Shift: A podcast about mobility · Automotive News

Calstart’s Michael Berube: How the industry can improve EV education

November 23, 2025·23 min·1 clip

One of four cars sold worldwide now electric—fastest industry transformation ever.

The episode opens with the week's automotive news. Molly talks about a story built from videos from a Las Vegas hacking conference, where one part of the event focuses on hacking vehicles and automaker systems, and she also mentions covering a House select committee meeting on China. The main interview then begins. Hannah Lutz and Molly Boygon speak with Michael Berube, the new CEO of CalSTART, about how private companies can work with the public sector to keep clean transportation policy steadier. The conversation keeps coming back to education, messaging, planning, charging locations, and the gaps that still have to be closed. It is as much about getting the basics in place as it is about the technology itself. Berube points to enough charging, clearer signage, and the deployment work that has to happen for EV adoption to keep moving. He also says the industry is broadly aligned on the need for stability, even as the U.S. regulatory picture stays complicated across federal and California rules. The episode treats the issue as something that reaches beyond any one automaker, because the barriers affect the whole industry. CalSTART comes in as a group that can help identify those barriers and focus attention on problems that individual companies cannot solve alone. The federal role is part of the backdrop, and the discussion leaves room for nonprofits to step in where that role is less active. The result is a grounded conversation about the policy, infrastructure, and education work that still sits behind EV adoption.

As heard by us

EV adoption looks simple until charging, policy, and coordination come into view.

The episode treats EV adoption as a system problem before it treats it as a messaging problem. Michael Berube, CalSTART's new CEO, keeps circling back to basic questions: where charging needs to go, where the gaps are, and how public and private actors can make clean…

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Why you'd press play

You want a measured EV policy conversation about charging, readiness, and public-private coordination.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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