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>> comcast is partnering with community centers so students from low income families can get the tools they need to get ready for anything. >>omcast supports c-span as a public service along with these television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. host: jeff gilbert covers the auto industry out of detroit. joining us to talk about the latest when it comes to the tentative deal with the united autoworkers strike and what it could mean for the future of electric vehicles. welcome back to the program. guest: thanks for having me. host: can you talk about the factors that led to the resolve of it? guest: the resolution of it, it was a long strike but interesting strike because it didn't involve every auto plant but spread out among the three carmakers, so you could see the u.a.w. raising the pressure as the strike went on.

as the strike went on. the end came when the union struck the most profitable plants for all three carmakers and you could kind of see that that was a last effort to rest every last concession they could. finally, the agreements came in rapid succession. a week ago today, they said it was stellantis, the maker of chrysler jeep over the weekend, and then with general motors on monday. host: stellantis, one of the headlines today said that they estimate $3.2 billion lost during the worker strike and you say that is a factor in the results with the union. guest: that actually is inaccurate because that is $3 billion in revenue, not an actual profits loss, so it was not apples to oranges. they said it was $175 million in terms of profits lost, so stellantis ended up losing more than ford and gm, which was over $1 billion. host: but ultimately, losses are

the thing that drove some type of resolve. guest: absolutely. it did seem to be the union strategy all along. it was to put this on similar to begin with, and let the negotiations continue while carmakers were hurting a little bit and then bring it up to a low boil and then finally to a raging boil when they took out ford's kentucky plant, it's most profitable, followed a week or so later by the big plant here in suburban detroit for stellantis and then general motors, arlington, texas, plant, which makes big suvs, so the pressure was really on. host: what do the workers game? guest: very large pay increases. that was at the center, not just 25%, but they brought back cost-of-living, so that right there was the center, and then they expanded from there, where

more workers will get the full pay because some plans have lower pay than workers and other plants, and that was not entirely eliminated, but it changed quite a bit, where more workers are going to make that pay, and they also newly hired workers. it used to take them longer to get to full pay, and allie will get there in three years. they also added job security provisions. for example, if one of the carmakers would like to close a plant, the workers can strike. while the union did not get the pensions they wanted, they did get their 401(k) style pensions. host: this is what president biden had to say after it was done and said, he said i applaud uaw and general motors are coming together after a hard-fought negotiations to reach a historic agreement. this historic contract is a testament to the powunions

and collective bargaining. while building strong middle-class jobs all helping the economy drive. a final word will come from uaw members itself in the days and weeks to come. let's focus on that, now that the offer has been made, where you think the workers are in finalizing? guest: i think everybody you talk to has a feeling the workers will vote on this. it is one of the most generous contracts they have ever received and if you take a look at it, a lot of workers have been out for seven weeks plus, everybody is going back to their jobs now, so i don't think they are anxious to return and, you know, a lot of the workers are saying, do one to take this or go back on the picket lines in the winter? i would expect a pretty easy ratification. host: if you would like to ask our guest about what we talked about when it comes to the autoworkers, we will get to a on electric vehicles, (202)-748-8000 for the eastern and central time zones. (202)-748-8001 for the mountain

and pacific time zone, and (202)-748-8002 for electric vehicle owners in the audience if you would like to add on to this and give your perspective. you can also text us at (202)-748-8003. mr. gilbert, how much did electric vehicles factor overall into the issues over the last several weeks? guest: there was a direct and indirect factor. we start with the indirect, the concern that ev's might need fewer people to build on that factored into the equation. the direct factor was all of the car companies are building plans that are going to make batteries, and going into the talks, they said, these are joint ventures, technically separate companies and you have to negotiate with a separate company. it appears the union and all three companies has won the ability to put that into their master bargaining agreement so when they negotiate a contract

again in four .5 years, it will also include battery plants. they also got an easier path to unionizing those plants, and they were able to get provisions, and we assume that if a worker from an assembly plant loses their job, they can transfer to a battery plant, and even if that has a contract, that worker will not make less pay. host: so the topic of electric vehicles themselves, there was a headline recently from cnbc, about ford, saying they plan to postpone about 12 billion investments in ev's. and they say that they have to become more cautious. what does that being overall for their comfort level as it stands today? guest: this is an industrywide issue and we are in the situation where we are the early adopters, so people really eager for ev's, for the most part, have purchased one, so now you

