Directly Current: EVs for All America

Jamie Butters was the Editor in Chief of Automotive News, has covered the Motor City at outlets like the Wall Street Journal, and is hosting a regular radio show called Auto Town speaking to folks inside the American car industry. Max speaks with him to get an idea at how Detroit is doing in the current US moment where oil prices are high, consumers love hybrids, and fuel standards are absent, giv...

Transportation electrification is often framed in environmental terms, but Ben Prochazaka and his colleagues at the Electrification Coalition present a different reason to plug in. Oil dependence is a dangerous addiction for economic and geopolitical reasons, as current events have reminded many Americans. He joins the show to explain the progress made in EVs, both passenger and freight, and how b...

Many new EVs like GM's EV pickup trucks, Ford's upcoming UEV, and Tesla's Cybertruck are capable of exporting onboard power from their large batteries into someone's home to act as a bckup generator, or even back into the grid to act as a grid stabilizer that could save people money on their bill each month. This is the promise of vehicle-to-grid. However,. the rules around vehicle-grid interconne...

James Bell is the head of PR and comms for Kia in America, and he's overseen the brand evolve from being a budget/used car alternative into a premium competitor, particularly in the EV space. Hot on the heels of announcing the affordable EV3 for the US, James speaks with Max to discuss how Kia isn't letting up on its EV platforms and strategy despite the doom and gloom of some US market forecaster...

Alan Clarke, executive director of Advanced EV Programs at Ford, joins Max to discuss his team's work on the Universal EV Platform—an ambitious plan to make low-cost, next-gen vehicles that make the existing Mustang Mach-E and Ford F-150 Lightning look old-school. Ford's first BEV efforts were well received but had no path to profitability and were simply too expensive for consumers. Now, his team...

Ed Kim joins Max from AutoPacific, where he's the chief analyst, to discuss data and insights he's gotten from working with nearly every major OEM on EVs' near future outlook. The good news? There's lots of work on affordability. Also, Republicans really are warming to EVs, as our own polling also shows. The bad news? The affordable EVs can't come soon enough, as fire sales on existing inventory i...

Corey Cantor from the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA) joins Max to discuss some positive trends for EVs going into the new year. 2025 was a rough year for EVs with the axing of federal support after Republican-led legislation dropped the $7,500 credit on new vehicles, and sales have shown it. However, automakers are bringing new compelling products out in mainsteam market segments,...

Staff writer for InsideEVs and auto journalist Kevin Williams joins Max to discuss his experiences reporting on and driving Chinese EVs. How compelling are they in 2026 and how do they stack up to Western automakers? What does he make of Canada's new policy to lift tariffs on them and allow Chinese cars into their market? Max and Kevin go over The tech going into new EVs from Xiaomi, XPENG, Geely,...

Veteran political guru and pollster behind EVs for All America, Mike Murphy, joins Max to chat about his scheming with Governor Newsom for a new California EV tax credit that could fit into the state budget. He also shares a new batch of polling we've conducted at EVs for All America, highlighting several interesting demographic shifts for EVs going into 2026; including a shrinking partisan gap (R...

Executive director of EVs for All America, Dan Krassner, joins Max to discuss the work that our team has been doing on local advocacy in California to make installing charging in apartments and multifamily units a lot easier. Californian apartment dwellers make up more than the population of at least 30 US states, and they'd be a huge get for EV ownership if the lower costs and home charging conve...

Ex-SpaceX engineer and founder Quincy joins Max once more to talk EV charging with his company Electric Era's new launch, RetailEdge. It's a sleek unit that uses AI and a friendly interface to make charging easier while allowing retailers who host charging sites to get customers in the door of their establishment and spending money. ▶️ Watch the episode : YouTube Listen on Apple, Spotify, or your...

PSE&G is New Jersey's largest utility and is over a century old, but under Dawn Neville's team they're doing an agile and decent job of adapting to EVs with programs that subsidize home charging and forecast load for necessary grid uprades. Max speaks with Dawn to learn more about the challenges a utility faces with EVs, as well as some of the opportunities that come about from peak shaving an...

