As I’ve done since I was a kid, in January I braved the cold and walked the floor of the Detroit Auto Show at Huntington Place. This time, I left with a simple takeaway: People may be seeing headlines about an EV slowdown, but industry presence and consumer curiosity are still very much here.

Headshot of a smiling bearded man wearing a baseball-style cap with a four-leaf clover on it.
Jamie Racklyeft is executive director of the Michigan Electric Vehicle Alliance (MEVA) and lives in Canton, MI. (Courtesy photo)

EVs were everywhere. Major automakers featured them prominently. Lines formed for indoor ride-alongs. An EV Learning Center was built for the curious. Yet outside the show, the narrative sounded like retreat: slowing adoption, shifting incentives and investments, and a steady stream of misleading claims about EV performance.

If there was ever a moment when practical questions should matter more than politics, it’s now. And the answer isn’t retreat. It’s reset.

I was born in Detroit and raised on muscle cars, including a 1968 big-block convertible Corvette I once owned. I loved the sound, smell and feel of internal combustion. I never expected to own an EV. That changed about a decade ago when a friend took me for a ride in her electric car. The instant torque. The silent smoothness. Something clicked. I saw the future. 

I reserved a Tesla Model 3 the day reservations opened, and three years later I was waking up every day to a charged-up car in my garage. I’m on my fourth EV now — a bright blue Cadillac Optiq — and I’m not going back: A 2025 international survey of 27,000+ EV drivers found 93% would choose another battery-electric EV, while only 1% would return to gas or diesel.

Not because I’m an evangelist — I’m both an optimist and a realist — but because as vehicles, EVs are simply better at the core job of moving people.

They’re mechanically simpler, smoother, and quieter. They accelerate effortlessly. And they generally require less routine maintenance because they have fewer moving parts, no oil changes and (thanks to regenerative braking) often far less brake wear. In day-to-day life, rotating the tires and filling windshield washer fluid is pretty much all I do.

Yes, cold weather can reduce range and slow charging, and longer trips take a bit of planning. But for most drivers, these are manageable tradeoffs, and the experience keeps getting better.

Zoom out beyond US headlines and the picture becomes clearer. The International Energy Agency reports electric car sales topped 17 million worldwide in 2024, accounting for more than 20% of new car sales globally. Automakers aren’t abandoning electrification; they’re refining it. Battery technology keeps improving. Charging infrastructure keeps expanding. Companies planning years ahead aren’t doing so because EVs are trendy; they’re doing it because the economics point in one direction.

The US market is recalibrating. Michigan is recalibrating. That isn’t failure. It’s what real transitions look like. The early hype has faded, and what replaces it is more durable: better products, more realistic expectations, and consumers making informed choices based on lived experience rather than slogans.

In Michigan, a reset also means doubling down on the basics: reliable charging where people actually travel, clearer consumer information about winter driving and road-trip planning, and a workforce pipeline that keeps our state at the center of vehicle innovation.

As executive director of the Michigan Electric Vehicle Alliance, I spend a lot of time answering real questions — from winter range to road-trip charging to total cost of ownership. When people get credible answers from neighbors and trusted sources, not just ads and outrage, hesitation turns into confidence.

Detroit has reinvented mobility before. Michigan knows how to design, build, test and improve vehicles better than anywhere in the world. Electric vehicles aren’t a rejection of that legacy. They’re its next evolution.

So yes, 2026 may feel quieter than the hype years. But quieter isn’t weaker. It’s steadier. And steadiness is how lasting change actually takes hold.

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