have to tell customers why i should buy an electric over a gasoline powered and that's more difficult. adding to that, there are more ev's on the market. not only are there more models, but ford has been able to ramp up production of its f-150 lightning and others, so there are more out there and the car companies have found that it has not been as easy as they first thought for the cost of making them. everyone is looking at this and going, yeah, i think a world is still on a move toward ev's but let's slow down and let's let the market catch up. host: when it comes to the cost of build, what are some concerns car companies are expressing? guest: a biggest cost was battery costs and they hope to get them down more so than they thought. other costs is going to be labor costs because they will have to pay workers more than they thought they would have to, and you have got, you know, ford,

general motors and stellantis paying union wages and they use to, look, we are paying more than transplants, the japanese and european carmakers, and now they are saying, we are paying a lot more than tesla's pain. so they have tesla breathing down their neck where they have many price cuts this year, and are not making money on ev's and they have to make cuts to match tesla, but ford says they will lose more than $4 billion on electric vehicles this year, money invested to make money in the future, but it is getting further and further away it seems. host: you talked about early adopters. what are ev's sales like compared to gasoline powered cars? guest: roughly the 6% to 7% range of all sales and has been climbing. there was a little worried it might plateau, but if you look

within the sales numbers, you have a number of really hot ev markets, california, florida, east coast, and then you delve into those markets in areas like san francisco, los angeles, seattle, those places you have well into double digits ev penetration, where you get north dakota, oklahoma, places like that where people are saying, what is an electric vehicle? host: we will continue our discussion but we have calls lined up for you. roland in detroit, you are on with jeff gilbert with wwj newsradio. go ahead. caller: thank you. hi, jeff. guest: hey, roland. caller: i think that vehicles are one of america's biggest addictions. there are too many cars everywhere. look at california, on the freeways and as far as the ev

thing goes, these cars, you will have to go to a training program to figure out how to operate them and they will be vehicles for the elite and rich regular people not of how to afford them. i used to be an autoworker and i worked for four months at ford and i thought it was something out of a slave camp. the auto industry needs to redo the whole thing. there are too many cars, we need to get more into public transportation. host: we will start with the first point as far as the addiction to cars in the u.s.

versus the desire -- i know from the administration and others, for more public transportation. guest: roland lives here in detroit, anybody who lives in this area, this is an area with little public transportation. you have buses, one light rail and one elevated rail line, and it is a motor city so it was designed with freeways for people to drive, so that is an issue that is above my pay grade , a government kind of issue. you talk about ev's and learning how to operate them, but i have driven a lot and there is a learning curve was charging but it is fairly small and they drove like any other vehicle. the other issue he had with them being for the elite, that goes back to what we were talking about earlier, they are more expensive to make. rewind your brain another 10 to 12 years ago, a lot of people try to bring out these little electric city shows things that

were roughly the size of a smart car. most americans do not want to buy those i do not want something cheap to seats and in ev would cost assume is a compact gasoline car. it has been difficult for carmakers to get an affordable ev. gm and honda scrapped a joint development project last week to make electric vehicles in the $20,000 to $25,000 range because he said he could not figure out a way to do it and still make money. host: this is from everett in colorado, you are on with our guest. caller: hello, how are you? i have a couple comments. when people strike, basically it is a dog chasing its tail. they have to raise the price on

whatever product they are trying to get an increase in their wages. it has been about one week ago that i striking -- by striking, it was going to raise the price on the average about $900. i would like you to refer to one thing, years ago in 2002, there is an article by nasser that had an invention that would completely clone the exhaust on gasoline driven vehicles and even diesels. i don't know what happened to this, but it saved money and did not use as many precious metals, and it worked all the time.

