
Back to the globalization thing, it's easier to globalize an EV because you don't have to test it for emissions, right?
If we're talking about a real electric vehicle.
But in most of the rest of the world, which is to say Europe and South America, the vehicles that are EVs here, which is what we call compact crossovers, which are the size
of a midsize crossover 20 years ago, are at the top end of the market.
and there simply are not yet 20 or $25,000 EVs.
And South America, frankly, is the least likely market to electrify big anytime soon, just because it's a much less expensive market in general.
And China is in the process of saying to the foreigners, serve your purpose, go home now.
No, I think you actually have some really good interesting points to kind of what I was saying too, because I feel like I guess maybe I should preface.
I think like you go back 18 months.
That was kind of the thought was like, especially Stellantis was kind of positioning like, well, we'll have the product.
The global products will be like this Stellantis small car, this Stellantis medium car and the Stellantis large vehicle.
And then within each market, it'll be kind of rebadged and yada yada yada, which pretty much to some extent all automakers are doing.
But the
fact with like North America, especially you are just seeing this kind of taking a step back and retrenching and what makes them money, which right now with how a lot of
automakers are doing the fact that they have any brands that are making money is where they really need to be focusing.
And so I think that's kind an interesting point about, mean, do you see that as well?
Cause I feel like, and kind of what your time about with old team kind of gets to is like, well, we'll have this design and then we can use this for other vehicle types or like,
will become the fundamental thing, but it's not really to the same.
I just feel like that has kind of taken a step back with some of the product announcements we've seen with from automakers of having such universal, less bad engineering and much
more market specific vehicles.
Yeah, if you, I mean, the theory is that if you have the skateboard, as people call it, you can do a variety of EVs possibly cheaper than you can a gasoline vehicle that requires
specific types of crash structures.
I realized I didn't talk about Stellantis in the roundup of the Detroit 2.5.
I find it interesting that Stellantis has pretty much said in every EV announcement, multi-energy platform.
And what that means is the same thing BMW is doing, which is you have upfront a crash structure that works either for gasoline or for electric vehicles.
And from the tow board back, it's either a battery pack under the floor or a conventional gasoline vehicle.
That does save them some money.
BMW has
proven that you can actually do it and make good cars on both sort of variations of the platform.
But what I expect for Stellantis, which is underwater, they've always made heavier cars.
They were the first out of passenger cars and into trucks.
And so they have the worst emissions challenges in a lot of ways.
I anticipate that they will sell enough electric vehicles.
to stay regulatorially compliant with whatever the regulations are in the year that we're talking about.
And all of the other chargers or electric rams or whatever will have a gasoline alternative.
And given how far behind they are on launching EVs, their salespeople don't have experience selling EVs.
And honestly, I think the charger Daytona, the electric charger is going to a sell to their audience.
Yeah.
I think they will be the laggard, certainly compared to Jammin, probably compared to Ford.
So multi-energy platform basically means, yes, we'll talk about the electric one first and give it a certain amount of prominence because electric vehicles, but look, you can buy it
with a predictable, understandable gasoline engine.
And that will probably be a lot higher value for those platforms.
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting call out too, because kind of like what I was saying is like, go back a year, 18 months, like the state of the automotive industry was
kind of night and day.
And John McRoy even brought this up recently of auto line where he was talking about like, you go back a year, Stellantis, Dodge, especially they were just printing money.
They're like, they look great as far as like cashflow companies.
And within a year it's done like a complete 180 and they're in a lot of trouble.
with kind of where they want to position this and their products.
And it really does kind of go to what you're talking about, especially with the brands that we're making them a lot of money around like Dodge, especially that kind of, Ram, I
guess now technically that makes so many of these high margin, truck vehicles and this kind of move to electrification.
killed off two of its three most affordable Jeeps, which is still a decision that people just scratched their head off over.
They killed off the Renegade, the small one that was built in Italy, which actually ran it seven years, fine.
But they also killed off the Cherokee even before that.
So you had Cherokee, which was arguably their midsize.
Then you have Compass, which is sort of compact.
and you had Renegade, which is very small.
They killed off two out of three of those.
The Compass was the least convincing of all of them.
It's aging itself.
And so, you know, what are you thinking?
How can you take Jeep as your volume brand and do that to
And I think they're exactly there's just a lot of head scratching and there have been some announcements of like Jeep specific rebranded electric vehicles in Europe that we're just
not really seeing here.
And I, I mean, it's kind of anecdotal, but it.
