oral arguments. our live interactive morning program washington journal where we hear your voices every day. c-span now has you covered. download the app for free today. c-span shop.org, because tluroy collection of products, apparel, books, home decor and accessories. there is something for every c-span fan. and every purchase supports or nonprofit operation. shop now or any time at c-spanshop.org. >> jeff gilbert joins us now via zoom from wwj news radio 950 in detroit as well as wwj tv. good morning to you. president biden is going to be in the motor city today as he tens this tour to tout the

$1.2 trillion infrastructure law. where is he headed in detroit, who is he talking to. >> he's headed to an interesting factor in detroit, it is a gm factory that they have renamed factory zero. it is start of gm's big ev push. now this particular factory has been around for over 30 years texas has h been called the detroit ham traffic and it supports a enclave called ham trammic and it made a number of different kinds of vehicles over the years. it was on the closing list until gm and the uaw worked out a deal to reopen it, spend over $2 billion and refurbish it for a new generation of electric vehicles. just to be the official grand opening of that plant. so having a vip there for that grand opening certainly brings a lot of attention to what gm is doing. >> and the president wanted to bring attention to the

investments in the infrastructure law when it comes to electric vehicles. you could run through what is if there for ev? >> the biggest thing in there for ev is a $7.5 billion for charging stations. now there are a number of charging stations out there now. there are also a charging station pulled out by independent commercial vent ires. there is one venture called electrify america that part of the volkswagen cheating segment. so there are a lot of ev stations going up but these will be particularly allocated to underserved areas, for example rural areas where there may not be a commercial reason to put an ev charge there. a company wouldn't necessarily make money with these. but you still need to refuel in places like that if you have evs. so this adds to an infrastructure that is already starting to be built. >> and by the way, we'd love to hear from ev owners in this segment. our phone lines are split in it

segment so call in in the eastern or central time zones and if in the you're in the mountain or pacific time zones. jeff gilbert our guest with wwj news radio. you cover based in detroit cover the automotive industry. where did the industry stand on the infrastructure bill that is now law? did they make any specific policy pushes that didn't make it into the final piece of legislation in. >> well there are a couple of things go on here. they have wanted more charging infrastructure. so that is something that they definitely wanted in this bill and they got in this bill. the other bill that is still being argued about in washington, what president biden called build back better, what carmakers want in that is money for incentives for people buying electric vehicles and that has become a major political hot potato as to how to do that. there are currently incentives

but they run out and start to phase out after you sell over 200,000 electric vehicles to gm and tesla don't get incentives. the competitors get a bit of a advantage there. this bill would continue with that but it would also expand with extras for american made evs and extras for union made evs and as you could imagine some of the electric start-ups like tesla don't like that idea, the transplants, they are called toyota, honda, other companies that are foreign but are making vehicles in the u.s. that are not union built, they don't like that. so that union built part of it, the extra incentive, there is a big debate on that in washington. it is still in the current bill, but we don't know for sure if it will last, if it will pass. >> a snapshot of the u.s. electric vehicle market in the united states. here is where sales were in the third quarter of this year. this from cox auto.

107,000 evs sold in the third quarter. tesla a accounted for about 70% of all ev sales. evs, hybrids and the so-called plug-in hybrids accounted for 10.4% of total vehicle sales in the third quarter in the united states this year. so, jeff gilbert, explain where that -- those numbers are headed, how big of a difference that was from maybe a year ago at this time? >> yeah, and you've got to break down the numbers even further. because that is all electrified vehicles. it includes hybrids an plug-in hybrids. the pure battery electric vehicle segment is only about 2% right now. but it was about 1% last year. and up until the past year it is been all tesla and maybe the chevy volt. and now you have the ford mustang mach e coming in and you have a small segment and a lot of growth and analysts are divided on where the growth will be and what the public market will be for evs but i can tell