existing catalytic converters have to wait until a car warms up to proper temperature. guest: a couple of things, first, i get a lot of times when people hear figures they don't quite understand them. ford said the last week that the settlement is going to increase zero labor costs between 850 and $900 in a vehicle. whether that will increase the cost of the vehicle depends on a number of things. most importantly, the market. vehicles are price based on what the car company believes people will pay for them, not necessarily what it costs the carmaker to make them, so a very exciting vehicle will be priced well above what it costs to make. a vehicle that is a failure in the marketplace will be sold at a loss, so that is how that works, and the car companies are scrambling right now to figure out, ok, how do i get that 850

to $900 out of my overall cost because i still have to price vehicles based on what my competitor is selling the mat, not necessarily, here is the cost, let me throw it onto consumers. carmakers would love it if they can pass every cost onto consumers, but that is not the real world. other question is, i think i might know what you are talking about but i am not 100% sure when they talked about nasa, maybe we are talking about fuel cells, which are hydrogen powered, which carmakers are working on, but any time you read a story about a new breakthrough, realized that, ok, the breakthrough has been discovered, and then it has to be determined, can this be repeated by over 60 million vehicles that will be built in the u.s. alone every year? can it be done in a way that it can be accepted and can make money? there are a lot of ideas you

read about but when it goes through development stages, there were something wrong, and it works for one or two vehicles, but it does not work for master adoption. host: on sunday, the uaw president in a press conference talked about the car industry's transition to electric vehicles and how that looms over the talks with the automakers. i would like to play what he had to say and talk about it. [video clip] >> everything we gain in this agreement is only as good as our job security. in this round of negotiations, we said we would make sure our jobs were protected in every way possible. we want a historic victory that for years follows the possible. we want the right to strike over plant closures. that means of ford starts closing a plant, we have the right to strike the entire company. that is our most powerful tool

against companies trying to kill our jobs and got our communities -- gut our communities. we know the electric vehicle transition is a pivotal moment for our union. we have said for months we refused to allow the ev transition to become a race to the bottom. corporate america is not going to force us to choose between good jobs and green jobs. that is a false choice. [end video clip] host: if you could put some context to that please. guest: we talked about that a little earlier on the ev battery plants, integrally at ford. ford had been pushing back earlier, saying, we don't even know what the situation is going to be. so what ford has agreed to is that they are building two and possibly three ev plants, more could be coming, and the uaw will be allowed to organize those by what is called car

jackets. the majority of people who want to be with the uaw, they will be there, and they will be under the master agreement when that happens, so they will be negotiated as ford plants, not as ford joint ventures, which is what ford wanted. finally, if, for example, ford decides it no longer needs to transition as many people as possible and a transmission plant and they would like to transfer them to a battery plant and they make lower wages, well, those workers will go to the pay they made before and not the newer wage. host: (202)-748-8000, eastern and central time zones. (202)-748-8001 mountain and pacific time zones. electric vehicle owner, (202)-748-8002. alex is next in detroit. caller: good morning. i want to talk about i am the son of a great migration guy, my

dad, in the 1950's. moved to michigan, got a job, and i got a job for gm, became a skilled tradesmen, i family did really, well, and my family is really well off as we speak. and people need to realize that as an auto worker, we really form the middle class, and it is disheartening to hear some of the negative stuff, not necessarily on the phone calls, but what people say about the golden parachutes and all the stuff that is just not true. the fact of it is, when i first heard -- i have been retired about maybe 15 years, and i heard some newscasters interviewing people who worked for gm, ford, etc., and i was shocked.

there is no way being out of the plant 15 years that somebody here still was not making $20 an hour. i could not believe that. that is the 1980 something wage. host: thank you. what he brings up is one of the points contract that because there is so much that has not been discussed, it is temporary workers. the car workers obviously need flexibility. when you have tens of thousands working for you, that means the number of people are going to be absent on a given day, people will have leaves, vacations, so they need temporary workers, and the temporary workers are the ones he was talking about at $20 an hour. those people got past full-time job, and that was a big win for the unions, and understand that

there are some people who worked for the uaw who were not in vehicle assembly but worked at components plants, part depot centers and other places, where their pay is substantially lower. when all of the raises are factored in, at the end of the contract, the average automaker makes over $40 an hour. it does pave the way to a good middle-class income. host: on that front, there is a viewer off of x saying with the new agreements with the union, how much will it increase for the price of the average car? and then what are the sales goals on ev's? guest: are they meeting their sales goals? i was about to say yes, and then he added on ev's. so sales of pickup trucks, utilities have been off the rails, and the ev question is one that there is a lot of fuzzy ma