- 2023-09-13
- Posted by: kimsite
- Categories: Commentary, Insights, News
Click here to listen to the full interview.
NEIL CAVUTO: We’ve got Scott Martin joining us. We’ve got Carrie Frederick joining us on this whole EV push. And of course, now even automakers themselves saying not so fast. Scott, what do you make of that?
SCOTT MARTIN: Well, not so fast. These things are fast, Neal, to your point, to great. I mean, these things can go out of control quickly. They can go very quickly off the line and they can hit people. Look, this is a tough thing, Neil, because it makes sense. I get the Biden administration’s original ploy to make this part of our future. But guess what? Boys and girls, Americans don’t want them. And that’s the problem. So now you have the executives at the Fords, at the GM’s, out there trying to adhere to the the administration’s wishes and make these cars that people don’t want. And so they’re making things that basically are not in demand and making things that aren’t going to sell. They cost less as far as to make. It takes less hours to to make them as far as workers go. And therefore, it hurts the impact to the American worker. And so you have a lot of disconnect here going forward that I think needs to be worked out. And this strike is something that’s probably going to be a line in the sand of how we’re going to do that.
CAVUTO: You know, I’m also wondering, let people decide. You know, a lot more people have been drawn to these vehicles. I mean, they’re up from, what, about a 3 or 4% share a little more than a year ago. They’re up to 8% now. So clearly, many in the market are moving to these. Not all, but you can’t mandate this. So where do you see it going?
KARA FREDERICK: Oh, precisely. Even though, as Scott reiterated, I mean, the Biden administration is attempting to and we know that these EVs are on average $18,000 more expensive than gas powered cars, That’s a problem, especially when the typical American family is $7,000 poorer per household under Joe Biden nowadays. So massive problem that the mandates that this is being shoved down our throats, it’s going to create the most costly regulatory burden to the American public. I believe that we’ve ever seen in Heritage has written on this. And the people are speaking and they even Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, she had a four day road trip and.
CAVUTO: Oh man did you watch that?
FREDERICK: Slow and unreliable traveling. It’s a problem.
CAVUTO: Yeah. There’s also the issue you have to stop to charge it up. That takes a long time. So if you’re like me, you run in and you get some goodies and you’re eating them and you’re getting fatter as you’re driving. That’s a whole separate issue. But Scott, I am wondering, I mean, we are getting to a point where Americans are saying mandates, requirements, demands, just cool it. Where do you see that going?
MARTIN: It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel good to be as an American consumer working hard for our dollar and somebody telling us that, let’s say, is in a higher power or a higher level than we all are, and saying this is what you can do with your dollar, this is what you can buy, and it’s something that people don’t want. And so also to Neal, the point behind the Biden administration was, well, we don’t have the energy to do this. We don’t have the infrastructure, blah, blah, blah. We don’t need infrastructure to charge the cars, to your point. But more so what about the oil? How about the Permian Basin? The fact that we could do some self reliability to actually have the gasoline, to feed the cars that we want to drive on our interstates And yes, they could be more fuel efficient. I’m sure that’s the case. But you don’t have to go all the way, as Kara said, to EV to make it happen, to say this is what we’re going to do and take a line in the sand and make sure that this is how things come out, out of, say, this strike, for example.
CAVUTO: Kara, speaking of EV’s and as you know, Elon Musk on Capitol Hill right now, some of the biggest powers that be in that whole industry, not just EVs, but but, you know, high tech in general, part of an AI summit with you. Will the leaders on Capitol Hill who are looking at ways to police it. But what do you make of just the cast of characters drawn to this? I believe in the case of Zuckerberg will also be there first time those two will be in the same room, presumably at the same time. So maybe they can have their cage mask now. But what do you make of that?
FREDERICK: Yeah, I would love to see that. What I think is even more interesting than Musk and Zuckerberg is, Randi Weingarten was reportedly invited to this, as well as the head of a major union. Yep. So she was on the list. Even Fox Business reported it. So we it’ll be very interesting to see how this shakes out, especially when we I am worried particularly about the smaller competitors, the startups, these new entrants. We know that there are natural advantages that accrue to these big tech behemoths because a lot of AI requires energy resources, processing power, a high volume and variety of data that these big tech companies have been collecting on us for years and years and years. So I worry that they’re going to try to cement those, frankly, monopolies of sorts on AI before they let the better innovators get a chance. I don’t want them strangled in the cribs because we know that that innovation comes from that competition, those small new entrants. So I’m looking to Chuck Schumer, frankly, and the senators in those room to to come out of that talk and really do something that that is hewing towards transparency. Privacy competition and doesn’t necessarily cement the big tech’s hold on all of these markets, especially the AI market. It’s going to be huge.
CAVUTO: Yeah, I got it. Thank you guys both very, very much. I think someone had said in that room, you have about a half $1 trillion worth of wealth gathered, which is almost as much as when you had Brian Greenberg step into a room.