Yeah.
Right.
rear seat is unusable by North American standards, and I'm just not convinced that they can put enough battery in to get under EPA test cycles the 200 and something mile range
that any buyer of an electric vehicle in America is gonna demand.
But that...
leads into the thing that I think could change the mix a little bit, which is when are we going to see truly affordable electric cars?
There is still a price premium on the average electric car.
When will we see a $30,000 or even more importantly, a $25,000 EV?
If any maker could do it, it was thought to be Tesla.
But Mr.
Musk said a year ago now,
they're walking away from the $25,000 Tesla, they will lose.
they're doing a lower price one later this year.
I'll just just to be counterpoint just to say that's what they're claiming.
don't know.
We haven't heard anything about it, but I will let you keep going.
heard a rumor, as astounding as it may seem, that the lower priced Tesla is a cyber cab with a steering wheel and controls.
Now, if it comes in at $19,900 Tesla, would be a very interesting prospect.
We probably should do a short sidebar on the brand problem at this moment.
I don't know if they can get it down that deep and more than that, two-seater cars have always been 1 % of the US market and never more.
So there's a whole gang of people who are just going to say, wait, it's only got two seats?
No.
And that's that.
what, Um, no, I think that's a great call out and I've kind of wondered about that too, but what do you think?
This is something I've kind of talked about with other people, like what they think this ideal $25,000 car electric vehicle should look like.
And it's like, okay, they start listing all these things that should have.
I was like, yeah, that's a $45,000 car.
So what is there something that you could realistically see being a well-selling $25,000 car that maybe isn't a two C like
What boxes does it have to check but still be possible or affordable at that $25,000 problem?
Because I've talked to lot of people like, well, it should be this, this, and this.
was like, yeah, that's a $45,000 car, gas, or electric.
I would say it's probably something like the old Chevy Bolt EV, which remember at the end of its life had, let me get this right, 258 miles of range was it?
259, something like that.
Rated range, which meant 200-ish in real world usage, especially if it's cold.
But it was a four-door hatchback.
It was tall enough where you could arguably kind of sort of sell it as an SUV.
It's one drawback in my market is that it didn't have all-wheel drive, which it was clearly designed for.
But this is where I point out the GM has said they are bringing back the Bolt EV.
They're going to take that vehicle, put Ultium batteries into it, which are not 2017 batteries, they're 2024 batteries.
And unless they reposition it, which I can't imagine they're going to do, it will be the bottom of their EV range.
You already have a version of the Equinox EV that stickers at, think, 35-ish.
And so if they can bring the stripped version of what I'm calling the Boltium, you heard it here first, if they can bring that in at something like 28 or 29,
even though it'll transact at 34 or something like that.
That could be a direction toward that inexpensive EV.
And in my market, people will still pay three grand to add all-wheel drive because snow.
But I also expect Hyundai and Kia to continue offering stuff on the low end.
People talk a lot about the Hyundai IONIQ 5, the Kia EV6, but remember they each have
an electric vehicle with over 200 miles of range below that.
They just don't offer all wheel drive or 800 volt charging.
So I think possibly the Boltium, certainly future entrance from Hyundai and Kia.
Unclear if we will see anything from a Chinese company, which theoretically would have to be built here with US developed software, et cetera.
But I think if there is volume in those lower cost EVs,
That really changes the game because people will look at something with a sticker price under 40 because that's still cheaper than the average.
And if the sticker price is under 30 and it's a compelling vehicle, then I think that will expand the horizon.
Yeah, I'm kind of curious on this because I think there's truth to that.
I'm not a hundred percent convinced in the moment that charging is solved for that scale.
Because once you get to that level, like home charging, if you have an EV, great, simple.
I'm sure they'll still sell well, but I am still curious to see just like once you're starting, mean, and this is a good thing and this is just a problem that has to be solved
with EVs in general is like you're going from single family homeowner to
usually multifamily apartment dwellers, all sorts of stuff.
And then just logistically, it gets a little more complicated when you get to that scale.
and I think that that price point of Evie is probably going to face those challenges more.
And I want to talk about that with you, but I think before we get into that, this is where people usually step in and say, well, this is why you get a plugin hybrid.
This is why you can kind of get around and then you don't have to deal with the charging issue as much.
So I, I,
I know your stance on it, I guess for anyone who's listening who isn't familiar, I think we'd love to hear your thoughts in it.
