Republicans And China Are Allied Against Biden’s EV Policy

Happy Thursday! It’s December 7, 2023, and this is The Morning Shift — your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, all in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.

1st Gear: China Is Fighting New U.S. EV Regulations…

The U.S. wants to transition to electric vehicles, in hopes of mitigating the climate catastrophe that will soon kill us all. While doing so, though, our esteemed government officials want to ensure that only the Good Guys™ profit off those EVs. They’ll be damned if any freedom-hating commies make a few bucks. From Reuters:

China said on Thursday that Biden administration plans to limit Chinese content in batteries eligible for generous electric vehicle tax credits from next year violate international trade norms and will disrupt global supply chains.

The plans will make investors in the U.S. electric vehicle (EV) supply chain ineligible for tax credits should they use more than a trace amount of critical materials from China, or other countries deemed a “Foreign Entity of Concern” (FEOC).

“Targeting Chinese enterprises by excluding their products from a subsidy’s scope is typical non-market orientated policy,” said He Yadong, a commerce ministry spokesperson.

“Many World Trade Organization members, including China, have expressed concern about the discriminatory policy of the U.S., which violates the WTO’s basic principles,” he said.

China’s dominant position in the global battery supply chain has prompted United States and European officials to take action over fears that cheap Chinese EVs could flood their markets.

Oh no! Cheap EVs! The horror! What ever would we do, if Americans had access to practical low-cost transport that had fewer adverse effects on the planet? Thank you, Mister President Joe Biden Sir, for protecting us from such unspeakable evils.

2nd Gear: …And So Are Congressional Republicans

What was it that Mr. Burns said? Negotiations make strange bedfellows? Well, that seems to be the case here, where both China and congressional Republicans are fighting Biden’s EV regulations. Sure, the two are coming at it from different angles, but you know what they say about the enemy of your enemy. From Reuters:

The Republican-led House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to bar the Biden administration from moving forward with stringent vehicle emissions regulations that would result in 67% of new vehicles being electric by 2032.

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The 221 to 197 vote, which included five Democrats joining 216 Republicans, drew a veto threat from the White House, which said it would “catastrophically impair” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to issue automotive regulations.

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The EPA said in April the proposed 2027 to 2032 standards would cut emissions by 56% compared to the existing 2026 requirements, or 13% annual average pollution cuts.

The agency projects the rules would cut more than 9 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions through 2055 – equivalent to more than twice total U.S. CO2 emissions last year. Final rules are expected early next year.

The original Reuters story includes a quote from a Republican, who said that “Washington should not discount … the internal combustion engine.” I’m waiting to see when we start getting legislation encouraging the re-introduction of asbestos and lead paint.

3rd Gear: GM’s Cruise Is At An “All-Time Low”

Things have not been going great for Cruise recently. Your cars drag one woman around on the pavement, and suddenly people are saying they’re “unsafe” — is that fair? Yes. Yes it is. From Automotive News:

General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit has hit an “all time low,” said its new leader, while promising to restore trust with regulators and the public after the company pulled all of its vehicles from U.S. roads.

“Our integrity, our competency are being questioned and this really hurts,” said Mo Elshenawy at an all-staff meeting Tuesday, according to a transcript of the call reviewed by Reuters. “We went from an all-time high to an all-time low and from being an industry leader to temporary pausing all of our operations,” he said.

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“This last week a Cruiser shared with me that they don’t wear their Cruise jacket in public anymore,” said Elshenawy. “It truly breaks my heart.”

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“We now know that we need to be significantly better than human performance and significantly better across a much wider spectrum of use cases and edge cases,” he said.

Did Cruise not realize its tech had to be an improvement over human drivers before? Isn’t that the entire goal of autonomous vehicles, to prevent the kinds of accidents that human drivers get into? As an aside, is Cruise aware that using specific clothing to identify oneself as a “Cruiser” has already been done?

4th Gear: Scout Motors Gets Itself A CTO

Scout, as revived by Volkswagen, is gearing up to compete with all the Broncos and Wranglers you see on a daily basis. Unsurprisingly, this takes some engineering — the segment is all about off-road prowess, so your vehicle needs to work as good as it looks if you want the bragging rights. Scout’s latest hire seems to be in charge of all that. From Automotive News:

Scout Motors has added another key executive with ties to Volkswagen Group as the electric vehicle brand continues to build out its management team.

Burkhard Huhnke joined Scout as its chief technical officer in November. Huhnke, 56, reports to Scout CEO Scott Keogh and leads the brand’s engineering strategy and team, the company said. Scout is set to reveal an SUV and pickup next year.

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“His responsibilities are to engineer and bring these two brilliant products to the road,” Keogh told Automotive News. “He’ll work in partnership with production to make sure everything he’s engineering is buildable.”

Huhnke was most recently chief technology officer at EV brand Fisker, having joined the automaker in 2020.

It’s interesting that we’ve seen so much of the Scout already, yet the company is only now getting someone to lead its engineering team. I guess concept cars don’t really need to be engineered beyond their own structural integrity — they don’t have to work — but the order of operations still seems off.

Reverse: Who Doesn’t Love A Heist?