Despite weak consumer demand, EVs are the future: Sila CEO

Car manufacturers like General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) have scaled back their electric vehicle production plans amid weaker demand. Sila co-founder and CEO Gene Berdichevsky joins Asking for a Trend to discuss the state of the EV market and how Sila fits in.

Sila is a battery manufacturer that seeks to improve the safety, charging performance, and life cycle of EV batteries. "I think we're seeing a slowdown because EVs are just not meeting all of the mainstream consumer adoption expectations. So what consumers really want to see is longer range, faster recharge time. I think we've been very, very focused on cost as the primary driver," Berdichevsky explains. However, he still believes that EVs are the future of the industry, and it might just take longer to get to that point as infrastructure improvements need to be made.

He compares EVs to the iPhone, explaining, "The first people that bought an iPhone were also early adopters. It was expensive at the time... But that began a product evolution that consumers ultimately got behind. And I think we're going to see the same thing here. We're going to have better EVs coming on the market in the next few years, and that will reignite and reaccelerate the growth."

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This post was written by Melanie Riehl