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continues. host: joining us from seattle is amy joining us from seattle, washington is amy harder, she's ayo columnist for axios.com. thank you for being with us.host >> it's great to be here, thank you so much. >> let me begin with your piece at anaxios.com.uxury. you make the point, most driverf of electric cars are wealthy and most electric cars are a luxury you add to combat climate change the opposite needs to be true. explain. >> to combat climate change we need everybody, most parts of the world to live their lives ie a cleaner way. and so, if it's just the wealthl

that are able to drive cleaner cars and that's going to be a in smaller slice of the population and therefore we won't reduce emissions. so s in order to really reduce emissions in the transportation sector in the united states, , h which by the way is the largest emitteder of -- largest sector , of green house gas emitting in a the united states then weble, ns electricee cars to be available affordable and appealable to all types of people.led we're seeing it now but still ao lot of hurdles that remain. >> this is the website called fe plugshare.com and if you have an electric vehicle you can go to this map and figure out where you can plug in your vehicle. it's a breakdown not only stateo by state but community by community. crw are weravel doing in terms thisos necessity of being able plug in your car as you're traveling from home to work or cross country? >> well, it's definitely n plac.

improving, you know, over the last decade there's been so many more charging stations put in place, largely due to private competition.his in so that's one big thing that the biden administration is hoping to doo with the infrastructure n plan, the president is proposing $174 billion into electric vehicle infrastructure, a lot of which would be public charging. it's not just about public who charging. it's also about making sure people can afford to put charging stations where they live. so two challenges there when it comes to lower income people.n the first one is it can be to ay axpensive to buy the faster charger. so you can actually plug in your car into any outlet but that s t takes a more than a day. in so there's that challenge. bui and then the second one is that a lot of lower income people bii live in apartment buildings thal don't have charging capabilities so those are two key hurdles in addition to the price concern that i'm seeing in the market.t. >> we read your work at

axios.com now with break through energy, which is what? >> break through energy is a wao network foundedun by bill gates that we're supporting the move to clean energy through a brou variety of differentgh programs that includes investment inclu vehicles, other programs, and they brought me on to launch a new journalistic challenge, and this electric car challenge is one key, and we need to bring rr the cost down of the green clesa energy. he calls itre the green premium. actually, we're further along oh electric vehicles than we are oc other things like cements and steel. i chose touse it focus on elect vehicles in my axios column because it's one of the most common ways that individual people face a decision that could have an impact on climatee change. a c

whereas an individual can't buyd green cement, let alone even thinking about it, but a car iss something that n we interface wh every day. costttrdo. of all of these technologies need to come down and that's a big thing we're trying to do at breakthrough energy. >> the issue of electric cars and clean energy came up at an event in wisconsin with vice president kamala harris we coveredable t for the c-span ne. here's a portion.lobal >> we must be able to compete. o this is about where we stand int the i global order of things, y, but it is also about an see wh investment in our ability as americans to always have had the ability to see what can be unburdened by what has been. it is about what we must and can do to pursue innovation for theg sake of making things better for american families, making things easier for american families ani

creating jobs. and then the sustainable energy research that's's happening on microgrids and batteries. that's the kind of work that is happening here.eling whenfr i was there, someone sai well, how are auto workers e don feeling about this? well, the uaw is supporting what we are doing, because this is going to be an investment by oug government that also will make us. -- it is our goal -- the leading manufacturer of electric vehicles as a country. i recently visited one of the leaders on electric school buses. >> that was vice president hat kamala harris and there is this tweet from jan saying, i saw a story this morning that the competitor of tesla had the pre first add-on -- ad on "snl" for.

their electric car. elon musk hoelsed the show. the cars cost $77,000, it was reported. if you purchase,0 a00 $ new com car, on average $22,500. a hybrid $27,000 on average, a minivan, $41,000, electric vehicle $53,000 and a full-sized pickup truck, $55,000. trying your comment? >> i watched "snl" as well and i counted at least three electric vehicle commercials. clearly elon musk's competitors are trying to reach "snl" fans. i talked to mr. davis in the transportation department and he shared with me that 11 batteries for the electric vehicles, eachn of those 11 are considered

