Nicholas Ellis on Electric Vehicle Rollbacks – 'Automotive industry doesn't turn on a dime'
Foley & Lardner LLP partner Nicholas Ellis described difficulties faced by automakers amid a shift in regulatory policy in the Law360 article, “Trump EV Rollbacks Spell Regulatory Whiplash For Auto Cos.”
“Over the last few years, most of the major original equipment manufacturers have made some pretty big investments to support very aggressive goals of increasing their sales of electric vehicles (EVs) and their suppliers followed suit and committed their capacity, their capital in that direction,” Ellis explained. “Unfortunately, it’s been pretty well known that EV sales have not taken off the way that I think many people were hoping that they would, and a lot of suppliers are taking some pretty significant hits as a result.”
In light of President Trump’s rollback of Biden administration policies focused on growing the EV industry, Ellis noted the potential impact to an already strained supply chain, adding that “the automotive industry doesn’t turn on a dime.”
“It’s not possible for the original equipment manufacturers and suppliers to just quickly turn around and switch out EV capacity for production of other vehicles,” Ellis commented. “Changing the rules of the game midstream in this fashion to remove the subsidies that were in place or at least expected to be in place when a lot of these investment decisions were made probably exacerbates that situation. It’s going to, at least to some degree, lead to lower EV sales and increase those problems.”
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