Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Great Race 20150221

Biggest electric Utility Company in america he was going to give lots of people to the electric system and what a great market it would be. Didnt work out. There are two more episodes and finally we are here today. It is challenging to write a book on the subject to write the book that levi tillemann, several requirements necessary. You have to know cars and need a sense of Automobile Technology you have to know chinese and japanese and 4, you have to have the sense of National Politics and international competition. You wont make people who meet those requirements that you do meet them. To get started remember when this was a originally an idea. Give us a sense of what made you think, when you started the book, we are going to run out of oil, it will be 500 a barrel the electric car has its energy, today oil is 50 a barrel but nevertheless last year 125 electric cars were sold in the United States so tell us how you got involved with this and what made you decide to write on the subject . A lot has changed since i started the project. One thing seems to never change which is the patriots always win the super bowl and we may have different feelings about that. When i started the book in 20082009 the inspiration for me to look at electric vehicles came from the meeting at ford motor co. I was meeting with a person who charged all the Product Development named derek his role, Long Term Strategic Development Plan and i had a Startup Company i was working on we were working a radical small, we hoped that was going to be the future of unloaded technology and we expect that. We didnt take batteries very seriously but when i had my meeting, the lights came on and he congratulated me that this was a really interesting design but i am not going to put money into it because it will cost billions of dollars and within 15 to 20 years everything is going electric anyway so i have a technology called ego boost, then we are moving to electric vehicles and that was a huge shot for me. I walked out of the meeting with my partner and turned to him and said you think he was serious about batteries . My partner said i dont think he was joking that. Wasnt laughing. That made me return to the drawing board and take a look at electrification and the Drivers Behind electrification and there were some clear macro drivers, things like oil scarcities of we thought was a big deal at the time at the cotton constrained world and it hasnt changed but the idea of industrial leadership and the fact that there would be big countries, big economies that new the automotive sector would be part of the superstructure Going Forward. The iris engine is kind of on ice right now. Lets just say in electrification, and i know such engines are going to be part of the transportation picture for the next 20, 30 years but increasingly there will be a move toward batteries. One other thing that was very significant for you once when you were at shanghai and you saw what the chinese were doing an electric cars was that any tiffany as well or were you already committed to the subject . The thing that was amazing to me was how much changed since 2010 when i was at the world expo at shanghai. Gm and their chinese partners, had dont know how many of you are familiar with the structure of the chinese automotive economy but you have these big multinational automotive manufacturers and in order to sell cars in shyness, to produce and sell cars in china they have to partner with a local company so the largest of these is the shanghai automotive industrial corp. And they are rigged with a number of companies, General Motors so the world expo, they were asked to put together a vision of what the future of shanghai looks like so they created this absolutely dazzling display where you walked into a stadium seating amphitheater there was a huge imax screen, you stretch into a harness and it flew you through this technologically advanced, incredibly clean, electrified world where all the vehicles were autonomous, no spotlights, flying people who could drive around the city freely, mothers making it to the hospital on time to deliver their babies because they had an efficient electric cars the interesting thing is that looks like something that was certainly not going to happen by 23 and might never happen but in 2015 it is pretty reasonable to assume Something Like that is going to be well on its way characterizing the Transportation System of 23 and we already have things like the google cars that are on the streets today, every major automotive manufacturer has the Vehicle Program under development and every major automotive manufacturer has a serious electric Vehicle Program. From this discussion after reading the book you get a sense that you will be able to form your own opinion as to what kind of car youll be driving in 5, 10, 15 years and come back to that subject at the end of this. The architecture of the book is Competition Among three countries, china, japan and the United States. Why did you organize in terms of countries . That is a good question and a lot of people have asked me about that. Automakers, gm sells more cars in china today than it does in the United States. One of the things that drive technology and one of the most important things driving the evolution of auto sector today is regulation and regulations still happens on at National Scale and sometimes happens on a sub National Scale so in the case of the United States you have a big regulatory why you chose those three, why did you choose russia or germany . They are the mostthe largest single country economy is in the world and i convenient mes up the chinese and japanese, that made it an easier choice. My german needs a little work. Portuguese i could have added brazil to the mix. Substitution and industrialization but it was not quite as sexy. You get to the center but you talk about china