And then I want to share an anecdote with you that I think will reinforce how you feel about
So I have now published two separate articles, one on plug-in hybrids in general and one on range extended EV trucks, that essentially make the point that until automakers are
willing to release the data that they have or should have on the plugging in behavior of their plug-in hybrid buyers, I do not believe that most plug-in hybrids are plugged in to
any meaningful
degree.
Now, when I say this, the shrieking from EV advocates is high volume because, why would you buy a plug-in hybrid if you never want to plug it in?
And I plug my plug-in hybrid in all the time.
I only buy gas once.
Yes, I know.
I know.
Pat, pat, pat.
That said, especially Jeep, which goes back and forth with Toyota.
for the dubious title of highest volume plug-in hybrid sold in the US.
Jeep absolutely refuses to release any data on plugging in hybrid behavior.
They have in past said several mutually contradictory things, which I laid out in the article.
Executives who are no longer there.
Toyota actually has all the data.
They refuse to release it because they said,
we're worried it might be misinterpreted.
Now, I can think of how to interpret that statement, right?
I just don't believe that the majority of plug-in hybrid buyers plug them in regularly to do what the intention was, which is to let you run daily predictable miles, 40 miles or
less on electricity.
But if you want to drive to Cleveland or San Francisco, then use the gas in.
And I'll sort of close on this because I can lecture at great length on it.
I have come to view plug-in hybrids as an auto engineer's response to a set of demands by a regulator that no customer has ever walked into a car dealership and asked for.
Hi, I want a low range electric vehicle with a backup.
It's really hard to explain how plug-in hybrids work.
Think of all the time it took just to explain hybrids.
No, you don't have to plug it in.
It's like a regular car, but the gerbils under the hood drink less.
Okay?
That took a while.
And now hybrids are just like, okay, they're regular cars, but they get their gas mounts.
Electric cars, people sort of fundamentally get.
You know, it's like your phone.
You run on battery and you have to recharge the battery regularly.
Plug-in hybrids are really hard to explain.
What's your anecdote?
I'm curious.
there's a few things.
First, it's, is really funny because I completely agree with you.
and it is funny talking to my more, I'll just leave it at conservative friends who are the traditional big truck driving guys and the concept of the Eve rev they're like, that makes
sense to me.
So I don't know if that's actually going to be the case in sales, but, or I talk versus action.
But I think in some ways you could make an argument for that for like the Dodge Ram or like as a stepping stone, maybe.
I don't think that's gonna be it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's not my antidote, so don't worry.
But yeah.
because the second article, I've heard this from other people, and the second article I wrote sort of says, yes, now we have two examples of range-extended electric pickups, the
Ram Charger and the Future Scout Harvester, both of which
will have something like 130 or 150 miles of battery range, which is way more than you do a day, and then about 300 miles on gasoline, right?
Why would you bother to plug it in?
It works just like your old truck.
You go to the gas station, you fill it up once a week, you get 300 miles.
You don't have to worry about that plug stuff.
I'll say the counterpoint is then you probably get better gas mileage.
So is that even if you do it that way?
possible benefit TBD.
mean Chrysler is using a 3.6 liter V6 specially tuned for series hybrid use.
The rumor is that Scout is going to use a 2 liter Volkswagen 4 specially tuned, although they haven't said anything at all about what the Harvester powertrain is.
So I just, again, I am absolutely willing to believe that plug-in hybrids are a net positive for EVs and
lower emissions, show me the data because I don't believe that until I see the data.
And it's pretty rare, but I have seen like there have been occasions like where I'm going to hotel in my EV and I see someone plug charging their plug and hybrid on it because it's
most likely because it's free.
And as an EV driver that does drive me nuts, I'll be the first to say it, even though 10, 9, 80 % of the time I don't need it anyway, but it's just like, okay, really?
That's, seems like a bit of a cop out, but, I.
Once again, think most of the time they just like doing it because it's closer to the actual like entrance of a lot of these hotels when they do that whole different thing.
Here is my anecdote though for you about two plug-in hybrid drivers that plug in all the time one has a new mercedes whatever their I can never remember which is which but kind of
the mid-size SUV and then mother-in-law has the volvo xc90 plug-in hybrid both of them had partners who had electric vehicles first and then when they went to go buy a vehicle they
got one and now they can charge it at home
And I think that is purely the only reason that that actually works and makes sense because if you buy a plug-in hybrid, yeah, the logic when you're kind of the sales
process, like, okay, I guess in charge it, but there isn't like the forcing function that an electric vehicle has when you buy it to make sure you have actual charging figured out
at your house.
to give you the experience and the hardware where plugging in is not so far.
