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Aug. 17, 2025 | Bonus Episode: Congresswoman Haley Stevens Part II

Aug. 17, 2025 | Bonus Episode: Congresswoman Haley Stevens Part II

Automotive News Daily Drive Aug 17, 2025 12 min
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About this episode

Congresswoman Haley Stevens discusses critical issues surrounding electric vehicle (EV) adoption and U.S. supply chain security in her conversation with Molly Boygon. She emphasizes the need for a balanced approach to EV incentives, acknowledging consumer preferences for various vehicle types. Stevens also addresses the complexities of U.S.-China relations and the importance of protecting American manufacturing. Her insights on the auto industry’s past crises and the necessity for ongoing dialogue with manufacturers highlight the challenges and opportunities ahead for policymakers and the automotive sector.

Topics: electric vehicle policy supply chain security U.S.-China relations manufacturing policy consumer preferences national security auto industry challenges bipartisan cooperation
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Hey, it's daily drive executive producer Jake Nier here in Detroit.
On today's bonus episode, we'll hear the second and final part of our own Molly
Boygon's interview with US Congresswoman Haley Stevens.
We ran the first part of this conversation with the Michigan Democrat on Monday's episode
of Daily Drive.
If you haven't heard that yet, go back and check it out.
In this part of the interview, Molly talks with Congresswoman Stevens about President
Biden's push for EV adoption, as well as how to protect the US from Chinese threats
while also maintaining a strong and adaptable supply chain.
You've said that the Trump administration's tariff policy doesn't really acknowledge the
complexity of this interwoven supply chain.
I feel that the government has a very unique challenge in trying to navigate that reality
while also, as you say, preventing the national security threats associated with
supply chain reliance on foreign adversaries.
In particular, I want to ask you about this in regards to the Department of Commerce's
rule prohibiting hardware and software from China or Russia, because people in the industry
have told me that also, despite its good national security intention, does not acknowledge the
reality of navigating those supply chain challenges.
How would you respond to that?
Yeah.
Look, it's a national security issue for sure.
And last term in Congress and this term, I've been serving on the Select Committee
on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
And I will tell you firsthand, sitting down with chip designers, particularly ARM, and
their very, very rich history in this industry that they shared that we cannot allow open
source microchips and software coming in from China and certainly not from Russia.
And so the Department of Commerce has been utilized in the past on this, seen those
steps being taken and continue to be taken.
That's a good example of the way in which we can use our federal government.
I don't think you need to fire all the long-term civil servants to achieve that goal.
But this is, again, part of the reason why I introduced the No Chinese Cars Act to
continue to secure our American industry and our American supply chain.
Because, again, in China, communist China, it's all vertical and it's all state-owned.
And we do know that we have automakers who aren't necessarily the original equipment manufacturers
who are a part of the supply chain, who are still doing business based over in China.
And they'll tell you a different story.
We as policy makers also need to understand, though, that we need a level playing field.
And so my entire career has been based on protecting Michigan manufacturing and Michigan
workers and the steps that we can take in that direction, the co-investment, the healthy
working alongside of our allies and, frankly, putting up some guardrails around China are
all steps in that direction.
Let's turn for a moment to electric vehicle policy.
To what extent do you think that the Biden administration was overzealous in incentivizing
the electric vehicle transition?
Well, look, I'd actually turn that question back around to where I sit as a policy maker,
which is automakers need to sell cars and Michiganders need to have freedom of choice
in terms of what kind of car they need to drive.
And frankly, this narrative about policy makers driving the entire conversation misses that
General Motors over and over and over again said that they were going to net zero
emissions by 2030 and certainly with things that I, you know, have worked on in the past
alongside our auto industry, I as a policy maker only want to continue to set an environment
where the free market thrives for the American consumer.
And we want to see affordability.
We want to see more money in people's pocketbooks.
And we want to have honest conversations about what is actually going on in our American auto
industry.
15 years ago, there were some early investments that were being made in new technologies.
The market wasn't ready to adopt them.
They went over to China.
And then everyone, you know, 12, 13 years later has a cow went, were, you know,
left holding the bag and don't have those mature types of technologies here in the United States.
And yes, some of that is in the battery space.
Obviously not all of that went to China.
Some of it was also coming from Korea as well.
But I think one of the things that we can all agree on is that Michiganders, Americans
need to have freedom of choice in terms of the infrastructure in the broader ecosystem
of driving unsafe roadways and having the ability to get where you're going in a reliable
way based on the accessibility of roadways and other systems that's going to rely on
us as policymakers.
But I think that the big three needs to be pretty honest about what they were thinking
they were going to be three years ago versus where they are now.