you talk about the United States, you talk about japan and you talk about what may be the most powerful and known agency in the world California Air Resources Board and the long reach of how important that is. Tell us why california which at this point is still part of the United States we treat as something separate . California was subject to a role in Environmental Crisis, a smog crisis. The problem in the 1940s, no one knew where the smog came from. Account crazy today, hed seemed obvious it comes from industrial emissions and automobiles but at that time people didnt know. There was a californiabased scientist who did some Cutting Edge Research and figured out that most of the smog in los angeles in particular was coming from cars. The result of that was over the next 10, 20, 30 years california built up what was by far the most sophisticated Regulatory Infrastructure for researching and regulating the emissions of automobiles and other forms of environmental pollution. In 1970 when the clear act was passed in washington d. C. The federal government recognize that. California was actually far ahead of them in terms of understanding the science of smog and also how to regulate smog and how to drive manufacturers towards bringing new technology to market. They created a special cutout in the 1970 Clean Air Act that allows california to have regulations for emissions. That meant the decision made in 1970 than actually is quite a long time ago, has of big impact on the electric car today. It reverberate strongly in the present day and even more impact full because other states are allowed to opt in to a strict air pollution requirements and those requirements are the root of california. Wind did you get the impression carb was saying wheres the electric car . A lot of it comes from california from carb. That is what your book says. Sometimes i have disagreements with myself. Tell us how carb got where we are now what carb did to get the electric car on the road . Interesting story. General motors was in a bad place, they were the japanese were flooding the u. S. Market with low cost automotive imports and it had gotten so bad that Ronald Reagan made a political deal with the japanese government, to have voluntary export restraint where the japanese throttled back the number of vehicles they would export to the United States. So things were not looking good. Chrysler had gotten a billion dollar bailout from the federal government and General Motors decided that they were going to a more complicated story than this but they were going to enter a solar rays across the australian outback to show how cutting edge they are that they were not losing to the japanese and competing up world stage. They crushed the competition. It was a week long race, they were three days after. What did that have to do with carb . It was an electric car. They decided to continue the Development Project and build a concept car and leadership decided to, but impact they had a huge impact on Automotive Industry because regulators from carb drove it at the Los Angeles Auto Show and decided this was their perfect weapon. It was called but a gun on wheels. Maybe. Not sure i have heard that terminology but it is called a lot of things. That was the forerunner of a vehicle called the e d 1 that many people have probably heard of through the documentary who killed the electric car but it was the impasse that convinced california regulators that the electric car was a viable Consumer Option and it caused them to develop a set of rules cut into a much larger package of air pollution related rules that essentially set out a timeline for innovation and said by 1998, 2 of the cars that are sold in california have to be electric and by 2003, 10 . I would say it didnt fail. It was postponed. One of the good things about this policy was there was a builtin review mechanism. Every couple years it would come back, is it working and not working . Why is it not working . Is the Technology Ready and they would fight with automakers about it . How do auto makers feel about the car . They didnt like it. Tesla liked it but it has been an evolving relationship. At various times the relationship has been more or less fraud betting general that has been characterized by a cs of cantankerous lawsuits. What is carb requiring today and how is it working . Today you have a situation where 7 states in addition to california have bought into the great race the global quest for the car of the future carbs zero emission requiring automakers if they are going to sell cars in california or seven of the state have to sell a certain proportion of electric vehicles. The interesting thing they have done is overlaid the market on top of this mandate which is enormous inefficiency enhancing. It means rather than just saying every single automaker has to sell 2 electric cars or 3 electric cars next year and automaker can make a strategic decision whether it makes sense for them to build electric cars themselves or by credits that are awarded to automakers when they sell an electric vehicle, they can buy them from another automaker. How much does it cost . It changes depending on who is selling more, a couple years ago the tesla models was producing about people estimated 35,000. Tesla in addition to selling the car making revenues from selling the car was also making revenue from selling credit. In q3 of 2014 tesla made 76 million through the easy credits alone. Lot of money in it has a big impact on the Business Model. How many electric cars 120 were sold last year. What proportion are in california . Lots. If you look at california it is almost all of them. It is hard to get really good numbers on where the cars are being sold. California put out an announcement november of last year together with its partners, sold them to 70,000 electric vehicles, and that was win the u. S. Electric Vehicle Market had cumulatively sold 250,000 vehicles so it is