Right.
They've already done it because they've driven their partner's vehicle here and there.
And so they not only that, but then they have it, they have the actual infrastructure they need to do that at home.
So they'll do it to do most of their around town driving on electric.
And then they go on a long road trip.
have the gas thing that they feel more comfortable with and need, but that is a very rare exception.
And that to me kind of reinforces your point.
It's like
That only works if someone has that hardware at home already and that infrastructure to be able to charge.
Majority of the time, I don't think plug-in hybrid drivers are going to do that.
And once again, it's so interesting that they were, the plug-in hybrid was not the first electrified vehicle in the family home.
It was actually the second after the electric vehicle.
Those are arguably the most informed of car choppers and probably the best target for plug-in hybrid purchases.
The anecdote I tend to use is Jeep, when they had a compliance problem, made a big deal out of the plug-in hybrid Wrangler and they sold a bunch of them.
And AutoWriter happened to live next door to a young woman who was thrilled to be able to get her first new car, the Wrangler that she wanted.
And he went and talked to her about it.
And she said, yeah, I got, you know, a way better deal on a higher trim level than I expected.
She didn't call it a trim level, but, it turned out to be the four by E, which at various points has had extremely affordable lease terms and is a better set of features and some
standard options than its counterpart without the plug.
And he said, wow.
That's great.
Where are you going to plug it in?
And she said, what do you mean?
It has USB ports, but all my cords work.
And he's like, no, no, no, you can plug in your car.
It has a battery.
And she said, no, it's a hybrid.
And she had no idea.
So because the salesman never bothered to tell her.
Anyway, like I said, all the about plug-in hybrids.
know, but I think it really reinforces your point though.
It's like, unless the consumer is incredibly informed about charging at home and electric vehicles, the likelihood of that actually happening is just so low.
Maybe over time more of them will be plugged in.
I only have one photo of a Ford C-Max Energy.
Remember the C-Max Energy?
With duct tape all over the charging port.
Anyway, so what else is on the list?
well, I think maybe in fair enough, mean, both the reason my mother and my mother-in-law didn't necessarily want to get a full on electric vehicle is they just didn't want to deal
with charging infrastructure.
And I think maybe that's maybe where we should go next.
both of their partners had Tesla, so they pretty much had experience and dealt with and had to driven them on their own trips.
So they kind of knew what the baseline for about as easy of a charging experience can be.
But I know like even since they bought theirs, there's been some pretty big advances.
And I do think I was just use electrify America again on a recent trip and it was a much better experience.
The first one I plugged into didn't work, but I moved in and then it all worked.
So there's that caveat.
But overall, it does seem like the third party ones are improving.
And I know you recently kind of went to Ayanna, which is the big one, but I would love to kind of get your thoughts on
Not just them, but where you see the EV charging, public fast charging, especially around currently.
Yeah.
I haven't seen recent data.
The data that I'm thinking about was around a year old, which showed that roughly, I think it was one in five or one in four charging sessions just didn't work, which is far, far,
far lower than what you expect from gasoline stations.
I mean, you're genuinely miffed when you drive up to a pump and it's covered in a canvas shroud, and then you move to the next pump.
You only find out that your charging station doesn't work after you've plugged in, right?
Or most of case.
Yeah.
So, charging station reliability over the last few years, especially in the DC fast charging, has not been what we would expect it to be.
My impression, anecdotally, not based on data thus far, is that things are, as you said, improving.
I haven't had a bad experience at an Electrify America station.
for probably a year now, certainly nine months.
And I have a lengthy history of whining loudly about all of the bad experiences I've had at EA.
But more than that, I think we may be entering a new phase of charging infrastructure in the US because it's long been the model or the first 10 years, even for Tesla was,
Find places where you can get the high voltage power, have enough parking spaces, make charging stations.
Put them in places where people travel.
And Teslas are bigger than anyone else's.
I think I heard Harris Ranch has 128 charging stations or some crazy number.
We're still looking at sort of four to 12 for most other networks.
But...
And that also is a one off.
Most of them are now like 12 to 16, but still there's a decent delta.
well, and then there's China, which is even more astounding, but they can make things happen quicker.
But I think the problem with charging stations is their profitability is solely dependent on utilization.
And, you know, it's a chicken and egg thing.
Why am I going to spend all of this money being unprofitable as a network for X amount of years?
until we sell enough EVs that will come to my stations.
Utilization rates have been coming up.