And look, they'll tell you that they're they're selling a diversity of cars and I personally
just believe it's an all of the above approach.
Look, if I wanted to be in the business of selling cars, I'd be working at a dealership
and there's a lot of great dealerships here in Michigan.
Listen to the car salespeople.
Listen to where the consumers are, you know, connect the dots.
And that's the way that we'll continue to go forward here.
Coming up, we'll hear the final part of Molly Boygan's interview with Congresswoman Haley
Stevens that's next on this bonus episode of Daily Drive.
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You mentioned that an all the above approach is, you know, the way that you would
go and, you know, that is, it does appear that a lot of the automakers are either
delaying or pausing EV projects.
They're, you know, renewing a look at combustion engine vehicle technology.
And, you know, the prediction that I've heard is that the consumer is still really
interested in what consumers may call like a gas guzzler.
And that reminded me of your work on on the presidential task force on the
auto industry because, as you know, that auto industry crisis was in part
prompted by a product mix that was too skewed toward SUVs and pickups and
then, you know, fuel prices spiked and we all know what happened after that.
So how do how do you view the sort of competing pressures that the industry
faces on the one hand to resume work on combustion engine vehicle technology?
And on the other hand and awareness that, you know, gas prices are low right now.
There's also a global market for EVs that's accelerating.
How are you viewing those challenges?
No, that's an incredibly thoughtful question and frankly approach and a
totally right question for a policymaker.
And it speaks to why we have to have elected officials and why I'm proud to
be an elected official at the federal level who is focused on industrial
policy because these market shifts happen and they happen quickly.
I would say that there were a multitude of factors that contributed
to the crisis of 2009.
First and foremost, it started in 08 and it came from the financial markets.
We also had legacy healthcare costs that private industry was totally
saddled with given the lack of available healthcare policy in this country.
This was pre-ACA and I kept asking that question in the early days of the
auto industry like I think this is because we haven't done an affordable
care act and lo and behold, about a decade later, some reports came
out that were really talking about some of the things that shocked the
balance sheets of these companies.
Capital was very, very constrained in 2008, 2009 and that is ultimately what
ended up happening to General Motors and Chrysler but skipping over forward
because they secured some of the capital investments that they needed
in 2007 before the tide rolled out.
And so one of the things and one of the big lessons that we can learn
not only from that but from the time period we're in right now is that
there are quick shifts and that works if you're in the ones and zeros business.
You know, if you're making smartphone apps or things more in the high tech
low capital spend space but for very capital intensive industries that
are requiring and relying on major expensive pieces of equipment and
product lines.
In fact, I was just with Bewell Motors, which is an incredible motor
bike company who I remember from my time on the auto rescue, believe it or not,
because of course we did the auto rescue and then started talking all about
manufacturing policy and Bewell was a subset of Harley and Harley was feeling
the squeeze and so Bewell spun off and now they're just getting going but
they're operating so lean that they're not even they're doing everything
custom by hand, which is beautiful and these motorbikes are incredible and
it was very, very inspiring to spend time with them and there's some work
that I still want to do with them certainly by after after sitting down
with them and they're actually represented by my colleague, Congresswoman
Hillary Scoltan, who's also done some great, great things on their
behalf around some trade policies and well, some lending issues that
they're having with that, you know, at the federal level, but what I'll
say on all this front is that if we are not in rigorous dialogue with
manufacturers, we're not doing it right.
I am just one lawmaker here in the United States of America on behalf
of Michigan and yet I have dedicated my scope of work representing some
of the largest concentration of supplier jobs in the country to
regularly spending time with these businesses, small, midsize, medium
and large to really develop an understanding of what they need from
Congress and to help where I can.
And so that is in many respects a way in which our entire federal
government should be operating and it's we don't want to be in the
finger pointing business and certainly I wasn't trying to place blame on
decisions, but I just remember when I was involved in the lawmaking
process, we do our best lawmaking when we bring all the stakeholder groups
together and that's what's going to be important for our auto industry
going forward with so many changing dynamics and the fact that we need
to win the race against the Chinese Communist Party we need to
make here in America and make from a place called Michigan.
Congresswoman Haley Stevens, thanks so much for joining us on Daily
Drive.
Hey, thanks.
U.S. Representative Haley Stevens spoke with our own Molly Boygon.
As we noted on Monday's show, Congresswoman Stevens is in a
competitive primary for the Democratic nomination for U.S.
Senate.
In the coming weeks, we'll hear from some of the other
candidates in that critical Senate race about their auto
policy perspectives.
Stay tuned for those conversations.
That's all for this bonus episode of Daily Drive.
We'll be back on Monday with a brand new full episode of the show.

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