'We've got to move forward' - Michigan electric vehicle industry responds to Trump policy changes

[January 25, 2025]  By ALEXA ST. JOHN

DETROIT (AP) — While President Donald Trump took aim at the electric vehicle industry this week, there is still optimism about the industry’s future in Michigan, a state retooling from America’s most recognizable auto hub to its number one destination for electric vehicle investment.

More than $27 billion is being poured into some 60 EV manufacturing and battery projects in the state, edging out even Georgia, with $26.6 billion, according to Atlas Public Policy, indicating that the birthplace of the modern auto industry continues to be central to its present and future.

Michigan is home to hundreds of supply companies in addition to the automakers.

There is Factory ZERO, GM’s remade assembly plant for electric Hummers and Silverados in the diverse Detroit neighborhood of Hamtramck, on a lot rich with auto history.

There is the $1.6 billion battery manufacturing campus in Van Buren Township in southeast Michigan that’s expected to create more than 2,100 jobs and the equivalent of 200,000 EV battery packs each year once fully running.

And there is the futuristic building in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, next to the once-blighted Michigan Central train station Ford renovated, now home to Newlab, where entrepreneurs experiment on high-tech equipment, network with other founders and funders and collaborate with automakers.

The list goes on.

“I think that the investments aren’t ill spent,” said auto dealer Eric Frehsée, even with the president’s changes in policy. He was referring both to state electrification efforts and preparing his business, Tamaroff Auto Group in Metro Detroit, for EVs.

Frehsée has bought forklifts to lift heavy batteries at the dealership and taught his technicians to work on EVs that come in for maintenance. He's installed chargers. Frehsée sells Nissan, Honda, Acura and Kia vehicles, each of which now have EV models for sale.

“I think that it’s still the direction that we’re heading,” he said.

On the east side of Detroit, Ray Smith runs an EV training program for aspiring auto technicians. At Blast Detroit, would-be apprentices learn to diagnose EV electrical, software and battery systems and compare them to traditional gasoline-fueled cars.

Regardless of federal policy changes, “We’ve got to move forward, of course,” Smith said.

Monday, the president signed an executive order promising to eliminate an EV “mandate,” referring to President Joe Biden's target for 50% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. by 2030 to be electric and Environmental Protection Agency action to slash planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles over the coming years. The policies never required automakers to sell electric vehicles or consumers to buy them.

A motorist charges his electric vehicle at a Tesla Supercharger station in Detroit, Nov. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

President Trump's order indicates he will roll back those pollution rules. Perhaps more important to some consumers, he is likely to seek repeal of a $7,500 tax credit for new EV purchases. He already paused billions of dollars in funding allocated for EV charging stations.

Stellantis, the manufacturer of Jeep and Ram, said in a statement it is “well positioned to adapt to the policy changes enacted by the new Administration” and that it looks forward to working with the president. Ford had no comment on the changes, and a GM spokesperson did not comment.

Already, the EV industry broadly has faced headwinds. Some automakers have pulled backplans to go electric, and though EVs accounted for 8.1% of new vehicle sales in the U.S. in 2024, the pace of the sales growth slowed from the year before, according to Motorintelligence.com. While EVs are getting more affordable, they still cost more up front than a car that runs on gasoline.

At the nonprofit Eastern Michigan Electric Automobile Association, president Bruce Westlake told The Associated Press that customers are coming in with the desire to clean up the environment. But that demand could dampen with less federal support for EVs and clean energy broadly.

U.S. automakers “may find themselves in a position they can’t recover from where they are making what the market doesn’t want,” Westlake added.

“The Michigan EV industry is caught between building vehicles that are profitable now," he said, referring to gasoline cars, at the cost of having EVs ready for the future. “I believe that initial investments will mostly be lost.”

Another Detroit-based company, Plug Zen, focuses on EV charging for companies that have fleets of cars and trucks. Eventually it wants to put chargers at workplaces and multi-family housing where charging can be very hard.

“I’m having a wait and see approach when it comes to Michigan and how all those things are going to pan out,” CEO Q Johnson told the AP. He regularly works with people in the Michigan EV industry, and said he doesn’t expect them to dramatically change direction.

Why? “We’re determined not to be left behind."

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Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter.

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