luxury vehicles.. so the prices for now are goingt up.es t and there's two reasonso for that. one, experts i talk to say that, for now there continues to be eo competition for the luxury car driver, and so you're seeing otople come out there. the second reason is that as automakers, general motors and s others, are really having make a aggressive electric vehicle goals that eventually they need to be able to sell -- make a profit on each individual car.ia so if they want to produce them on a mass and sell them on a mass scale, they need to increase the prices in order to do that, because right now they've been selling these cars at a loss. that is not something that's very comforting to the average consumer but is, nonetheless, the case.e. now, other experts that i talk to emphasize they do anticipate prices to become more affordable. now, whether that means electric

vehicles will grow out of a slower pace that eventually needs some parody with gasoline engine cars as opposed to -- i don't necessarily expect the prices to go down much, in part because automakers are constantly innovating and they u want top. keep adding all these bells and whistles to their cars, so, therefore, we can expect the prices to go up.y we the prices of traditional cars are also going up, so there is that challenge as well. hopefully we start to see that. for now we're still seeing these $70,000, $80,000 cars that are electric, and it's not feasible for most people. on th i would also emphasize that lower income people buy used ill cars, so the more affordable electric cars that get on the market, eventually those will cycle into the used car market a as well.uld >> some information from the white house regarding these electric vehicles in part fortunate administration's anergy incean-madeelecplan, it consumers a rebate and tax

incentives to buy american-made electric vehicles. fight it would also give incentive to build 500,000 electric vehicle chargers by 2030. it wasie electrify at least 20%d of school buses, and electry fi1 the federal fleet, including usps. if you ownar anan electric vehicle, we would loveond, to hear from . we'll go to kenneth who is joining us from diamond, do yo missouri.electr good morning. >> ms. harder, where do you think we'll get the electricity from? you cannot get it from solar and wind, so all these big ic car electronics, -- or electric stu is going to be used, electric

cars, electric trucks, electrice this and that.-- whe you cannot -- you don't have tht grid to do it with. answer me this. where are you going to get the extra electricity without k you straining theve grid, without blackouts and brownouts all over the united states? thank you very much. >> thank you, ken. >> the listener raises a lot of good questions. electri i'll answer it in two parts. the first is, of course, an electric car is only as clean as where the electricity is coming from. i will say, though, that studies have found that in most scenarios an electric car, even if it's a mix of coal and ut of natural gas, it's still a cleaner gasoline engine becausee there is no particulate coming out the tailpipe. it's easier to make the electricity grid cleaner and i

then turn -- and then have a lot of other industries like cars depend on that. as opposed to making the liquid fuel cleaner for each individual vehicle. so there'sportan that. but then the listener raises a e very important question about g the reliability of the grid. we've seen some dire d consequences when the grid is not stable inin texas and elect california, and there are very t complicated reasons for why that is. it's not because there's too many electric cars being charged because there's not that many electric cars onnsu the road to. but over time if president bidet needother politicians succeed in their climate goals, the amount of electricity demand that we have is going to grow significantly. so, yes, there needs to be really careful policy put in place here, you know, and i hope that happens. there is always a concern that there's not enough comprehensivn planning, but that's definitely something thatmake i know is on

biden administration's mind, and we have to make sure there is a lot of, you know, extra resources available, including a lot more power lines, keeping rs existing eco power plants open in certain parts of the country, particularly the midwest, to make sure there is enough uick f electricity sool everyone can b charging their cars andru keepi their lights on. >> quick follow-up from russ in texas with this text message directed at you. is there new battery technology in the pipeline that can help bring electric transportation to full use? adding lithium sources are not enough to supply full auto production for the world. >> i think as the other parts of the world use more electric vehicles, the question is where the critical minerals for making these batteries are coming from. you showed the clip of vice president kamala harris earlier of trying to beat china at this game. i hate to say it, but china is

far in the lead right now, so we have a lot of making up to do. you know, whether you think china is a good partner or not, china has done an amazing job of dropping the prices of solar energy in particular, so they're also doing the same thing with electric vehicles. i think one challenge that the u.s. will have will be to try to be tough on china, but if china is going to offer the most affordable vehicle, that will be appealing as well. and so where these sources come from for the batteries is going to be critical as well, and i think that's something else the biden administration is trying to support, is domestic production of some of these minerals. but it can be very difficult to get any sort of industrial facility built in the united states anymore, considering a lot of opposition to that, but i think it's going to be critical in order for us to have some sort of success rate at competing with china. >> we're talking with amy