Jessica Caldwell, Head of Insights at Edmunds, joins TheStreet to discuss the future of the EV market.
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00:00President Trump has signed an executive order eliminating the Biden-era electric vehicle
00:05mandate. So can you walk us through some of the major changes that we could see?
00:10The big major change, I would say, is the cut in infrastructure spending. And maybe those funds
00:16will be directed elsewhere. But the crux of it is, is that infrastructure is so important in
00:21this sector, especially as it grows, because people need places to charge the vehicle.
00:25As early adopters of bought vehicles, people that live in cities have gotten their EVs,
00:30it needs to spread to more of the mainstream market, the suburbs. And that's where the
00:33infrastructure really needs to be pumped up. Because we're seeing that that is one of the
00:36top reasons why people won't even consider an EV is because they're uncertain about infrastructure.
00:41And it's a tricky one, because it's a combination of local government, federal government,
00:44automakers to make the whole system work and make it all make sense to consumers. So eliminating
00:51that is definitely a blow because it puts sort of the pressure on automakers to make the system
00:57work because they are moving full steam ahead with their EVs. They've got no choice. They have
01:01already planned for this. And they have to get customers for that. So that is, I'd say,
01:06one big element of it. And the other element of it is that he has signaled that he wants to
01:10eliminate the $7,500 tax credit for EV buyers and has not been finalized yet. But it feels like that
01:17could be in the works. And that tax credit has been really important, getting people to consider
01:22electric vehicles, because when you think about the fact that you could get an EV lease for under
01:28$200 a month, that's attractive to a lot of people. And even if they don't ultimately buy,
01:32they at least start to consider and research and learn a little bit more about electric vehicles.
01:38So in the future, they're a bit more prepared and maybe more open to the idea of EV.
01:42And so what does this mean in your view longer term? You know, President Biden had a plan
01:48to have half of all new vehicles in the US be electric by 2030. So what happens to that plan?
01:55And is there still a future for electric in America?
02:00There's definitely still a future for electric in America. I think that's ultimately where we
02:04are going. It feels like in the auto industry, the big themes are electrification and autonomous
02:07technology. So cars that drive themselves on a battery. The question, though, is like,
02:12what is that timeline? And how does that keep getting affected by, you know, who's in the
02:16White House? Because that obviously is what we've seen with President Trump, Biden, now President
02:20Trump again, you know, he's going to be in office for, you know, for a while, almost to that 2030
02:24timeline. So clearly, that probably is off the table, at least it's not a mandate that he's
02:28going to push. But automakers, again, they've been working in the wings to work towards that
02:33mandate. So it's not as if they can stop everything that they've been doing and spending millions and
02:37millions of dollars on. So they're still going to carry on. It's just the probably the market
02:41that's going to be the X factor. It's like they can build the vehicles and make them great. But
02:46if people don't buy them, then that really is the issue. So, you know, it's almost like they're going
02:51to try to get there as best they can. But it feels like there's not going to be a lot of support
02:56there. So I do think that long term, though, EVs will happen. It just it seems pretty murky
03:01at this point in time, though.