John Voelcker has been reporting on EVs and hybrids for longer than almost anyone. The editor in chief of Green Car Reports for almost a decade, and now a frequent freelancer for magazines like Car and Driver and websites like InsideEVs, John is an engineer by training who has reported on major developments like General Motor's turnaround on producing batteries as well as the formation of the IONN...

It's time for a news roundup on Directly Current, and Max is joined by Republican strategist and EVs for All America boss Mike Murphy to discuss the positive market developments in German and American EV manufacturing, as well as some bad news with an ICE raid at Hyundai and LG Energy Solutions' battery plant in Georgia which went about as well as an episode of Keystone Cops. Max and Mike go over...

Veloz is a nonprofit leading the charge with a national messaging campaign to sell the public on EVs—not for environmental advocacy but for practical cost of ownership and tangible benefits. Josh Boone, their executive director, joins Max for a chat on their new Electric for All campaign we've partnered with them on—featuring the iconic voice of Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation)....

Our Next Energy (ONE) is developing LFP battery cells in Michigan. If you're an EV nerd, you know how big of a deal that is. These kinds of chemistries are what are going to enable durable, long lasting, and most importantly, affordable EVs and China already specializes in them and currently basically chokes the world's supply, not just in terms of minerals, but also IP know-how and manufacturing...

You've probably heard that the electric grid is under severe strain and that electric cars are of no help. And this is in some ways a little bit overblown, but it's also true, particularly in the era of large data centers and AI. But it doesn't have to be that way. Electric vehicles can be part of the solution. We've spoken on this show briefly before about concepts like vehicle to grid and vehicl...

One of the biggest sources of electrification isn't your home or your neighbors', but the commercial fleets and trucks that power American business. Wex is a company doing fuel card services, but their EV charging solutions have taken off and they're continuing to invest in it despite federal headwinds.  In this episode of Directly Current , host Max Patten speaks to Libby Bittman , the Business D...

Max speaks to Quincy Lee, founder and CEO of Electric Era, a charging business that's integrating high-quality hardware with smart software and batteries to deploy rapidly at retailers like Costco for low cost. It's a story of entrepreneurship, quality-obsession, and paving the infrastructure for the future. Electric Era's Site Quincy's Twitter Quincy's LinkedIn American EV Jobs Alliance Messaging...

Electric towing is hard, particularly when you're hauling a big family-sized camper that can halve a Rivian's range. Lightship is a startup that's laser-focused on solving that pickle by engineering a smart trailer that not only makes itself more aerodynamic in motion, but also pulls its own weight with an e-axle and independent battery system. It's a clever piece of tech but it also costs a prett...

Long before the Tesla Roadster or GM EV.1 were a twinkle in engineers' eyes, there were people hard at work making whacky electric cars in their garages. Declan Kavanaugh, a college student and budding engineer interning at startup Telo Trucks, is one such enthusiast, taking pride in buying cheap EV curiosity projects from the 1970s and restoring them with modern-day battery technology and upgrade...

Harbinger Motors is making medium-duty electric trucks in America, which believe it or not, almost no one else is. While Rivian, GM, Ford, and Daimler have rolled out light duty vans for deliveries, John Harris wants to make chassis for vehicles with higher gross vehicle weight ratings for delivery customers with those needs. Of course, we talk tariffs—an ongoing and changing development for the a...

Andrew Lambrecht owns a Tesla Model 3, freelance writes for several EV publications, and is a graduating engineering student who's interned at startups like Lucid Motors. Max speaks to him to get a sense of where Tesla lies as a company in 2025 amidst a chaotic and unpredictable CEO, global headwinds, an aging product lineup, and revolt among some of its most formerly loyal customers. While we've...

Max, Mike, Joe, and Sarah from the EV Politics team break down the goings-on at the EV Charging Summit and Expo live from Las Vegas. They also react in real time to the 25% imported car tariff. Special guest star Tom Moloughney! Subscribe to Directly Current Learn More About the American EV Jobs Alliance

EV charging is a hard business, and it's only gotten tougher with the federal axing of incentive programs like NEVI. But Rohan Puri, CEO and co-founder of Stable, thinks there's a way to make it sustainable in the long term. His company uses data analytics so that site hosts can have happy accounts and keep deploying electrons to a growing population of EV drivers. Check out Stable's Site and Data...