I think industry-wide I saw somewhere they're now 12, 14, 16%, something like that.
And the best stations, the ones that are most frequently used are up in the 40s.
You're solidly profitable if your station is charging 40 % of the time.
But more than that, I've always maintained
Going to an EV charging station, especially because you're spending two or three times as much time there, should be no more unpleasant than your average gas station, which is to
say there should be a bathroom and there should be a place to buy salty snack foods and sugary sodas and maybe lotto tickets if you're into that.
so...
It's long been expected that convenience store chains who know how to do this stuff really well and for whom gasoline is just one of several profit leavers, they do actually make
money on gasoline.
I hadn't realized that.
I thought it was a loss leader.
They do actually make a few cents per gallon.
Yeah, I think it was 10 to 20 on average, but they then bring in customers who buy a certain amount of other stuff, be it fat food increasingly.
That model should be how we get EV charging, especially if you've got someone who at this moment is higher income than your average driver and is going to spend three times as long
there.
And that's where I think IANA comes in.
IANA is the network formed by eight separate auto brands from three different nations.
Yeah, the US, Japan, and Korea.
to do charging right.
And they have said they will have 30,000 charging cables across the US by the end of 2030.
They opened one of their sort of showplace charging stations and invited the press down.
Turns out it's really cheap to fly to Charlotte from where I live, which is good.
And it...
your EV down there, John?
was a longer journey that I wanted to undertake for that story.
I think I mean, we'll talk about this a little bit at the end, but maybe there should be a upcoming Tempting Fate Tours trip to one of these locations.
tempting fake tours in EVs, but given that the only EV in-house at this moment is a 1975 Sebring City Car, I'm not convinced yet.
no, I think I think even in just like to rate the regular cars you guys use would be so much fun to show up in one of those things Unto its own just with how much How your trips
go in those but we'll talk about the later.
I'm sorry continue with yeah
okay, IANA has an, it's an old gas station in a town in North Carolina, sort of outside Charlotte.
The town wanted to keep the gas station, which was all about a hundred years old, but didn't want it to sell gasoline.
And IANA had to say, no, EV charging is clean.
And they turned it into a 24 hour EV charging,
Emporium with some wonderful features like canopies over the charging stations.
Both Tesla and CCS plugs, should say Naxx, guess.
Squeegees.
You can actually clean your windshield just like at a gas station.
Even better, an air hose that you can fill your tires.
And my favorite was
the windshield washer fluid dispenser, which you do have to give them a credit card for so the entire town doesn't come and fill up all their washer fluid reservoirs.
But they then inside have a sort of coffee bar thing that's open business hours.
They have bathrooms that are accessible 24 seven and they have conference rooms you can book if you need to do a quick 30 minute conference or have a private
you know, Zoom call or whatever.
And they also have a video game console on the wall with, I gather, dozens of 70s, 80s, and 90s classic video games.
So the idea here really is to make it a place that is not just giving you what you need, which is electricity for your car, but make it a destination that you like and you want to
come to.
Now.
To be fair, only about 30 % of their locations are going to be that model.
The others are going to be, yes, they call them rechargeries, I forgot.
The others are going to be with various convenience store chains that already have the bathrooms, the snacks, and whatnot.
But they will have canopies, and they will be upfront as opposed to, in the famous words of a...
Mercedes-Benz executive out back by the dumpster.
And the idea is basically make this a place people want to go to charge as opposed to the nearest place when you have to charge.
They have, I think, 10 or 12 locations open now.
Their goal is to have by the end of 2025, 100 locations open with 1,000 cables.
And this first one that I went to visit,
had, I believe, I can't remember who was eight with capacity for 12 or 12 with capacity for 16.
There aren't any in my part of the country yet.
The Northeast can be a little bit challenging in terms of bureaucracy, but there will be.
And what's interesting is that every IANA exec I talked to has worked in EV charging somewhere else.
And as one of them said, our goal
is to do EV charging right, the way it should always have been.
And another quote, where charging reliability is not even a question.
If they can do that, and if they can get to their 30,000 cables by the end of 2030, they will have changed the game.
And they are, I think, both competing with
and working in conjunction with convenience stores.
What happens to Electrify America in a couple of years is a topic of much debate once the 10-year consent order between EPA, or among EPA CARB and Volkswagen expires.
Will they try to spin it out?
Will it be sold to some other charging network?
Will it be sold for parts?
Some of the desirable ones other people will take.
Some parts of EA may be just things that get decommissioned.
