Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers uses faulty data to warn of big job losses from EV transition

Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan, has been a staunch opponent of the Biden administration’s efforts to increase electric vehicle production, warning that it threatens Michigan’s auto industry.

In a recent debate with his opponent, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, Rogers said the administration’s fuel efficiency rules, which Slotkin has supported, will eliminate hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs in Michigan. 

"They're going to cost, according to a Ford CEO, about 400,000 manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan will go away with EV mandates," Rogers, a former U.S. representative, said during the Oct. 14 debate.

Rogers’ campaign arrived at that number using an inflated estimate of jobs that EV manufacturing would affect, and a disputed estimate of the labor required to manufacture an EV.

Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget figures show the number of Michigan auto manufacturing jobs is less than half the number Rogers said was at risk: Around 175,000 people are employed in auto and auto parts manufacturing in the state, an agency report shows.

There is a real concern about EV jobs displacing workers who assemble gas-powered vehicles, but not at the scale Rogers said. 

There’s also no mandate requiring auto manufacturers to make only electric vehicles. 

The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule in March that will require carmakers to reduce tailpipe emissions over time. The rule does not mandate that carmakers produce a specific kind of car. In practice, though, the EPA has estimated automakers will need new car sales to be 56% EVs and 13% plug-in hybrids by 2032 to meet the requirement.

Rogers’ campaign pointed us to two sources when we asked for evidence of the claim. First, it pointed to a 2022 interview with Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley, in which he said EVs require 40% less labor to produce than internal combustion engine vehicles. 

The campaign then compared that figure with a report from MichAuto, which describes itself as "the state's only automotive and mobility cluster association." The organization found there are 1.1 million "automotive or mobility jobs" in Michigan, representing 20% of the state’s workforce. 

The campaign applied a 40% reduction to the 1.1 million jobs to arrive at 400,000 lost jobs from a transition to electric vehicles. Rogers’ spokesperson, Chris Gustafson, said the emissions rules supported by Slotkin would "decimate Michigan’s auto industry and destroy our economy."

But the jobs MichAuto included in the "automotive or mobility" sector extend far beyond auto manufacturing to jobs that are unrelated to how cars are made. It included airplane and boat manufacturing; car insurance; trucking; delivery services; tour operators and telecommunications, for example. Of the more than 100 job classification codes included in the count, 15 are related to car and truck manufacturing or car parts manufacturing. 

The same survey said there were 176,769 auto manufacturing jobs in Michigan in 2022, which is close to the figure the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget provided.

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Other estimates of EV job losses have given a far lower figure. The conservative America First Policy Institute estimated around 37,000 auto manufacturing jobs in Michigan could be lost if car manufacturers meet the EPA’s projections. The study assumed an EV requires 30% less labor than a gasoline-powered car, and it did not factor in new jobs in EV production, such as battery manufacturing. 

That EVs require fewer labor hours to assemble is often held up as a warning of potential job losses in shifting to electric vehicles. Researchers have found mixed results, though, when studying the disparity in labor between the two models. 

In September, researchers at the University of Michigan published a study that showed U.S. auto plants increased their workforce dramatically when transitioning from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles. At one factory that transitioned, the number of jobs remained higher even after more than 10 years. 

In a May study, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that the total amount of labor required to produce an EV power train — the system that makes the car move — is higher than an internal combustion engine vehicle, when factoring in labor needed for creating the cells, batteries and other components. 

Looking at assembly alone, the study found that EV power trains do take less labor than traditional vehicles, said Christophe Combemale, one of the study’s authors. But other production along the supply chain makes up for those losses. 

"The complexity of some of these material deposition and fabrication sets for batteries actually required more workers," Combemale said. "So, what we found is, if you included those pieces, the number of labor hours per car, per powertrain, went up."

 EVs’ effect on U.S. jobs depends on how much of the supply chain is made in the U.S. rather than imported, experts said. Currently, China produces 70% to 80% of the cell components and batteries that go into EVs globally. 

The domestic capacity for EV battery production is expected to meet the projected demand, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, by 2030, because of recent investments in battery factories. As those factories become operational, more American workers will be involved in the production of EVs. 

Concerns about auto factory job losses in Michigan are valid, Combemale said. Battery factories being announced around the U.S. are not in the same location as the auto manufacturing jobs they may displace. Some workers will likely need to move or change jobs as the transition to EVs takes effect. Combemale said assembly workers will likely have the hardest time replacing their wages in a transition to EVs. 

"Assembly workers, who, as it happens, according to our technical model are probably the most likely to at least need to relocate within the production chain, had some of the worst outlooks, in terms of wage-sustaining exit options outside the industry," Combemale said.

Nevertheless, the projections and data don’t support the idea that 400,000 auto manufacturing jobs will disappear in Michigan. 

Rogers said of federal car emissions rules, "They’re going to cost, according to a Ford CEO, about 400,000 manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan will go away with EV mandates." 

The number Rogers arrived at was based on a broad definition of "mobility jobs," which included dozens of occupations unrelated to auto production. Michigan employs about 175,000 people in auto and auto parts manufacturing. 

Estimates of the labor needed to produce EVs are mixed, and they depend heavily on whether the parts are produced in the U.S. or are imported. Even the highest estimates of job losses from an EV transition don’t support Rogers’ claim. 

We rate Rogers’ claim False.