you there is a lot of them coming. saw president biden driving the ford f-150 lightning when he was at ford plant here. all of the rumors are he's going to drive an electric hummer at the gm plant because that is the first vehicle being made there that is a pickup truck, a gm branded vehicle bringing back the hummer name. you have new start-ups, rivian, ufr talked about them and the lucid had the motor trend car of the year with their vehicle and cadillac has a an ev and daimler, they have evs coming and they'll have a dodge muscle car. volkswagen has the iv-4. coy go on with a laundry list of them. as you could see, next year or two we're going to see a lot of electric vehicles an the big question is there is a market for them. >> aand president biden believes there will be. his executive order from earlier this year on clean cars and trucks just want to read from

it. that order saying america must lead the world on clean and efficient cars an trucks and that means bolstering our domestic market by setting a goal that is 50% of all new passenger cars an light trucks sold in the year 2030 but zero emission vehicles including battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric and fuel cell electric vehicles. is the industry ready to meet a goal like that? >> the operative word there is goal and if you listen to gm, they have the operative word as aspire. they aspire to be all electric by 2035. people are using words like that because we don't know what the market is. obviously with incentives that will help get the price down. the other issue as your guest talked about earlier is recharging. there are pluses and minuses for recharging. the great thing is that if you only drive around your neighborhood and make short trips you never have to visit the public charger. you could do that in the garage. the negative is the time it could take to charge and the

inconvenience on the road. it is still not up to the speed of a gasoline fillup. so i could tell you right now that the industry is making some pretty exciting vehicles, they're going to be making some pretty affordable electric vehicles, the question is are people going to buy them and that is still an open question. i can't give you an answer there. >> several callers for you already. norman out of florida is up first in this segment. it is wesley chapel, florida. good morning. >> yes, good morning. i have a question. i mean, i like the idea of electric cars, my question is when we travel now, if we pull into to get gas, sometimes there is three or four cars ahead of us. well, we might be half an hour before we get the gas.

now the electric vehicle takes three to four hours for a charge. i would sit there 16 hours before i could continue on to my trip. that's my biggest concern with it. i don't see how as much traffic as we have -- you could put a charge station every mile. but you're going to have people backed up waiting for the charge. >> we'll take the point. jeff gilbert. >> and that is a legitimate question. and the honest answer is, right now it is not a problem because there aren't a lot of electric vehicles out there. that could become a problem if there are a number of electric vehicles and the industry has to come to grips with that. right now you have a number of types of chargers.

i test drive a lot of vehicles and i have a ford mustang mach e i'm test driving and i don't have a 220, 230 volt charger at home i have to plug into a wall socket and it takes forever. it is like filling up a water glass with an eye dropper. so first you need a higher capacity charger at home. second, if you go on the road, those higher capacity chargers can charge in several hours not ten or 11 hours and then there are high speed chargers that could get you up to about 80% in half an hour. that is still not very convenience. but the question becomes how many of these do we need, how many people are going to be charging on the road. so you are there go -- are there going to be back-ups but the other issue is car mike makers and suppliers are working on new technology. a company out of switzerland claimed they've been able to get charging down to a reasonable time where it is competitive with gasoline fillups.

i don't know if that is proven yet in the real world but a lot of people are working on the issue. but for now, it is a significant issue. and a lot of people i know in the industry took some evs, michigan if you take a look at the state, everyone carries a map of michigan with them but up north from detroit is an area a lot of people like to visit in the summer. well a lot of people took evs on demonstration trips up north and put on social media their problem in finding chargers, the problems in waiting for chargers, getting to charging stations today where somebody who doesn't have an electric car parked there because they needed a parking space. so these are issues that will have to shake out. >> lake havasu city, arizona. this is bobby. >> this is bobby. >> sorry about that. go ahead. >> no problem. hey, my problem and dead jones,

i travel from michigan to arizona and when i get to new mexico and i needed cars, is there going to be a charger there? >> well that was the entire purpose of this infrastructure bill. was to try to put chargers in more of those locations. particularly the dead zones. let's face it, you don't really need the government to put chargers, electric car charging stations in southern california, where there are a lot of people and vehicles and a lot of incentive for a company to put a charging station in there and make money. where you need to -- >> now to the dirk sorn senate office build for a hearing on trade, travel and security on the u.s./mexico border. senator kyrsten sinema is the chair of the subcommittee hearing. >> i call the hearing to order. [