No one knows.
EA won't talk about it.
But that will be interesting to watch.
And we have EVgo and a bunch of others as well.
The last point I'm charging, I'm now getting daily emails from Shell, actually.
Shell recharged the old green lots, which used to have its own app.
Their authorization is being rolled into the Shell app.
overall where you buy gasoline and it's not so much about downloading the new app which I still have to do it's about making EV charging just the same as buying gasoline in terms
of accumulating points, preferential treatment and if you're a shell customer there are going to be reasons for you to choose shell recharge over somebody else's recharge because
you're already part of the shell
shell environment and convenience stores are really good at doing
Yeah, I think those are great points and it is really interesting because I, we get here this all the time where, I just want to swipe my damn card.
I don't want to download an app.
don't, but I agree with you.
Like if there's the Fred Meyer or the shell or whatever, where it's like, okay, I come here once a week anyway, I'll sign up for it.
And usually then it's even just like a quick swipe or whatever, and then you can pay.
And I've always been a firm believer for like a new technology to take off.
doesn't have to be just as good.
It has to be better.
And so that that's where I kind of like, okay, EV charging, especially a lot of these limits have to be, they're not even getting to at least as good.
And then the future state is hopefully you just do the plug and charge thing where you just plug walk away.
And I tell you what, that is still such a game changer for when you're on a road trip, because there's nothing like you've been in a car for three hours and you have to go to
that bathroom.
You just walk, plug it in, walk, run away and it works.
And it's those little things that more coming.
Yeah.
and some others, Jim has it at EVgo.
It's not real plug-in charge, but it worked with AIM.
And hopefully other people will have that.
And yet Hyundai wants to do it all through Hyundai Pay.
So there are still going to be variations.
The last thing I want to say about charging is the opening up of the Tesla network is great.
you know, arguably that network may become slightly more separate from Tesla, still obviously a huge sales driver for Tesla.
But it's important to understand how that works because when I tested a Mach-E at a Tesla charging station, it's plug-in charge.
Just plug in the car with the adapter, walk away, right?
It's all taken care of through FordPass.
Which is a pretty slick execution and like that's how it should be.
I may have had to say yes on the forward pass.
There may have been one tap.
There is like an initial setup.
I'll give it that.
Like if they can do it and they keep it simple enough, done.
Other vehicles that were further down the list, because I think Tesla realized, every car maker does this differently.
Every single car maker is going to be a custom implementation to use the supercharger network.
That's going to be a gigantic pain in the ass for us.
Let's make them use the Tesla app.
And so I have tested other EVs from other makers where, in fact, you are required to have the Tesla app.
give another carmaker your personally identifiable information to use the Tesla network to charge because Tesla does not have credit cards.
Yeah, no, and I agree with you.
That is definitely not the ideal situation.
And it is interesting because you have seen them in Europe and other markets where actually Tesla does have, Swiped to pay in that.
And I think there may have been like one or two sites, even domestically they did it, but I agree with you.
It's like to me.
There's one word to explain that.
Regulation.
They're required to do that stuff.
I mean, that's a fair call out.
Like obviously that plays a big part into it.
I will say even then there is a difference between having it because of regulation and having it and it just works day to day.
Cause I have even used the ones that were that regulation and they just, the screen was dead or something.
But I agree with you overall.
Yeah, that's a big part of the reason why it actually is there and kind of implemented with a lot of these.
I think in that case with love the supercharger, especially with the Navy stuff.
I don't know why it kind of didn't have that.
I think one or two of the sites technically did, but I, and I think they're actually in your neck of those.
think there's like one magic doc thing, Navy award funded somewhere in New York that actually has it, but it's like, it is a unicorn for having it.
And
expect MagicDock to be the long-term solution.
No, I don't think anymore.
mean, that was before all the automakers went to or announced they were going to Nax and all that stuff.
and once again, I, I've always thought that that is the right call.
Just kind of going back to your thing.
It's like the more, the simpler you can make the sales process and education process about electric vehicles as little as there were so many, kind of resonates too.
It's like so many EV people would say, it's not that difficult.
You just have the ones you use for AC plugs at home and the J 1772.
And then the CCS one is what you use for DC fast sharing.
was like, that's, that's too much.
You get one plug type that works wherever you go.
That just works.
So people don't have to think about or really have that expectation.
It's not an education or intelligence thing.
It is just like, people have so many other things that they're trying to, I guess it is actually, it's not an intelligence thing, but it is like an education thing.