not all of them but it is a lot. Lets turn to china. We were having this conversation five years ago, News Coverage the articles were how china was going to have everyones lunch from the electric car why was china so committed to the electric car to the question of how it worked out or hasnt worked out the electric vehicle makes a lot of sense. They have horrible air pollution problems. Anyone who spends time in china has seen this. When i go to china i wake up early, look out the window you can see the sky, i strapped on my Running Shoes and go running because theres a chance you wont be able to do that again for the next six seven days, the pollution is so bad that frequently you cant get a good view of the buildings across the street from you. They have an Environmental Crisis similar to the california crisis of the 1950s. You are from california or originally. I remember the painful smog. It is just as bad if not worse in china today. Is a lot worse in shine at day. The second reason is energy imports. Imacs economy is going very quickly, not as quickly as it was over the past week in years but it is still growing at a rate of 7 a year and that translates into increased energy demand. The electric vehicle is a means by which china can gain increased mobility but not increase their oil imports. The third reason to me is the most interesting and it is the real reason the chinese are interested in the elected vehicles which is the current minister of science and Technology Used to be an audi engine here. He came up with this idea injure many of leapfrogging the west into the era of electric vehicles. He knew because he worked at audi, how hard it was to build a Production System that could produce these kinds of products that a worldclass scale and he knew it was going to be difficult for regina to catch up. Germany or japan or the United States in these critical technologies. If china instead looked to the future and focused on electric vehicles and they could lead fraud and command the market for the emerging age. They saw this as a way to the Global Player in the automobile business and his view was they could not become a Global Player because they were too late. What happened, he met the then minister of science and technology and quietly brought him back to china. It seems like a lot of decisions were made, they installed him that one of the best universities in the country and quickly promoted him to president of that university, in a charge of three programs, the Chinese Government program for developing leadingedge technologies. A very important thing. Like nasa plus. Nasa and bar and the National Science foundation all rolled into one. And a member of the communist party was a member of the state council, minister of science and technology and that was an unprecedented thing. It hadnt happened in 40 years that someone who was not a member of the communist party was a member of the state council land still driving this thesis of electrification from a central level in china. So the program, leapfrog hasnt happened yet. As you read the great race the global quest for the car of the future you sense china started very strong what happened there . And enormous amount of money in the program and an enormous amount of enthusiasm and propaganda. It underpins chinas electric vehicles program. That is what this gm expo exhibit, a lot of pressure on gm inside to demonstrate to the world what the system of the future is going to look like. The problem is they got the incentive wrong. It couldnt be more diametrically opposed california made a bunch of mistakes. They had already been involved in this tugofwar with the industry over the 1990s and before that was emissions technology. And auto makers understood what the incentives, automakers responded to, the chinese on the other hand, political pressure on the heads of major Stateowned Enterprises who are not just ceos but politicians, they put a lot of money behind the electric vehicles program, giving huge subsidies, 10,000 from the Central Government many cities and provinces behind electric vehicles. Hasnt taken off in the same way. That is one of the most fascinating things because it shows propelling these Industries Forward is not just a question of money or how much money you throw at something but whether you get the incentives. There is the third player in this great race which is japan. How did japan get into the game. Japan has a terrific place in the narrative. We will talk about the utilities and there are people here in the japanese utilities, tell us how japan got into the game. At the beginning japans role was kind of almost as a spoiler for the auto manufacturers starting in 1970s, lot of pressure on the big three to reduce their emissions and they came together and form a Study Committee that was working on developing emissions but were promptly sued because the federal government whether they were including to keep more expensive than better Emissions Technologies out of auto market and i think carb was skeptical of their collaboration so what carb did was turned to the japanese said they said we have a huge market here. We have very defined goals for the market in terms of air quality and we want to develop a technology that detroit isnt willing to and nissan and toyota are almost like a big three of japan. They were not that interested in getting ahead of the policy but honda sought a Market Opportunity and they closed down their racing team, put their best engine years on the project. The founder of honda motor co. Came in every day to work shoulder to shoulder. Electric cars . This is emissions. Electric cars they became they developed the technology is detroit said was impossible. Japan became a recurring competitor within the american regulatory community, detroit japan, they might actually provides a way forward. To the electric car. The electric car angle comes in in the 2,000s. In the 1990s like every