Kokomo, Indiana is car country.

Any city outside Stuttgart, Germany, we have the longest continual relationship with the auto industry in the world.

The town's fate has been tied to the automotive industry for more than a century, and that history runs on gas.

But is that fuel still Kokomo's future?

I'm pleased to announce we're approving funding for the first 35 states to build their own

electric charging infrastructure throughout their state.

The Biden administration's push to reduce emissions and move toward electric cars has been

embraced by Democrats and liberal leading states like California.

But for conservatives, they've long seen the EV revolution as liberal government overreach.

So how do you change such thinking?

I'm Gustavariano. You're listening to the Times, essential news from the LA Times. It's Friday, December 16, 2022. Today, our electric cars are next culture war issue? A new electric battery plant in deep red Indiana is putting that to the test. Joining me to talk about the political feature of electric vehicles is my LA Times colleague and White House reporter Noah Bierman.

Noah, welcome the Times.

Thanks, Gustavo.

So a few weeks ago, you were in Kokomo to look at how people in the United States are feeling about electric cars.

Why Kokomo? Yeah, a lot of people have probably heard more about Detroit than Kokomo when it comes

to the American history of cars and continued production. But they've actually had the longest

relationship with building cars in the United States. The history is the whole history of

the automobile industry. And that's a lot of ups and downs. You have boom times when people who

had these middle class production jobs did quite well, but you've also had a lot of bankruptcies,

mergers, acquisitions.

I mean, Stalantis, which is now the main employer in Kokomo.

A lot of people have never heard of it, but they're huge.

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