Scott Keogh, chief executive of Volkswagen Group of America, told an Automotive News forum in Washington that the move to EVs is the single biggest"industrial transformation in America."
These challenges include attracting enough skilled workers, dramatically boosting and facilitating U.S. mining for critical minerals to produce the lithium batteries for EVs, supply chain issues and more broadly addressing healthcare, education and infrastructure, Keogh said. "It comes down to labor, it comes down to the infrastructure, it comes down to the investment," Keogh said.
Keogh estimated that the United States is making 150,000-200,000 batteries a year and that seven years from now"we need to be making 8.5 million batteries" annually.