hello everybody when you see these pictures you think remember those good old days a Muslim American group throwing an event together a dinner they invite their Jewish friends their Christian brothers and sisters and they break bread and talk about not what rips them apart a world away but instead what binds them together with a common Humanity here at home the good old days I'll tell you about those pictures in just a second but first here on letter rip 180 days the war against Hamas has left 3
2,000 people dead it's also left 134 families of Israeli hostages brutally ripped from their homes waiting for word are they okay are they even alive this war has exposed a lot of hate here at home the Anti-Defamation League and the Council on American Islamic relations both say hate speech and crimes are up more than 300% against both groups 300% but hope lives on here in metro Detroit back to the pictures the good old days you see although these days are anything but good those images you saw
of Jews and Muslims together at a peace dinner are from Redford Michigan on March 27th last week you see hope lives even thrives here at home one thing everyone agrees on hate against Jews hate against arab-americans hate against anyone well that's wrong tonight stopping that hate takes center stage on Let It Rip all right joining us tonight to talk about this really important topic Dr mmud Al hadidi founder and chairman of world World Peace Outreach and Rabbi Asher Lattin who's the community re
lations director for the Jewish Federation of Greater an arbor foxu anchor and attorney Charlie Lon with us as always and with that let's have this discussion that can be a tough one because of uh 6,000 miles away what's happening is affecting so many of us here at home 200,000 Arab Americans in Michigan so many of them affected by this so many Jewish families hurt by this as well today President Biden had a conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu uh and we don't know everything that happened in th
at call but I want to ask you Dr elh what do you what do you hope uh was said on that call what's your what's your dream call for these two leaders I wish that uh President Biden tell baby Netanyahu that uh United States will always be the backbone of international law will be the protector of Human Rights and enough is enough we have to end this war we have to and the killing and the aid has to be delivered to those starving people uh in Gaza and a way out of this war has to be found immediatel
y and not to escalate and not to find another reason and pick another fight like hitting the Consulate of Iran in Damascus I'm not a fan of Iran but that was wrong that's bad Netanyahu should not pick another fight to extend this war and he should aim to end it Rabbi are you afraid that Benjamin Netanyahu is looking for more reasons to extend this war well you know Netanyahu has always been a very cautious leader so I actually have to disagree Iran has been a terrorist State ever since 1979 taki
ng our American hostages and I don't regard them as as they shouldn't be safe anywhere really so Iran we would disagree where I do agree is that I think President Biden has to emphasize to Netanyahu and to Israel because this war is is not netanyahu's war it's really Israelis are supporting this war against Hamas but America and I think Biden as he said in the beginning has to show that while he supports Israel in its war against Kamas and he's a supporter of Israel Israel has to provide the hum
anitarian Aid that is critical and has to show sympathy for the death of Palestinians and it's not easy for Israel to do it because the hostages are still in dungeons underground and and Israel is still hurting and in trauma but that's what Biden can say I'm your ally I'm with you and you have to care about and show that you care about the humanitarian side of this world and we're doing all this in the middle of a political cycle where we're just months away from a a huge election Charlie how mu
ch influence does that have on what this President says on any given day I think a lot I think this is a big crucial factor for Biden's reelection and perhaps for Trump but certainly Biden is the leader he he's the leader right now I I agreee with the rabbi I really think that Israel's got to come up and say listen how much more killing do we need to accomplish here I mean the war should be done we got to go back and we got to we got to we got to humanitarian Aid has got to come through Gaza it
must right now it's got to and bid's got to lead the charge and I think going after people in the tunnel un tried toed does not justify killing everybody above the ground going after people let's say submit that he's going after those people in the tunnel underground does not justify killing one and a half people one and a half million people above ground and then every time there's a a light at the end of the tunnel the the the relief was allowed the US said we're going to have the relief then
Netanyahu and the IDF killed seven relief workers the same day to deter people from going there whether intentional or not I'm okay with you that saying this was an accident we cannot afford more we cannot afford more accidents like that I agree with you on that I mean I I don't agree that the war the war needs to end with hamas's defeat and that's critical and from the sources that I hear actually most of Hamas has been defeated and the war is enter is entering a lighter phase but I do agree th
at humanitarian has to be and the truth is if you think about it if Israel sends in convoys to protect the humanitarian convo Israel sends it solders which I think it should but if those soldiers are killed those Israeli soldiers are killed in protecting the convoys for Palestinian civilians it's not going to look good for Netanyahu but that's what Biden has to push Rabbi it this sounds like a riddle that does not have any funny meaning and no good ending here you're saying right now that you th
ink that this will end when Hamas is finally defeated is that an attainable goal and at what cost of human lives we the definition of that right well so there the discussions there 20 battalions of Hamas that have been defeated 10,000 soldiers of Hamas there are four that are left there in Rafa and so this war is slowing down um and even if you look at the figures which are Hamas figures so you really can't rely on them but it it is tragic that civilians that Hamas is using civilians as human Sh
