Jan. 18, 2026 | Bonus Episode: Trump, EVs and state-level incentives

Artificial intelligence dominated CES 2026,

but is the industry's pivot away from EVs,

putting the U.S. at risk?

This slowdown in the U.S.

and this pivot to hybrid and other powertrains,

my concern is, is how far will we fall behind

and how difficult will be for us to catch up

or can we catch up?

On this week's episode of the Automotive News Shift podcast,

EY's George Lenyo joins the show.

He talks about why U.S. automakers

skipped big displays this year,

the shift from EV hype to AI and robotics,

and his concern that the U.S.

is falling behind China in electrification.

I'm Molly Boygon.

Join me on Shift,

available this Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, it's daily drive executive producer Jake Nier in Detroit.

Thanks for joining me on this bonus episode of the show.

Earlier this week, I spoke with Mike Murphy,

CEO of EVs for All America,

about the firm's new polling

that studies political attitudes toward EVs.

It revealed a significant long-term improvement

when it comes to GOP attitudes

toward battery-powered cars and trucks,

with resistance to EVs dropping among Republicans

by 20% over three years.

But in the short term, fewer Republicans said

they were interested in getting one

down five percentage points from a year ago.

If you missed the first part of that conversation,

go check out Wednesday's show.

Here's the rest of my conversation

with Mike Murphy of EVs for All America.

Your data shows only 28% of auto consumers

rate President Trump as a friend of the U.S. auto industry,

while 36% call him a foe.

You know, again, Trump is in Detroit this week

during the auto show.

What does this disconnect mean for automakers

trying to navigate this political landscape?

Yeah, so we asked the question, you know,

is he a good friend?

Is he a sometime friend or is he a foe?

The biggest number was 36% foe.

Sometime friend was 35.

Good friend, which as president,

you want to be over 50, was only 28.

And, you know, we thought we were gonna release

this thing on Wednesday and we thought,

oh, he's coming to Detroit, let's do it Monday.

Maybe, you know, there'll be some discussion of it.

So, and who are we polling again?

These are voters.

They represent two thirds of the presidential electorate.

So who's not in the poll?

People with a family income of 49,000 and below,

which is not a real Trump crowd, by the way.

There's some there.

So if you'd polled everybody,

the numbers would not get any better.

They might get a point or two worse.

So between tariffs and, you know,

the EV constituency among people who say they're,

you know, thinking about possibly

or in the future of getting an EV,

Trump's numbers are terrible,

because they know he's the enemy.

He's got a problem.

Trump has been elected in the past with the idea of,

you know, he behaves badly.

He's kind of a loudmouth,

but he's not part of that Washington back-scratching

establishment and he knows how to run the economy.

Well, now most of the numbers show people

have lost faith in Trump being able to run the economy.

He's more interested in crypto

or invading Venezuela for oil or whatever it might be.

So he's kind of like McDonald's

that no longer makes a hamburger.

That's a big problem.

He's going to have that problem in the midterm elections

and we'll see what happens.

But this is a warning sign,

because the old Trump would have done much better

as a friend of American manufacturing jobs.

And, you know, the truth is we've done a lot on this

and, you know, you can find it on the website.

Most of the factory CapX and new investment

in the last two or three years

has been EV manufacturing,

components and batteries.

Number one, state Georgia, number two, state Michigan.

And a lot of that's going up in smoke now

because Trump's done everything he can

to choke off the demand.

Now, one of our favorite statistics

at the EVsforallamerica.org

or the American EV Jobs Alliance

is 80% of EVs in America are sold in 15 states.

That one jumped right out at me.

Yeah, yeah.

Of the top nine states for EV sales,

six of them have blue state government.

That's why we just got $200 million

in Governor Newsom's budget

to put a new credit on the hood

of every EV you buy in California.

The difference is,

which I think is good for the taxpayers,

it's a conquest credit, first time EV buyers only.

So if you're going back for your fourth EV,

sorry, you know, no money for you, no soup for you.

But if you're a first time buyer,

because the whole idea is to convert people.

If you go from an ICE car to an EV,

we know you're 80% likely to stay.

So this means we're gonna be able to cut

about 100,000 checks of two grand

and maybe match industry incentives for another two grand

for new and used EVs in California.

Where the word of mouth,

even among Republicans on EVs is highest

because we went out of four,

we're selling a lot of EVs here.

So I think of the top 15 EV states, 80% of the market,

there are four or five others

that have blue government and may follow them.

We're even talking to Michigan.

Michigan has a pro EV governor.

Occasionally she's offline a little bit

because UAW leadership's a little too loud

in her ear in my opinion.

Never forget about the UAW.

The people who run it politically

are the older members who've been there forever

and care about five more years of good money

and I'm out of here.

The younger members who want to stay in the auto industry

and not learn Chinese are more pro EV

and the leadership doesn't really reflect them.

But anyway, you got Whitmer, you got the state Senate

and the Democrats who I am generally in my career

never been on the side of voting for

but Trump has made me reassess that.

They're only two seats away in the house from control.

If Michigan goes all blue,

you're seeing EV subsidy here too.

And then we're moving to the red states.

There are red straight governors

like Brian Kemp and Georgia.

Wow, I've got an eight billion dollar Rivian plant coming in.

I got a huge Hyundai plant.

I got battery plants.

The best thing to happen to Georgia since the cotton gin.

I got to be on the wrong side of this.

I don't think so.

The red Republican MAGA governors of Georgia,

Alabama and Mississippi, all of whom have auto plants.

Mercedes and Alabama, a whole bunch of stuff in Mississippi.

They've created a pact with their state universities

to industrialize battery production.

It's run by a Honda guy out of Marysville.

Because they want to make batteries here.

They're not trying to find the new chemistry.

They're leaving that to the Kurt Kelty's of the world at GM.

But they're looking at how do we do the supply chain

to manufacture it here.

Not to catch up with the Chinese, but the leapfrog them.

And it's worth a little Googling.

It's fascinating auto industry thing

that I think Detroit people in that business

will be interested in.

So we're fighting back

and even some red state governors are involved.

So the politics are shifting.

The problem is thawing,

but we need President Trump to see the light a little

and we need people to buy EVs.

Mike Murphy is founder and CEO of EVs

for AllAmerica.org.

And also if you want to hear

some more political punditry for Mike,

you can check out the hacks on tap podcast,

one of my favorites.

Mike, thank you so much for joining us again on Daily Drive.

Always a hoot, Jake.

And I encourage everybody to go online.

We have 70 slides of fun data.

You're going to get into it

if you're in the auto industry.

Thanks for listening to this bonus episode of Daily Drive.

We're off on Monday for the MLK Day Holiday here in the US.

Come back on Tuesday for a brand new full episode of the show.

Jan. 18, 2026 | Bonus Episode: Trump, EVs and state-level incentives

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