car Company Selling vehicles in california the japanese were forced, they were building electric cars. They latched onto the technology. They were mired in lawsuits and slowing down there was a Nuclear Engineer at the toqueville power co. His name . His specialty was safety. He started his career at the Fukushima Nuclear concept which you might be familiar with because of the horrible Nuclear Accident in 2011. He decided the best way to promote Nuclear Power in japan was to show the japanese that there was value to Nuclear Power beyond Standard Industrial uses and lighting and so he presented a plan to the management of the Tokyo Electric Power co. To build electric Vehicle Infrastructure that would allow japan to transition away from oil towards a nuclear fuel automotive fleet. They said this is a great idea we need someone who can do it. Nobody wanted to so he left his position as a respected Nuclear Engineer to run this electric car program, spent years knocking on doors trying to get people involved but most japanese automakers said we are not interested because now california is enforcing this we have zero incentive to get in front from a Technology Perspective to build an electric vehicle. Finally subaru and mitsubishi decided they were interested. And with mitsubishi it wasnt really a decision that came from the top of the company. There was an individual big Research Program who love the electric cars. Was very involved in building the response to the California Program in the 1990s and he knew his leadership would shoot him down immediately if he wanted to develop a new generation of electric vehicles. They developed this new ecosystem for electric cars and then moved to the japanese economic planning organization, and decided to do a study on whether a electric vehicles for the future of transportation. They brought in academics and consultants and industry specialists at the end result was they decided for japan to remain at the cutting edge of Automotive Technology they had to put serious money in. This was 20062007 and that is when nissan got in in of big way and after nissan got in the scale of funds for developing automobiles just changed. If you were going to evaluate, your book is called the great race the global quest for the car of the future, china, japan and the United States, handicap where the race is now and who will lead the race . The japanese are selling a huge number of electric vehicles. The best on batteries . Japanese and koreans are very good on batteries. They sell highquality batteries, japanese are a little more sophisticated when it comes to technology and integrating batteries into cars, but you could make the argument the japanese would have been leading this race farther out ahead and the United States than they are today, for the 2011 nuclear disaster, after that disaster, pasco had their resources gutted. They lost funding for the development program. Leadership for japan was transferred to nissan. They built this entire program to promote Nuclear Power, was taken off of the electric Vehicle Program. He had started to be very enamored of this program and he eventually was put in charge of the entire Nuclear Energy program. The reason it is interesting, he wasnt involved in the decision that led to the nuclear disaster. Left to work on the program to promote Nuclear Power and the result was when they reached this cataclysmic point, he had a lot of credibility, did something incredible and which country would you put to the forefront now . America is in front. Especially tesla. By coincidence the new dog is named tesla. That is a coincidence. We havent talked about as low. Do you want to say a word and then open of to the audience . She was until 2 00 in the morning last night. Tell us about the impact of tesla. A lot of that tells what is an incredible company. It is the result of a set of technology that was the outgrowth from the 1990s, the individuals that elon musk bought the original technology for tesla motor co. Had been engineer on the gm car they raced across the australian outback in the 1980s. Tesla has really changed the game in terms of Public Perception of electric vehicles. People thought of them as golf carts. Now you have these youtube videos where they put a tesla models sedan which is a fairly large sedan that can fit seven people against the supercars with eight cylinders and have them drive them and his lower leaves move in the dust at least for the first day of a mile because the accelerations phenomenal. That his been hugely important for shifting the perception. Two questions before we open up. One is you are a big proponent of industrial policy wisely administered. It is a small part of the book. The book is the narrative. Some might read it and save this is about rent seeking behavior rafters and innovation, industrial policy. Address the question of innovation, role of government and role of markets, industrial policy . That is a great question. It always comes down to the difference between strategy and tactics. The scary thing about the world today is we confront a lot of challenges in terms of energy and climate. We have to make some pretty huge changes if we are going to avoid catastrophic Climate Change but the nice things being the clear goal we can use as the strategic guidepost for where we need to be in the next four decades ago very important when we think about industrial policy to have a strategic mindset regarding longterm goals and be somewhat tactically in terms of technology the California Air Resources Board understands any zero emission options it doesnt create a lot of air pollution is going to be fine from our perspective and they are pursuing a number of different technologies a lot of money into new technologies, working quite aggressively on fuel. The main focus is selected vehicles. It is quite clear within the next 30 years the only technology that is viable to bring us to zero e missions in terms of criteria remissions, the e missions that are bad for cumin health because they create air pollution and Carbon Emissions which are emissions that generate Climate Change vehicles the only thing that really exists out there, it makes a lot of sense to use those strategic guideposts to create systemic incentives that allow us to efficiently drive towards a place that is going to be policies the u. S. Has put in place have worked to achieve their goals. The problem with the policies from the federal government is most of them were formulated on an extraordinary time line during the stimulus. The federal government spends several hundred billion dollars within an extremely compressed period of time. You can see that the efficiency of california policies in terms of expense funds is much better. What was the Goal Initiative of president obama, 1 million electric cars on the road by 2016 . We wont make that. When might we make it . 2017 or 2018. And i think the interesting thing, i dont know where that goal came from. It was far enough away at the time. It sounds like something formulated for a speech. If you look at californias goal together with seven other states we have 3. 3 million vehicles on the road by 2025. They modeled it very carefully and calibrated the incentives together with their partners to figure out how many cars we can achieve. In your Washington Post oped the other day you take on a question on the mind of people here and people watching on cspan which is the question of oil is 50 a barrel, 500, lower gasoline prices, it is over 2 or Something Like that. So what did lower gasoline prices do . That is one of the premises, will this affect things . It will affect things. This will affect a huge issue for the u. S. Economy. As you know it has massive stimulus effects but also potentially in terms of Energy Production in north dakota or texas. Do you have any idea what it is doing to Economic Growth in texas . I think so. Are there any hard numbers . Obviously it has huge systemic effects but the nice thing about the California Program is they have created a shock absorber mechanism. If you cell fuhrer electric vehicles that mandate is still in place and that means the price of the credit of electric vehicles goes up and that creates an incentive for automakers to lower their prices or do whatever is they have to do so they dont have to buy expensive credits from someone else, they have to the critical thing is i dont see the california retreating on that. It will have some effect but the truth is the equilibrium mechanism. Lets open up for questions. I believe there are microphones right there. The first thing i saw was way in the back you got to use the microphones. This is a researcher, maybe few years ago i heard we were trying to define what is an electric car and General Motors said the volt is an electric car and we heard analysis saying it is not a True Electric car. It is of hybrid. However demoted to recharge is an electric motor. Battery for the electric motor is the drive system. We have the japanese small electric hot, the hybrid car, that is considered a hybrid. What are the percentages required in these limitations in california, 27 how do we define electric car . Another point. I live in a highrise, a big highrise, 300 units and i wondered about getting a plunge in hybrid. I have an underground space and by wonder how to handle this. Absolutely nothing got done. Nothing Strong Enough for the current to reach where i am located. Thank you. That is how do you define and the infrastructure question. The second question first, infrastructure is a big issue especially urban infrastructure. I live in a condo, Street Parking for my car and i would love to have an electric car but i cant because i dont have a place to plug it in. The big issue Going Forward in terms of expanding electric vehicles in dense urban areas, and commuting neighborhood where people have garages they park their car in every night and that was the original target but they are a terrific solution for the city as long as we can find a place to plug them in. I work on these issues, interesting initiatives in places like new york city to try to address that problem. What do we consider an elector car . There are gradations of electrification. The first kind of vehicle was pure plug in electric vehicle and most people draw the line between what we would call an electric car and something that is not really an electric car with an extension cord which is if you plug that car into the wall ended its electricity from the greed rather than getting it from internal Combustion Engine you consider that a plug in electric, otherwise it is a hybrid. You have batteries in cars like the toyota prius and they have electric motors end efficiency but all but energy being used by the prius comes from gasoline. There is a question in the middle here. I am retired from the government. The guarantee of 8 huge amount of money and toyota is coming out with a height engine fuel cell next year, 2016, giving away 5,000 patents. Is that going to be more important than the electric car . The Hydrogen Fuel cell . The question is the Hydrogen Fuel cell. Is that going to become an important competitor . People look at the future of transportation as a spectrum of technology. They dont think one technology will win out completely. You see these growths for electric vehicles hybrid electric vehicles, advanced internal Combustion Engines and the debate among serious policy analysts is not whether one is going to take over the entire state but what are the different growth have going to be . Which ones will grow faster and which ones will grow less fast . The Hydrogen Fuel cell is something the japanese government put a fair amount of money into, toyota and honda are invested, californians are putting a fair amount of policy work bob heintz Hydrogen Fuel cells as well. Personally i have a hard time getting around the infrastructure issue for Hydrogen Fuel cells. It is very expensive to produce hydrogen. Today hydrogen is produced mostly from natural gas and coal which means you dont get a big win in terms of Greenhouse Gas emissions. I keep trying to get a good answer from Hydrogen Fuel cell proponents why anyone would ever want to own a Hydrogen Fuel cell vehicle as opposed to a standard gasoline vehicle because of fuel is really cheap you can feel at home which means you never have to go to the gas station and the performance can be terrific. With a Hydrogen Fuel cell you have to go to the gas station it is not cheap. The cause are not cheap and the fuel isnt cheap. I dont see compelling Business Model that is better than gasoline Business Model. We talked about china, japan the United States, france, the e. U. A player in this or the fact that they are large Automobile Company in europe playing to an american audience . The e. U. Is behind the United States and japan and i was a for a time it is reasonable to say they were behind china as well but germany has come on in a big way. By german you mean the German Government or german automobilemakers . Bmw came on very strong with a really neat electric vehicle made out of carbon fiber, it drives great you have to do sit in it and feel what the interior is like. It is one of the best designed vehicles i have been in my life and it has doors that open like this rather than this and an electric supercar which has a plug in electric Technology Similar to the chevy volt but much more robust. It is the coolest looking car you have ever seen. Coolers and it has. I dont think it is necessarily is a really cool car. I finish by saying with bmw getting into the electric vehicle segments. The German Government decided they will put some incentives on it. Right up front we need the mike up here and the lady behind you. You mentioned four generations of electric cars. What is different about four generations . Is it a signal of what the future holds . That is a great question. The thing that is different about the fourth generation what was Thomas Edison was the first generation . It depends on what continent you were on. Thomas edison put more than a Million Dollars of his own money into electric vehicles. After world war ii there was a brief period in japan they were building electric cars. Consumer automobiles had basically been occupying allied forces and domestic cars were a loophole and toyota had division that started to build electric cars and people were using them instead of traditional vehicles. And cheap gasoline. The third was in the 1970s the price spike in gasoline there was a lot of interest from a policy level but also among some private entrepreneur is in building a new generation of electric cars. You read the language of the time it sounds remarkably like the language of five years ago. And 3. 5. The other is in the 1990s with californias first extended elector car program and the current generation of electric vehicles really started in japan in 20062007. What is different about this when . Scale is different in the past. We sold 120,000 electric vehicles in the u. S. Last year which may not sound like a lot, 16 million vehicle Automotive Industry but it is huge in terms of laying the Technology Foundation for truly massproduced and massmarket the electric vehicles. That is the number one thing, from a Technology Perspective there are things that different. We have better motive, a new generation of permanent based magnet based battery of motors and that is superior to the 1990s. We have a different set of Technology Going in the batteries, the batteries they are using that were led out, nickel level hydrate boundaries the batteries, almost all lithium ion batteries and the costs come down enormously. From the blue green alliance. A great story was telling here and the earlier question how the different technologies connect, i want to follow up in d. C. You see a transformation across that. The federal, whether the policy drivers are transforming the industry as a whole. The earlier speaker, the same loan programs were critical for it is less and nissan. I was curious how some of the larger automotive federal incentives connect to the story. The huge question and a good question. The federal government was very important bringing tesla through a difficult period during the economic crisis. The federal government saved the u. S. Auto industry. You are an expert on these issues so you know better than anyone we could have lost General Motors or chrysler and both of those companies would have gone under, that would have had a horrible effect on ford which would have meant we lost ford as well. Horrible effect on the u. S. Economy. Kind of mid range projections, we would have lost another 2 million jobs, chrysler and General Motors would have gone under. It would have been a huge problem. And some of the money was not put these in the most efficient manner had some very important policies over the last ten years in the electric vehicles industry and there was an important federal tax credit 500 for electric vehicles, in consumers related to purchase electric cars and the final thing is fuel economy requirements and the most interesting story, and i was talking with one of obamas Energy Advisors the other day. The head of the California Air Resources Board was practically running the federal government negotiations with automakers when they were negotiating the fuel requirements since. These few efficiency requirements will promote electric vehicle manufacturing to a certain extent because people want to up their mpgs by deploying electric vehicles but most people say 54. 