It's just one more thing people have to know and learn.
And so I have a plug type that just works no matter what is such a huge perk.
but we still face up to 10 years worth of adapters.
Well, right.
That's a little bit different, but I get what you're saying.
which is where I scream and wave my hands and say, do not buy the cheapest adapter you can find on eBay for God's sakes.
Buy the one from your car maker.
There are reasons it's more expensive.
That's it's topic.
agree.
And it'll be interesting to see like, think the 2025 IONX or something like there's finally some automakers that have them natively, but it's still kind of rare.
The US built 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 does have a Naxport and they will provide you with a free adapter the other way so you can use CCS charging cables.
But I mean, with that evolution, mean, and it's kind of interesting you mentioned the Mach-E, but like, obviously with a lot of these 800 volt vehicles, that has been kind of
what people have pushed back with the supercharged network is obviously doesn't quite take advantage of that just yet.
Where do you see this all going as far as, I mean,
What do you think are the biggest hurdles remaining for EV charging for DC fast?
Or is it really just reliability still has a long ways to go and that needs to improve or is it optics and education?
What if someone said, John, you're hired to figure DC fast charging in North America, what would you say?
Like, okay, these are the three things we need to do today or get going on.
So reliability first and foremost.
that's how most people would answer at first.
Yeah
Yeah, the reliability has to be there.
it's because there are so many players on any given DC fast charge, you have a utility, you have a credit card authorization, you have a car maker, you have a charging network,
all of those pieces have to work perfectly.
And if they don't, you can have either power downgrades or it just doesn't work.
So reliability, first and foremost, and that's
an iterative process, I think the networks are getting better at it.
Secondly, awareness.
There is, as an EV driver knows, a very large amount of EV charging already out there.
But because it's basically some variant of a white box on a stick with a hose hanging from it, you know, people don't know, they don't see it.
They know what a gas station looks like, especially if it has a 150 foot pole.
that's visible from the interstate that has a gas brand on it, right?
We don't have any of that for you.
One of the things IANA promises is signage.
And, you know, it's an added challenge.
Electrify America did at one point say, look, we are renting parking lot space and installing high voltage electrical equipment from Walmart, getting permission from
Walmart's landlord to install a structure.
Yeah.
with signage and lighting is a whole separate thing.
And I get that.
That was sort of, that was that stage.
Now I think the branding and the emergence of consumer friendly EV charging brands that have other stuff will play into it, whether it's convenience stores or standalones like
IANA or EA or whoever.
And I think the third thing is
the pace at which electrical utilities operate versus the pace at which charging networks operate.
I have heard more than one charging network engineers say, look, once we get permitted, we can stand up an EV charging station, a DC fast charging station with eight or 12 stalls,
ideally in 30 to 45 days.
But then the power company
which we've talked to at the very beginning of the process, has said, once you get your permits, come back and talk to us and then it'll be 18 to 36 months.
That is not the speed that's necessary, but electric utilities have very long timeframes like automakers and squaring that circle is a non-trivial.
No, I think that's a great call out and I we're starting to see it speed up a little bit, but honestly, it's funny to me that, I think there was a lot of great intentions and I'm
always a big believer that the, path to hell is paved with good intentions with Nevi and that kind of stuff around like what it could do and what it was trying to get more charges
out there.
But I really think from a regulatory standpoint, that's what's needed is like just essentially speeding up a permit or
Creating some sort of process that like, if these three boxes are checked, that puts it into kind of like a faster approval process or.
the permitting part.
It's the electric utility just saying, you know, we know when someone's building a Walmart Supercenter, but it takes 36 months to build a Walmart Supercenter from the time
construction starts to the time you're ready to flip on the lights.
That's what we now you're all of a sudden saying you got your permits and you want that same volume of electricity in 45 days.
Yeah, that's that's a fair call.
I I'm saying I use I say permitting, but you're right permitting, but specifically kind of approval process or some sort of buying with these utilities.
But it is kind of interesting, I think, talking about this and you've brought you brought up with electrify Mary, I mean, Walmart now we've talked about them is actually getting
into charging and they're looking to do it pretty aggressively.
And with how
curious to see how that plays out because Walmart knows cost reduction and logistics like nobody else.
Yeah, I mean, they have a formula for building their locations.
so adding some chargers to it seems like a pretty clear value add.
I know a couple, I'm hoping we can get a couple of the people on, cause I know them that work there who have been in the space for a while.
So they're pretty serious about making it happen.