ields um and it's tragic that these Aid workers are killed I think what President Biden can do and this also is political he has to show that he's strong and a strong supporter of Israel and also that he cares about political is it political just for a moment is it political to say that 32,000 lives that have been lost have been all used as human Shields or is it safe to say that only some of those were either they were Hamas Fighters or they're unfortunately 32,000 there are videos shown over a
nd over of unarmed civilians walking people crawling and a drone hid them cutting them into pieces this been shown over and over these are not human shield they're walking on the beach on a road that was declared to be safe and they're haunted like like a uh animals this is not right this is not human Shields I could see if the Hamas is hiding in a building these people were killed on the beach they were killed on the street that was declared as a safe passage but is there an end game to this wa
r where is the end game where is it when Israel says okay that's enough we win or not is and I don't see it here I think pres the defeat of Hamas but then there has to be rebuilding of Gaza there has to be concern for the Palestinian civilians and Israel needs to show that as difficult as is so that's the end game meaning afterwards the day after Israel needs a better we only have about 2 minutes left and I want to ask you about the reason that the two of you decided to come here today uh just o
n March 27th there was a a dinner that was held in which uh a Muslim group held this entire group Dr LED this and brought Hindus Christians and Jews together Under One Roof what lessons can Detroit Teach the World about how to treat one another even when we disagree Dr L we're human we're American citizens we're neighbors we're brothers and sisters in humanity uh boycott is not the way we have to reach out to each other uh boycotting your friend is bad boycotting your enemy is even worse because
you lose the chance of making him a friend in Islam in Ramadan means treat people better than they treat you so maybe they become your friends by boycotting you lose that chance you lose a chance of communication you lose a chance of ending the hatred boycott is bad and radicalization is worse we see a lot of rad radicalization in the Muslim community and in the Jewish Community it's not all hanadori at your end because when those soldiers are are killing 32,000 people in 6 months that's like a
killing machine allow me please so there is radicalization there when you see soldiers beautiful let me allow me to say that beautiful young Israeli soldiers but they're making fun of women's leres underwears they take take take video while they blowing I saw that yeah blowing up Palestinians homes that they making fun of it parading Palestinians naked this is a radicalization those people were not born like that they were taught how to torture how to hate same thing goes with the Palestinians
we have to eliminate hate we have to learn how to live together look for tomorrow and how to get the best out of each other and rabbi did that happen at that dinner in Redford and do you think that that is unique because you don't hear about that happening in other cities Across America Dr alhad is a special man you see how we disagree and yet he I look up to him as a mentor as a teacher as a dear friend um so there aren't that many but there are others and when there's a doctor Al hadidi and hi
s wife who's incredible there is hope we can disagree and we can stay here all night disagreeing but the bottom line is that we come together in peace and I share his values of humanity and it was a beautiful inspiring Ramadan ifar dinner well a Muslim a Jew a Christian and a Hindu sit here in Detroit tonight to deliver the news that perhaps things aren't as Bleak at least when it comes to being able to sit together break bread and understand the other's perspective even when we don't disagree a
gree I bet we all agree on many more things than we disag that's very true good point Charlie Dr I want to say thank you for joining us I wish we had more time and we invite you to come back so we can share more of your thoughts Rabbi always good to see you and happy holidays to everybody happy Ramadan happy Easter Happy Passover and there's Hindu that passed as well yeah happy holidays to everybody hopefully we have better days thank you I love that you ended with that note thank you for joinin
g us here today it's been a tough week for the EV Market Switching gears Ford is delaying the roll out of several electric vehicles shifting its focus to hybrids the reason people just aren't buying them as quickly as they had thought we're debating if the future fut really is all electric and what it'll take to get you to buy in back down letter rip debating the slumping electric vehicle sales and what if anything it'll take for Americans to buy in I'm joined Now by Abby Mitch the executive dir
ector for Michigan rising action with a conservative perspective on this one and a man you know well here on let it rip and across Metro Detroit Auto Lines John mroy John always good to see you thank you and Fox new anchor attorney Charlie Lon back with us as well let's get right to it and let's let it rip John Moy uh the last time I T you about EVS uh the picture that you had painted was a bit brighter than we're actually seeing play out did did the big three and all the Autos get it wrong when
it comes to EVS they did to a degree they got out ahead of their skis they overinvestment believe what all the forecasters are saying will probably grow over 50% I mean it's the fastest growing segment in the market by far but growing from what though John growing from the the the impetus right it's the beginning and so the growth that we see could be big but it should it be bigger and what do we need to do to get it bigger that's what we here to talk about tonight I want to it's pretty signifi
