Mike Colias has been a business journalist for over 20 years. He has covered the U.S. automotive beat for nearly 15 years, including at his current job as a reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal. With access to all the key players in the auto industry, he has tracked the transition to electric vehicles from its earliest days.
What’s the big idea?
The automotive industry is transitioning to EVs—this revolution appears inevitable. Nations are racing to normalize EVs, build infrastructure, and acquire more resources for components like batteries. In America, this process is slow and clunky compared to the EV frontrunner: China. It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture when we’re still surrounded by so many gas-based vehicles, but the global stage tells an electrifying story.
Below, Mike shares five key insights from his new book, InEVitable: Inside the Messy, Unstoppable Transition to Electric Vehicles. Listen to the audio version—read by Mike himself—in the Next Big Idea App.
1. There are multiple EV transitions unfolding at different speeds around the globe.
When I started this project in 2022, the car industry was fully supportive of electric vehicles (EVs). General Motors, Volkswagen, and other big car companies had spent years downplaying or resisting electric cars. But by early this decade, they were loudly declaring their plans to go fully electric and catch EV powerhouse Tesla.
This is the transportation industry’s biggest transformation since cars replaced horses at the beginning of the 20th century. But transitions of this magnitude rarely go as planned. The red-hot consumer demand earlier this decade has faded a bit. Many car shoppers weren’t ready to start plugging in their cars every night—at least, not as many the automakers were counting on. U.S. EV sales are still rising, but the pace has slowed.
Car companies are bleeding billions of dollars in losses during this stuttering transition. So, they have begun pumping the brakes, delaying EV factory openings and pushing back new models. But this is mostly the view from America, where the move to EVs is lagging. Only around 10 percent of new car sales in the U.S. are either fully electric or plug-in hybrid, which combine electric driving with a backup gas engine. Europeans are twice as likely to choose an EV. In China, the EV market has taken off, and there is no looking back. The job of today’s automotive CEO is figuring out how to manage those different clock speeds. Their futures could depend on it.
2. China’s EV success is jolting the global car business.
China’s car market barely existed as late as the 1990s. Around then, Volkswagen, General Motors, and other big global automakers entered the market with Beijing’s blessing. Sales soon exploded. By 2010, more cars were being sold in China than in any other country.
Chinese automakers tried to compete on their own, but they struggled to produce refined, reliable gas-engine cars. Engines and transmissions are intricate, complex technologies with hundreds of moving parts and thousands of suppliers.
In the early 2000s, China’s government hatched a plan to leap ahead of the major foreign carmakers by embracing electric cars, which is a comparatively less complex technology. Beijing was placing a massive bet that the GMs, Fords, and BMWs of the world would be unwilling to abandon their combustion engine cars to compete on electrics. It was the same wager a young Elon Musk was making at the time.
“China accounts for roughly two out of every three electric cars sold on the planet.”
The Chinese government created massive incentives for car companies to make EVs and for consumers to buy them. They invested across the supply chain, from the raw minerals needed for batteries to roadside EV chargers. Today, many Chinese car brands are producing quality, stylish, and affordable EVs. China accounts for roughly two out of every three electric cars sold on the planet.
With huge cost and scale advantages, China is exporting cars to places like Germany and Mexico. That’s why Europe and the U.S. have rushed to put tariffs in place to keep Chinese EVs out. Still, global auto CEOs know that eventually, consumers will start demanding these cars, and they will have to compete on their own.
3. Carmakers are struggling to tackle high EV costs.
In 2022, a few dozen Ford engineers and executives gathered in an empty warehouse near the company’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. They were there for an autopsy. CEO Jim Farley wanted a gut check on how Ford’s EV efforts were going relative to Tesla. What he found made him furious.
On one side of the warehouse was parked Ford’s electric Mustang Mach-E. On the other, a Tesla Model Y. Both looked sporty and sleek. But when the engineers began dismantling each, piece by piece, big differences were revealed. There were considerably more guts from the Ford than the Tesla—extra bolts, way more wiring. All that extra stuff adds needless weight, and weight reduces driving range. It also adds costs. Farley stared down at the tangled mess as if it were a pool of red ink.
Car companies are betting that battery costs will fall as the world switches to EVs, but for now, the relatively high cost of batteries is a major barrier to a faster EV transition. U.S. EV prices are stuck at around 10 percent to 20 percent higher than comparable gas-powered cars. That is a major hang-up for car shoppers who are nervous about making the leap. Can automakers figure out how to make EVs at a profit?
4. Dude, where’s my charger?
If high prices are one major impediment to electric-car adoption, the other is charging. Many people don’t trust that they will be able to find chargers where and when they need them.
The U.S. charging network can be patchy and unreliable. Sometimes, even when you find one, it might not work properly. But it’s widely variable. Within and between major cities, there’s a good chance you’ll find what you need. In more rural areas, not so much.
Most people who buy EVs install a home charger, which replenishes the battery many times faster than plugging into a normal outlet. The charger costs around $1,000, and often more if your garage wiring needs an upgrade. Once in place, though, home charging solves most people’s needs.
“Most EV owners routinely get through a typical week without any need to charge away from home.”
Nearly all the EVs on sale in the U.S. have driving ranges of at least 225 miles, and 300-plus has become more common. That is more than enough juice for most commutes, with plenty to spare for running errands and shuttling kids to practice. Most EV owners routinely get through a typical week without any need to charge away from home.
Once they need to leave town, though—for a business trip or weekend getaway—things can get complicated. The chargers available along highways are typically the fastest types, some able to refill about 100 miles of range within half an hour. The federal government has been investing billions in building this part of the network.
Even with fast chargers, replenishing a spent battery can take an hour or more. That requires a major mindset shift. Until road trip charging becomes almost as quick and as straightforward as for a gas-powered car, a significant percentage of Americans will likely shy away from going electric.
5. Despite challenges, the EV transition appears inevitable.
When you get the price and charging infrastructure right, the buyers will come. Just look at China. Nearly half of all Chinese vehicle sales are EVs or plug-in hybrids—five times the rate in the U.S. China’s emergence as an EV powerhouse is worrying auto CEOs from Detroit and Tokyo to Germany. Even if EVs aren’t taking off in their home markets, carmakers continue to invest, fearing they’ll fall behind the Chinese.
For another clue of where the market is heading, consider hybrid cars. Twenty years ago, the Prius was for environmentalists and virtue-signaling celebrities. Today, it’s just another option in the showroom—one that gets 30 or 40 percent better gas mileage. As more people have friends and family members who own cars with plugs, it’s likely that the same normalizing effect will happen for EVs, too.
Possibly most important of all, people who go electric tend to love it. Ask a Tesla owner what they’ll buy for their next car. Historically, at least eight out of 10 say another Tesla. EVs are quick, quiet, and easily updateable. As the Wall Street Journal car critic Dan Neil quipped in a 2024 column: “After a few miles in an EV, going back to internal combustion feels like returning to whale-oil lamps.”
To listen to the audio version read by author Mike Colias, download the Next Big Idea App today:
