Kilowatt: A Podcast about Electric Vehicles · 918Digital

Jeremy Michalek: Behind the Supply Chain

·52 min·4 clips

China saw an opening as battery prices fell, making EVs simpler to engineer and dominate globally.

Bodhi starts plainly. He introduces Jeremy as a Carnegie Mellon professor working on vehicle electrification, lifecycle assessment, consumer behavior, and public policy, then admits the interview made him a little nervous. That feeling does not last. The conversation settles into something more useful than a lecture: a careful sorting of what EV claims mean once China, battery materials, and regulation are part of the picture. Jeremy brings real institutional weight. He directs the Design Decisions Laboratory, co-directs the Vehicle Electrification Group, and has taken sustainable mobility research into public and policy settings. Bodhi keeps the tone grounded. He does not turn expertise into a press release. The episode works best when he asks the plain follow-up before a big claim gets too tidy. The strongest section is about regulation. Jeremy explains that if the greenhouse gas endangerment finding is revoked, the government may lose legal authority to regulate those vehicle emissions at all. That is not just paperwork. It could slow the EV transition, and it also reaches back into gasoline vehicle efficiency standards that have helped push emissions down over time. Without that pressure, automakers would face a weaker federal reason to build cleaner and more efficient vehicles, even before the debate gets to full electrification. Then the state issue comes in. Jeremy talks through California's cleaner fleet efforts and the problem manufacturers face when federal and state standards point in different directions. Common rules gave everyone a calmer path. The episode's policy segment shows how quickly that kind of predictability can fall apart. Bodhi checks the edges of the argument. He asks whether the endangerment finding connects to lower penalties for manufacturers that miss certain standards, and Jeremy separates related policy moves from the narrower legal authority question. The result is detailed but still followable: an EV discussion for listeners who want the regulations and the real-world incentives in the same conversation.

As heard by us

A clear, policy-first EV conversation that keeps asking what the rules change in practice.

Jeremy Mihalik treats this EV interview as a careful walk through the policy and technical machinery behind electric cars. The discussion moves from China and battery materials to consumer behavior, life-cycle thinking, and the awkward fact that federal and state rules do not…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the EV policy fight translated into real-world tradeoffs.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Kilowatt: A Podcast about Electric Vehicles