ADRIAN MA, HOST:
Gas prices have spiked since the start of the war with Iran, and that might make electric cars suddenly more appealing to consumers, with some companies and countries eager to meet that demand. My colleague Emily Kwong takes it from here.
EMILY KWONG, BYLINE: Camila Domonoske covers cars for NPR and how cars reflect important changes in the global economy. So I started our conversation by asking her about the most surprising development coming out of the automotive industry.
CAMILA DOMONOSKE, BYLINE: When you talk to car executives about electric vehicles, a lot of them maintain this belief that - you know, that electric vehicles are the future, and they say that not necessarily for environmental reasons. That's part of it. Car companies are making a consumer good, right? They are serving a consumer audience. And electric vehicles are really nice to drive. They're very smooth. They're very quiet. The acceleration is really quick. They're very low maintenance. You never have to do an oil change. If you can charge at home, that's actually way more convenient than going to a gas station. There's a lot of things people...
KWONG: I love how you're whispering this.
DOMONOSKE: I know, like, secret - there's a lot of things that drivers really like about them, and, you know, the data shows something that GM CEO Mary Barra was pointing out recently. When people are in an EV, they very rarely switch back to gasoline. And so that element...
KWONG: Oh.
DOMONOSKE: ...Of, like, the appeal of EVs to people who have driven them is actually something you hear about a lot from executives when they're thinking about why they can't, no matter what the policy is in the U.S., ignore this market.
KWONG: You're saying the product in its own right is winning new fans.
DOMONOSKE: And again, I'm saying that the car executives say that. I've heard the same argument from...
KWONG: Interesting.
DOMONOSKE: ...People who are thinking about this with billions of dollars on the line at their companies.
KWONG: That's interesting to hear 'cause the origin point of EVs, at least from, like, the perspective of policy, was they produce less emissions, and that makes the air cleaner. And that led to support for EVs. That's been rolled back by the Trump administration. What does that mean for Americans when it comes to electric vehicles?
DOMONOSKE: What the policy under Biden was really trying to do was to push the market to move faster than consumer demand alone was going to move. And now...
KWONG: And by faster, is that, like, making more cars?
DOMONOSKE: Yeah, sell - specifically, selling...
KWONG: Selling more cars.
DOMONOSKE: ...More EVs than they would if it was just pure market demand.
KWONG: OK.
DOMONOSKE: So functionally, they would have to, you know, sell those EVs for less money, really push them, encourage them, advertise them.
KWONG: Yeah.
DOMONOSKE: And that's something that we're - we've seen that policy go away under President Trump. He's going to let the market really dictate how quickly this moves, which does mean, in the near term, fewer full EVs than there would have been under the policy otherwise. But they have to be prepared for the possibility regulations could change again. It has been whipsawing back and forth with every administration.
And they're also looking at staying competitive globally, with the rest of the world still having a real focus on EVs, with Chinese automakers making very competitive EVs. These are things that you hear about a lot from the auto industry right now, this fear about global competitiveness. So they can't walk away, and they won't walk away from EVs and cleaner vehicles altogether.
KWONG: You have reported on how Tesla is no longer the global leader in EV sales, and that is because of cars - EV cars manufactured in China.
DOMONOSKE: Yeah.
KWONG: And the U.S. has been very determined to keep those China-made cars out of the American market. How much longer do you see that as being possible?
DOMONOSKE: I'm obsessed with this question. It is one of the most interesting questions in the auto industry right now, I think, because it doesn't seem sustainable long term - right? - for there to be vehicles that are cheaper and, by all accounts, just plain better that the U.S. is keeping out. And this is something that the auto industry is acutely aware of.
And, you know, whether it's probably not under the Trump administration allowing a huge number of EVs to be imported from China, but could a Chinese automaker take up shop in the U.S. and build vehicles in North America for North America? Could Chinese companies partner with U.S. companies, which is, incidentally, how Western automakers entered China - was in partnerships with Chinese companies.
Could the same thing happen in reverse, where a Chinese automaker strikes a joint venture with, say, Ford? There's been some reporting that Ford is actively talking about this with the administration. Right now, these vehicles are essentially impossible to get in the U.S., but that could change at really any time, especially with President Trump at the helm. And if it changes, it's going to be a huge, disruptive shift to the existing automakers.
KWONG: What's your favorite part of cars? - like, from a supply chain perspective.
DOMONOSKE: Oh, I was actually going to say that my favorite part about cars is people.
(LAUGHTER)
DOMONOSKE: That, like, car people are my favorite part of covering.
KWONG: Why are people your favorite part of the car beat?
DOMONOSKE: I was doing this story in December where I was meeting with a group of kei car enthusiasts. You know, kei car is the tiny, little Japanese cars, and they're just these teeny, tiny, little cars - very common in Japan...
KWONG: OK.
DOMONOSKE: ...Very hard to get in the U.S.
KWONG: OK.
DOMONOSKE: President Trump commented on how we should have more of them here. I went and I just talked to these people about their cars.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
ANDREW MAXON: Sounds kind of like an angry sewing machine.
DOMONOSKE: That's Andrew Maxon. We're riding in his red Autozam AZ-1, a vehicle he lovingly calls ridiculous. We're sitting a few inches off the ground with the turbo engine a few inches behind our heads, racing at 40 miles per hour. Maxon founded the Capital Kei Car Club, which gathered at a park in Northern Virginia this month to talk with me about their beloved little vehicles, which are best described as...
MAXON: Tiny (laughter). Very tiny.
DOMONOSKE: It's so fun to talk to people who are as excited about something as anybody who loves their cars.
KWONG: What storylines do you think will define your beat for the next year or two?
DOMONOSKE: I mean, the China competition that I mentioned - that's going to be huge, for sure. And I do think the question of what does EV demand really look like in the U.S. without government support and incentives? And what does that mean for U.S. global competitiveness if companies do think that, long term, these vehicles are really important. Is there enough market support in the U.S. to support the kind of investments that they would need to make to be competitive globally? I think that's an open question, and it's going to be really interesting.
KWONG: Camila Domonoske, cars and energy correspondent, thank you so much for talking to us.
DOMONOSKE: Thanks for having me. Great to chat. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
