Kevin A. Roberts
You might be surprised to learn that Brad Sowers, an electric vehicle aficionado, doesn’t drive one. He used to get around in a Chevy Bolt, but Sowers, the president and co-owner of Jim Butler Auto Group, sold it—and every other Bolt on his lot—in three days. Maybe it’s a sign that consumers are ready to jump on the EV bandwagon, but they’re still wary of “charging deserts,” wide gaps in the network of electric charging stations. That could soon change. The federal government’s bipartisan infrastructure bill included $5 billion for adding EV charging stations with direct current fast chargers, which can charge a vehicle in 15–45 minutes, rather than five hours. In September, the Missouri Department of Transportation revised its plan for developing an EV infrastructure, and in October, the ICL Group announced it would be building a $400 million plant to manufacture materials for EV batteries in Carondelet. Sowers explains the challenges that remain with EVs.
Why has it been difficult for electric vehicles to crack into the U.S.’s car culture? The first is the cost. The average EV cost is $68,000 right now. Until the price of an EV is below $30,000, young people and low-income Americans will be priced out.
The second is that though populated cities could be an exception, America is a fairly wide-open country [and there aren’t enough charging stations]. Today in the U.S., the ease of filling up with gas—versus the wait for a charge—fits into our “we want it now” culture.
Does that change in places like the coasts, though? I was in California for a wedding and the number of older wealthy guys walking around in Tesla hats made it seem like the most popular sports team. Right now, EVs are marketed toward the wealthy. They’re expensive. There are a lot of strategies out there to lower the cost, but much of that comes down to infrastructure, and that’s where Missouri has a lot of work to do. The largest piece of infrastructure will be dealerships. Eighty-five percent of Americans live within 25 miles of a dealership, and 90 percent live within 50 miles. By the end of 2024, 90 percent of dealerships will have superchargers. We’re investing in high-speed, customer-facing chargers at all six of our locations. By the end of the year—as long as the products ship to me—the new refill stations will be installed and ready to go.
Who’s driving EVs in St. Louis? You’d think that they would appeal more to young people who are driven by the environmental impact, but the majority of people buying our EVs are older St. Louisans who are not driving much.
What are the biggest drawbacks to EVs? There are a lot of battery-technology issues, and there are a lot of environmental problems, but the Inflation Reduction Act is driving car manufacturers to make local investments to address them. With Ford, we saw their $50 billion investment in Tennessee and Kentucky for battery plants and recycling plants. I think this is going to drive advancements. The thought of 20 percent of U.S. vehicles sold being EVs by the end of 2025—it could happen.
Can you explain some of the battery and environment issues? People are saying we’re going to be dependent upon China or Malaysia for lithium and cobalt for the batteries, but from Nevada to Texas, we have great lithium reserves in the ground. However, the question is processing. Lithium is dangerous, and exposure to it is deadly. With our EPA laws, people say it’s too expensive to develop a plant here in America. So they mine lithium here, ship it to China where those safety rules don’t apply, and then ship it back. We need to develop safe refineries where batteries can be built, because we don’t want to endanger our workers or our towns, but also, we don’t want to have this expense of shipping the material out to a country that doesn’t care about its workers. Tesla, GM, and Ford are looking to automate the lithium process, and you see the federal government stepping in to say: “We’ll help you invest. We’ll help you design and develop.” That development is going to bring in jobs, and it’s great for technology. I call it the next space race. The incentives and money associated with it is going to drive ingenuity.
What are some of the biggest barriers to that goal? One of the things we need to ask in Missouri is, “Is our state infrastructure going to get better? Are we going to get the federal funds that we have the rights to and invest in our infrastructure for this model?” The infrastructure is a challenge because everything in this world is political. We don’t want Biden’s agenda, we don’t want Trump’s agenda—all of that stuff goes through this discussion. But in the end, for the citizens of Missouri, we need our state to invest in that infrastructure so we have it in place for the future.