cant uh uh over a million 1.1 million EVS were sold in the United States last year and how many of them were bought by regular Families how many of them were Fleet purchases there's Fleet in there for sure but I mean you know uh most of them by far are retail sales they're not Fleet Sales this year the prognostication is anywhere from average income 1.7 1.6 to 1.7 million this year so the rate of growth is what the average cost of one EV car $76,000 it's a lot lower than that right now so if it'
s lower than that right now but it's still too high to so let's talk about this the Mustang Maki uh they had one price slash I think by $88,000 they brought down the price one more time just now in the hopes of making this work Abby is the price point the only issue here or are there Myriad other issues like where do I charge and how range anxiety and all those other issues sure I mean I I will never dare go Toe totoe with John on the on the ins and outs of an electric vehicle itself or the indu
stry but I will tell you I'm a mom with two kids under two and the last thing I want to be doing right now is learning where to gas my car the number of plug it in or plug it in sure even wor the number of times I'm sitting there watching the thing go down to e and I'm like how many miles can I squeeze out of this I do not want to be stuck dozens if not hundreds of miles from a charging station much less one that might take hours with my kids in the car all right so Charlie a lot of people will
say look when there were horse and Buggies and people said we're going to come up Henry Ford and the rest of the world said we're going to make this mass production this great car and people kind of shook their heads and said what are you kidding me are we just twoo old fashioned to accept the fact that something new is on the horizon and we don't want to get on board yeah yeah I think so where the gas station right now listen in Detroit Detroit maybe is a bad example we like muscle cars we like
to hear the engine we like to drive and I'm not I think in Detroit it is a it's a difficult sell for EVS they're expensive there are no charging stations are very minimal there's only a couple here in Fox too if you get you got to get here early to get your car in there if you get there late you've got to wait and I think that's a problem people don't people don't want to do that so for those reasons I think it's difficult hybrids maybe there's got to be an entry level break into the business m
aybe it would not be the word when I Ed the word slumping and John corrected me perhaps the word is huge Spike when it comes to hybrids that's an accurate depiction hybrids are having a moment and they're doing quite well talk about that for a moment yeah they really are look I mean uh people want to get good fuel economy or better still if they go electric never go to a gas station again in their lives but people look at the kind of fuel efficiency that a hybrid delivers and they like that's fo
r me I want in I loved my fuel econ the fuel efficiency of my hybrid I had a hybrid before I got married I got one bumper scratch one $2,600 just to have the bumper taken off to paint it and you want to know why because of all of the engineering inside of the vehicle and it it turned me off I I don't think that I don't I just don't think the infrastructure isn't there we talk about charging stations a lot like Charlie mentioned but the issue is is we don't have the mechanics we don't have the av
ailability of places to get these things repaired we don't have the battery back stock in order to replace them what about the battery so this is the issue that some people saying look we are many lay we're Layman we don't know everything uh when you go to buy a car and you try to learn so John the batteries people say wait a minute you're still drawing energy if I go plug in right here at Fox 2 my electric car I'm drawing energy from an electrical grid that has to burn coal and other things in
order to get me that energy isn't that also bad well the Coal's going away by and large I mean it's we produce more electricity with Renewables in the United States right now than we do with uh Co and you look I'm not going to say that uh electric cars are totally clean they're not they produce greenhouse gas emissions they have a carbon footprint but it is a fraction of what an internal combustion engine vehicle has what about the batteries the lithium ion batteries they have Cobalt in them man
y people say wait a minute this is bad on so many levels it's pollutants it's bad for water it's bad for everything the batteries themselves do we have a ways to go yeah we're making progress all the time but you know look there's different chemistries of batteries you mentioned Cobalt the hottest thing right now in fact Ford's got them in some of its Vehicles is what they call lith lithium phosphate iron doesn't have any Cobalt in it whatsoever zero also because there's no Oxygen in them they c
an't catch fire also they're 30% cheaper this is the hottest thing going on in electric vehicles right now I that's the issue I think we are in a door Dash we want our stuff now and if my if my charge is going down I am in the middle of nowhere I can't get to a charging station I think that's the fear that a lot of people have to invest a lot of money in a car that may be fuele efficient but I think people want convenience and they're not getting it now with what which which is what on which is
what on the market let's talk about what just happened today here in Southfield uh about during the six o'cl newscast out of nowhere we took a power hit here at the station and much of Southfield is without power at this hour as we tape the show um this grid man it's a little delicate your car are you concerned if we if we're not able to handle those who are using the electricity in their homes and their cars now how do we then put 500,000 charging stations out there and then say all right every
one charged what about the grid well sure I mean that's definitely an issue and I've seen that at CES they've suggested that if only the automakers and the utilities could get together and agree to improve the grid we could all like sing around a campfire Kumbaya the problem is is that your automakers are beholden to the utilities no matter what type of car they make they're in a weak negotiating position and the oil companies right now well they're never going to get together and say hey how ar
