EV & ADAS Trends in Auto Industry, Tesla Cybertruck’s Big Moment — Interview with SEMA President & CEO

I recently interviewed Mike Spagnola, president and CEO of the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), for our CleanTech Talk podcast series. It was an atypical and interesting conversation for me, because it wasn’t with someone entrenched in and coming from the EV industry. This is a more conventional auto guy who’s coming at the EV topic from a “normal auto guy” perspective. That being the case, I was curious to pick his brain on how he saw the EV industry and EV trends. However, I have to say that we talked about a lot of different topics. It was a fun discussion. Listen to the whole conversation here:

If that wasn’t enough of a teaser for you, here’s more on what we talked about:

• Hybrids moving from niche automobiles a few decades ago to completely mainstream today.
• Rapid EV growth over the past decade.
• ADAS development across the industry, including mandatory backup cameras.
• EV conversions becoming much cheaper now than 5 or 10 years ago, and the SEMA Show now including about 50 suppliers to help with that.
• The Ford Mustang Mach-E — early responses to it, our enthusiasm for the model here at CleanTechnica, and public responses to the one I had for a week when there were only 4 in the country.
• The Tesla Cybertruck — what to expect as far as common mods, uses, etc. Expects Cybertruck to be THE vehicle of the SEMA Show this year.
• Hybrids vs. full electrics in the coming few years.
• Chinese EVs coming to the US — Mike thinks they’re going to come.
• The end of sedans in the US.

That’s the short summary of a 45-minute interview. Listen in for our nuanced discussion of those matters and some more.

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