Tom Cooney, the vice president for Global Public Policy at General Motors (GM), recently said that the transition to electric vehicles would be the equivalent to the switch from horses and buggies to gasoline-powered cars in that it will completely transform the way people travel.
Cooney joined William Lai, vice president of PATEO Group, for a discussion on the global electric vehicle (EV) market and how it affects U.S.-China relations. Both men anticipate that innovation and demand in the EV sector will continue to surge. They also discussed constraints on the market, including the need for more infrastructure and charging stations. They touched on government support, with Lai noting that the Chinese government has given substantial amounts of targeted support to the EV industry, while Cooney called for more support from U.S. governments.
"This is a once-in-a-century transformation, the whole propulsion system of the vehicle," Cooney said. "It's like the moving from the horse and buggy era to the gasoline powered era that took place 100, 110 years ago. By 2035, we're moving to completely zero emissions, all electric fleet. This is an extraordinary transformation. Demand is extremely high in the United States. We're coming out with a whole series of electric vehicles, and the orders are the preorders for these vehicles. For example, we'll have a new Chevrolet Silverado Electric truck coming out next year. We already have over 100,000 orders just for that truck."
Cooney worked as a diplomat in China for the U.S. State Department before joining General Motors (GM) three years ago. He stated that he was attracted to GM at that particular time because he saw the opportunity for transformation from a traditional automaker manufacturing company to a "technology platform innovator." He noted that preorders for GM's new electric vehicles (EVs) have already soared, all of which are powered by GM's Ultium battery. Cooney described the Ultium battery system as "flexible architecture," because the batteries can be stacked either vertically or horizontally and so can fit in and power a wide variety of vehicles.
The discussion went on to cover some of the challenges facing the EV industry in the U.S., which include the need for incentives on both the development side and the consumer side.
"One of the reasons why China is so successful in increasing its electric vehicle penetration rate, the adoption rate is because of the very healthy consumer incentives that are offered," Cooney said. "And we need to work on that in the United States, and we need more infrastructure as well. We work with the U.S. government, the federal government in Washington and also at the state and local level for similar kinds of incentives, because that's extremely important. When an industry is in complete transformation and the consumer has anxiety about making this big switch from one type of vehicle to another that they've been used to, then you need government policy support to ease that pain. So the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that passed last year had $7.5 billion in it for electric vehicle infrastructure charging. That's extremely important."
Lai said that in China, "the government plays a very, very important role in the EV industry."
"The government encourages the construction of infrastructure facilities such as charging hubs," he said.
Over the last decade, the Chinese government has worked to subsidize the electric vehicle (EV) industry on both the supply side and demand side, and by 2020, almost half of all EVs in the world were in China, according to a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The majority of EVs sold in China were manufactured domestically. China's state support of the EV industry is part of a broader strategy aimed at industrial expansion. Between 2009 and 2017, the Chinese government provided an estimated $58 billion in subsidies to the EV industry.
China manufactures 60% of the world's supply of EVs, Nikkei Asia reported. China exported almost 500,000 EVs in 2021, more than any other country in the world. China's EV exports to Europe increased by five times, due in part to an announcement that the sale of new hybrid and gas-powered vehicles will be banned in the EU beginning in 2035.