And that is where I'm kind of curious about how many of these EA locations that expire in the next, in the next few years that are at Walmart's, if they will be approved or not, or
it's like,
Thanks for the doing all the hard work.
We'll take it from here as far as being replaced with and you're so right with the I for listeners, I don't know how much they know about Walmart, but it seems like a very simple
brand.
But Walmart is one of those companies that take brand very seriously.
And so having a big kind of traditional looking kind of a gas station looking thing that you would see in a highway in their parking lot.
does not really fly.
Now, if it was Walmart branded and it's a Walmart charger, I could see that happening easily.
But one that's electrify America that's competing with any of the Walmart brand stuff is always going to be an uphill battle.
But, John, I've really appreciated this conversation.
know, I mean, with everything we've discussed, there's so much more we could talk about.
We didn't even get into really Chinese EVs or software and how that plays into all of this.
So we're gonna have to save that for another podcast.
I know you've got stuff to do today, but before we go, I do want you to
Kind of just talk a little bit about tempting fate tours and we'll wrap up with that and we'll have to have you get on soon.
But let's, let's make sure we hit that before we take all of your time today.
So for those who are still with us, Tempting Fake Tours, find us on YouTube, find us on Instagram, find us on Facebook, is my weird little side hustle with a bunch of similar
crazy car notes.
no, no, no, it's not weird.
It's entertaining.
Maybe I'll give you quirky.
I'll give you quirky at times.
But no, no, it's weird.
Weird sounds too negative.
No, it's very entertaining.
It's great.
But I'm sorry, continue.
a weird is never negative, but hey.
So the goal basically is to do road trips in usually much older cars, frequently British, often unreliable.
Those two often go together and sort of document the results.
And it got started when, after a really bad bout of cabin fever, Buddy and I decided to buy two of the most unreliable British cars sold in the 80s, called a Sterling, and drive
them from Portland to a car meet called Radwood in Austin, Texas, which we found out somewhere in New Mexico was postponed for six weeks.
Great.
So anyway, that was our first series.
We competed in something called the Lemons Rally.
which is, as they call it, road rallying for hoopties.
Yeah.
And what's the role?
It's like essentially Lamont, but it's under five grand or.
Yeah.
that's that, um, that essentially says we have legit racing on legit racing circuits, endurance racing, but the car has to have cost you 500 bucks or less.
And by the way, our judges are amenable to bribes.
Costumes get you points.
Misbehavior gets you points.
We're in the rally offshoot of that, which is.
not speed rallying, you have to comply more or less with speed limits.
But essentially we took two old British cars and drove them a thousand miles in three days through New England, stopping at dozens of checkpoints to take a picture of the car, the
checkpoint and us posted on Instagram.
And it's a point system.
And we actually got an award because one of our cars was extremely old, extremely unreliable, supposedly unreliable.
but extremely unexpected.
so we are just winding up last summer's tour where we took a 70 and a 75 year old car through the Netherlands.
And you can actually drive hundreds of miles in 70 and 75 year old cars.
It's best to be accompanied by other 70 to 75 year old cars because they're slow too.
There's so much easier to work on.
That's the upside.
As long as you know, you need like five wrenches if that and maybe spare tires and a couple other things and hoses.
plan and offer lots of advice.
So, and we have some plans coming up for this year because it looks like we've bought one if not two non-running, unreliable old cars that have been off the road for 40 or 50
years.
So stay tuned.
Tenting plate tours.
are or will that be, is that part of the teaser?
Okay.
trying to get the last summer done first.
Yeah, but so find us on YouTube.
Most of the videos are short.
We're not, this is not the hour and a half long video about EV charging.
These are sort of five to eight minute videos.
So, but yeah, come visit us and thanks for letting me make the plug.
We'll have links to all of what we've discussed today and more along with to the Tempting Fate Tour YouTube page.
just once again, thank you.
We'll have to have you again soon.
This industry is always changing so much so fast.
And so it's really always interesting to hear your insights.
So thank you so much for being on today, John
Thank you for having me.
Talk to you next time.
That's a wrap on this episode of Grid Connections.
A huge thanks to John Voelcker for joining us and sharing his deep insights into the shifting landscape of electric vehicles, tariffs, and the future of electric vehicle
charging.
From the impact of tariffs on vehicle prices to the evolution of EV infrastructure, and even the ongoing debate around plug-in hybrids, there's no shortage of big changes
happening in the auto industry.
One thing's for sure, this space moves fast, and we'll be here to keep you ahead of the curve.
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