Hi, everybody. Welcome to Shift, a podcast about mobility. I'm Pete Bigelow, your host and reporter at the automotive news.

On today's podcast, we're talking about the Commerce Department's ban on Chinese and Russian software and hardware and connected vehicle tech over national security

concerns.

My guest today is Avery Ash, executive director of the Coalition for Reimagined Mobility within

the DC nonprofit securing America's future energy.

Avery and I will be discussing the ban in just a minute.

But first today, we've got to look at this week's headlines.

And for that, I'm joined by my automotive news colleague, Lonnie Eilif.

Lonnie, how are you today?

Fantastic. Great to be here.

Good. Welcome back.

You know, I've been so down periscope on CES lately that I've kind of lost track of everything else going on in the world.

You cover Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, three companies that were not part of CES.

So maybe you can catch us up.

I know that there's a big deal with Rivian getting a energy department loan that's crystallized here

just within the final days of the Biden administration.

Yeah, and it's important that they got it done in the final days of the Biden administration. Yeah, and it's important that they got it done in the final days of the Biden administration.

They've been working on it for a couple years.

It's $6.6 billion.

It's going to allow them to build a second plant, their second plant in Georgia for their mass

market vehicle.

So this is what they need to get through,

...