5 mpg by 2025 which is why the future of fuel economy requirements are can be achieved mostly without electric vehicles. Is not something that is going to drive the electrification in the same way california for a rams do. Two questions for me. I am at a new america and i want to go to an earlier point that you raised in industrial policy. There are two ways as an economist to look at industrial policy for of new sector of the economy. You can make a strong argument is that if you have a new industry coming on line, incentives to get a foothold to compete to in time those incentives forever but you can also look at incentives provided to the electric vehicle industry from an environmental perspective for mitigating externalities associated with the internal Combustion Engine and in that sense you dont put time limits on the incentives. I would be curious to know how you see this process unfolding in a Perfect World should there be an exploration feet, or reducing the arm that is being done. You can write many dissertations on the question you just asked. There should not be an argument on whether the sun rises should be subsidized right now. It makes a lot of sense to get the industry off your ground with some serious subsidies from the federal government as far as state and local governments to jump on board. That is terrific. Probably there are better ways of dealing with the longterm externality of Climate Change and subsidizing the electric vehicle industry specifically. The thing that i see in affect of industrial policy is, not so constrained politically that they cant reach calibrate when the external environment changes and you seat that very clearly in terms of how the japanese approach Automotive Ministry and in terms of how the California Air Resources Board approached Automotive Industry. You cant know what is coming info future so to just expect that you are going to set out a philosophy or specific game plan and follow that for the next 10 or 20 years is a little naive. What you need to do is have a long term strategic goal, start acting on that thesis, revisit that thesis, and still holds. And i dont think i could give a definitive response except to say you have to think strategically and have a certain degree of flexibility. The last questions air. Sustainability, practice and policy and the oil glut and acting and making the electric car worth pursuing any way. That is unique how you go back and look of the global level arent there other countries that are doing that . Lets get the question in. That is somewhat unique because california has created this market mechanism to govern the deployment of electric vehicles. It is very powerful to have a mandate to the market that you have seen this in other federal programs. You have this mandate regarding reduction of sulphur dioxide and the market to reduce the costs and californians are not the first people to use this mechanism but in terms of the global industry. To a electric vehicles. One more point on that. To me it is a great way of delinking our innovation policy from opec. It seems a little crazies that you should let oil markets govern how much money is going into your innovation policy for vehicles. Traditionally when oil prices go down people start buying less fuel efficient vehicles and a lot of money for these the fuel efficiency and Oil Alternative sector and that has created damaging cycle calendar within the spaces. The carb mechanism of establishing the mandate with the market attached to it really allows california to set its own innovation policy rather than opec. In the last couple minutes that we have, incredible research, find out things inside the u. S. China Japan Industry that is quite fascinating. Great storytelling, great personalities and a very important narrative. Now i will ask you to go out on a limb or at the end of a long extension cord and tell us what you think people will be driving in 20252030. People in this room more people watching cspan or people across the country . The thing is this. The timeline for developing automobiles comedy dont have to the too far out on the extension cord to make those predictions. We know by 2025 there is the mandate in place in california and other Southern States that says 3. 3 million elected vehicles minimum are going to be on the road so that is if war, not a ceiling. We know companies that have already created their timeline for deploying certain kinds of vehicles technologies. Theyll have definitely well, so today we have a lot of autonomous features. You have lane keeping dynamic Cruise Control which allows the car to slow down and speed up based on the speed of the car in front of it. By 2025 born and google bosch and google are saying youre going to essentially be able to get into your car, program a destination, and it will drive you from point to point. Well, i think this is quite a story. It starts a long time ago. The book actually starts with henry ford, and in a sense although it ends, this is a book to take along on the trip and recommend the the great race to everybody and thank you all for joining us with levi. [applause] [inaudible conversations] youre watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on cspan2s booktv television for serious readers. Coming up next on booktv, from last weekends savannah book festival, lynn scherr recounts the life of astronaut sally ride. This is about ap hour. An hour. [applause] [laughter] thank you ann, very much. And thanks to all of you. I want to say welcome to this beautiful place and also thank you for having me here. I love being among book lovers, and for those of you who came to hear vicki talk about her wonderful book about el havents im sorry about that but if it helps, i did write a book about giraffes. [laughter] truly magnificent creatures. Fes ill take a little detour here. I considery laughs giraffes not only the most gorgeousatta creatures on the planet, but also the most political correct. They never attack unless theyre attacked. Theyre very peace able. Theyre vegetarians and no pat giraffes discriminates against another giraffe on the basis of its skin patterns. [laughter] they also have the longest eyemo lashes in captivity. Theyr