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Sept. 28, 2025 | Bonus Episode: Former Congressman Mike Rogers Part 2

Sept. 28, 2025 | Bonus Episode: Former Congressman Mike Rogers Part 2

Automotive News Daily Drive Sep 28, 2025 13 min
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Former Congressman Mike Rogers shares insights on the implications of eliminating federal tax credits for electric vehicles and the challenges facing the U.S. auto industry in competing with China. He argues that the $7,500 tax credit primarily benefited higher-income buyers and questions the effectiveness of EV mandates. Rogers emphasizes the need for government support in battery research to enhance domestic competition and reduce reliance on Chinese imports. He also discusses the importance of aligning resources to support American manufacturing jobs and the future of hybrid vehicles.

Topics: federal tax credits ev mandates battery research competition with china domestic manufacturing hybrid vehicles electric grid challenges
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On Tuesday's show, we brought you the first part of our own Molly Boygans interview with Republican Mike Rogers, a former U.S. Congressman. In the second and final piece of the conversation, Rogers talks about the elimination of federal tax credits for EVs, funding for battery research, and more.
You were talking about what you've called EV mandates from the Biden administration, which I'm guessing has to do with the California regulations and the standards from the EPA and cafe. Do you think that the $7,500 tax credit, which was pretty popular with dealers and the automakers, was a problem for the auto industry as it was planning the EV transition?
I'm not sure I understand the premise of your question. I will say that we were focused a lot of money on people who probably didn't need $7,500 to purchase an electric vehicle. I do believe that.
And candidly, if you look at it, working families who have to commute to work every day, an EV does not work for every family. And what they were trying to do is say, doesn't matter, we don't care, you're going to have to figure this out. Good luck.
And this massive push, which was outrageously expensive, is pretty amazing to me. And that we let it go on as long as we did, because the people who are buying these electric vehicles tended to be on the higher income level. I don't know why we would support that.
I do think EVs have a future. Absolutely. I think hybrids, if we were to let the auto companies work in the way that they normally do by following market forces,
we would have had hybrid vehicles in a larger number, who had a tremendous impact on the environment, on carbon emissions. I don't know why we decided we were going to go all in on EVs, our electric grid can't handle it.
I mean, all of the problems I could list about telling everybody you have to drive an EV, including people, by the way, who live in the UP of Michigan, who, if you're a commuter every day, when it's January and February, March, when the snow is pretty thick.
Guess what? It might not work for you. And cold weather doesn't do well in there. Why we would mandate that they have to drive EVs is beyond me. So I do believe you had to transition away from the $7,500.
People who wanted to buy EVs were going to buy EVs. I didn't buy a hybrid for $7,500. I bought it because I wanted it. And I love electric vehicle technology.
And I think people who can afford it should buy it if they want it. And people who can't afford it should buy the vehicle they need for their family. And that's $7,500 wasn't helping them at all.
Yeah, I should just mention that there was the income cap for the $7,500 tax credit. Obviously, there were varying levels of success with that. And, you know, some leopards related to leasing and all that.
But when you think about the big picture, and you know, you've been talking about competition from China a lot, the concern that I hear in the reporting is that domestic automakers are going to fall behind on the global stage as other regions.
And in particular, China are advancing on battery technology, you know, lowering price, making software offerings more advanced. How do you think that government policy here in the US can enhance domestic automaker competition on the global market?
Yeah, I still believe in that government funding of basic research is an important thing. And I think in that regard, they should be able to be helpful in the battery research as well.
I also think it's boy, that's an easy decision just to say China's ahead of us. So let's buy their stuff because it's cheaper, which is what's been happening. And then they're using their market forces to try to increase their sale of their vehicles.
Why we would let China do that to us is beyond me. I believe I passionately believe if we ask our colleagues to step it up and the government helps with some basic research around the country that we can beat Chinese battery technology. I don't buy for a minute. And if we can't, we have a whole bunch of bigger problems in this country, including how we're going to build the components we need to defend ourselves.
If we ever have a more sophisticated conflict around the world coming up the final part of our own Molly Boygans interview with former congressman Mike Rogers, a Republican candidate for US Senate.
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Automotive news shift podcast brings you the latest on automotive technology trends and transformation. I'm Hannah Lutz and I'm Molly Boygon.
We're the new co-host of shift and we're excited to bring you new conversations with experts and industry insiders like this one with Larry Dominique, president of L.D. management consultant.
Do you believe the legacy OEMs are falling into a trap? They've got to find a way to in some ways build new airplane while they're still in flight.
Catch shift available every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts.
How do you see the pullback of federal support for domestic battery manufacturing fitting into that?
Because I know you keep saying we shouldn't be rewarding companies that buy from China but the whole point of the incentives was to establish a domestic battery supply chain for components like anodes and cathodes and all of the stuff that companies were buying from China.
So how do you see that fitting in?
It's all about how you spend your resources and again, those resources eventually were making their way to China.
So we have two big, big, big problems that I think the president is trying to solve in this one well over reliance on China, including our domestic car companies who have whole models that they produce in China and send back to the United States for sale.
And so that is a reliance that's unhealthy for the national security and economic security of Americans who work right here in Michigan and try to show up at factories.
Those are factories building those cars that don't employ one American working in a factory here in Michigan.
Think of that. I mean, that is a tremendous impact.
And so when you talk about this little slice, it is about how do we get all of our critical minerals? How do we get our rare earths realigned right now?
The reason China is trying to stick it to us again is they control those markets pretty heavily because we just it was just so much easier just to buy from them.
Well, guess what? The circumstances of ground change and the gosh, it had to change. I mean, 90% of the prepersons are going into our medicine are made in China 90.
And so you start thinking of why that needs to come back to the United States. It starts becoming a much easier quotient and spending money to subsidize a factory to license and buy price things overseas makes no sense to me whatsoever.
And I think that's what you're seeing is, okay, we just got to realign it.
And again, it's easier than telling your guys you got to come up with a better battery design. It's just a lot easier to send the check to China.
I just think that needs to change if you want American, if you want Michigan workers building automobiles or whatever it is here in the United States.
Because it is not sustainable the way we are buying goods that are necessary for our national security and our economic prosperity.
You want to talk about EVs. We're still going to need if it's plug in anything. We need an upgraded electric grid.
Guess what? That we're not ready for that.
Number one, and number two, the things we would need to upgrade our electric grid.
We are wholly dependent on China to buy it from. And that has to change.
And so I think what you're seeing is are the decisions being made good for Michigan paying jobs and families who are trying to make it.
I argue they are. And the resources we spend are going in that direction. And candidly, again, it's having an impact $4 billion investment from General Motors forward is coming back.
I argue those are positive things for working families. And then when you add on top of that, no tip on overtime, no taxes, excuse me, on overtime, huge, huge benefit for people right here in Michigan.
But that's going to get people by the way working extra time in those factories, if they can get it, same with tips, talk to an individual who's a bartender.
He's going to make $1,000 more per month this year because of no tax on tips. And he works a lot of overtime. And the overtime, I think he gets, you know, his tip money is the most important thing is overtime was like, or his pay was four bucks.
He's going to get $1,700 back based on tax on overtime. So he's going to, you know, he's looking up what 14 grand roughly in new money for people who get up and work every day.
And so you start focusing it there. These manufacturing problems are going to fix themselves.
When you talk about funding battery research as kind of the central way to incentivize better battery technology.
Incentives aren't going to the private sector. Is that something that the government should be directing more money toward?
Well, I believe in the government doing basic research. I they shouldn't do all of it, but there's a lot of places around and I'll tell you why one of the big reasons is looking for battery storage capabilities on smaller ships and unmanned circus ships.
Same with military gear, even, you know, when you don't have to spend $8 a gallon on a deployed vehicle.
Because you can't buy that fuel in a local economy for a, you know, we could do a whole show on why that can't happen.
They're looking for these alternatives in electric. So that technology is is is important for the government to have a hand in research.
And we do that now, and it is funding now.
If we can find a better way to work with the automotive, but what the automotive companies been saying is don't help us that way, just make it easier for us to buy from China.
And I get it, you know, I'm been in the private sector for the last 10 years, but what we've seen is the horrendous cost on working families, those 30,000 manufacturing jobs gone.
So when you bring General Motors back and a company says, hey, I'm going to have to add a second shift because they want me to do more here in Michigan.
Now you see the purpose of it all.
Congressman Mike Rogers, thank you so much for joining us on daily drive.
A quick reminder before we go, we have interviews with all of the major candidates for Michigan's open US Senate seat here on daily drive.
If you don't feel like scrolling all the way back through our library on your favorite podcast app, you can find those conversations with congresswoman,
Haley Stevens, Dr. Abdul Al-Sayed, and Michigan State Senator, Mallory McMaro, over at AutoNews.com.
Thanks for listening to 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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