e we going to uh improve this grid together that's not going to happen and second the utilities are under the exact same political environmental renewable pressures as the auto Auto industry is with these mandates and they are still the utilities are still tampering with how to get reliable electricity clearly to point from point A to point B especially with these unpredictable renew Renewables on the line so what if the prices what if the prices of these EVS Dro by 30 or 40% would it change the
equation for everybody unquestionably look a lot of people are holding back right now going wo the the the EES that are out there right now are too expensive for me so when the price is right I'm going in you mentioned Ford cutting the price of the Machi as soon as they did sales took off took off so yeah people are sensitive and if you drop the price they're going to buy a whole lot more 1.1 Million last year 1.7 million this year it's going to go well over 2 million next year 1.7 million vehi
cles to be parked just outside the city limits to be dumped like they are in China no no you're you're talking about uh uh uh ride sharing cars that were built under a scam of people that were gaming the system there China is the world leader right now so what do you do with the cars when they're no longer recycle them I mean so what about the batteries I know that there are plans are saying look if you take an old car battery uh you can actually make it part of the grid Again by using renewing
it is that technology that we're working on is it working oh yeah no there's there's plenty of P pilot project and you know going back to the grid a minute forget electric cars the Grid's got to be upgraded the grid has got to be hardened cyber hardened it's look at all the storms look at how much electricity goes down here right now just because it's not a very got to get upgraded forget electric cars it's got to get if the upgrades aren't happening for regular electricity are we ready for a fl
eet of electric cars going across Metro Detroit if the if the threat of a national security event like a terrorist attack is not hardening our grid I guarantee you the interest of selling a few 100,000 more electric vehicles is not going to do it doesn't the government mandate that we have to have electric cars in what is it 8 years or so 2third of the of the buying public General Motors said by 2035 they want to go all electric Volvo is a little more aggressive 2030 that mandate is the enemy of
the kind of innovation John is talking about the evolving battery types because all of these automakers are going to have to settle on something to sell every Tom Dick and Harry when the Mandate comes down look at Tesla look at byd the Chinese company look at BMW look at Volvo they're all making a profit on their electric cars and in fact with Tesla and byd they're extremely profitable so once you turn the corner and it you got to go through production hell to get there once you turn the corner
man can you make money on these things if you have money what about the people in uh parts of Metro Detroit and the city itself that say man I'm just trying to put food on the table you want me to go get an electric car and figure out a way to charge it not going to cost me more on my electric bill no no no yes your electric bill absolutely will go up you're you're never going to go to a gas again electricity is far cheaper than gasoline but the type of person that R is talking about is living
in a 100y old house that doesn't have the kind of electrical infrastructure to begin with to put the 220 volt in that they probably can't afford to install in order to charge the vehicle they probably still won't be able to afford cost a th000 bucks at least at least look a good level two charger right now is $500 GTE or Consumer Power will pay you to put that in well John and and Abby we're want to come back on the other side of the break with more of your final thoughts and Charlie's taking le
t a rip on the [Music] road electric vehicles garbage most definitely the best why not I'm up my I grew up with hot rods the thing of the future aren't they clean energy all that stuff I mean I want to be to go when I need to go I want to be able to go we like them yeah electricity do you have one negative do you want one most definitely it's only going to last a minute you know they don't running the cold the batteries are going to die battery cost half much as the car raining and some that wat
er get on some of that electrical stuff and the car just shut down I don't believe in that I think it saves you money because you're not spending a lot of money at the gas station I can't even keep my battery on my phone charged I remember to plug it in and I let my car if someone came up to you and said there you go there's your brand new electric car would you take it yeah right now cuz I ain't got no car I hear you final thoughts John maroy look electric is the future it's going to keep growi
ng every every every every single year and in time everyone will be there Abby well here's the thing what you see with a lot of those people is fear the government mandate has pushed this technology too much too fast down too many people's throats thank you Abby Charlie well I think they got to be a hybrid there's got to be an intrum so people can get used to the electric car before they'll go full electric I want to thank our panel for joining us today great conversation thanks to you two and C
harlie as well my take tonight Drive what you want if you like gas powerered cars the way they drive look sound smell it's your car your money you don't need to tell us that we don't need to tell you that if you like electric cars sure they're Greener they emit fewer pollutants and greenhouse gases and combustion engines but the biggest obstacle on the road charging stations the FED say they're coming 500,000 of them but have we thought about the next roadblock that could be coming juicing up 50
0,000 new Chargers Across America all while more Americans plug in at home and at work that takes a lot of electricity if we're struggling with an aging grid now oh just wait but that's what many people are doing when it comes to EVS waiting and for good reason maybe we should be asking our lawmakers what they're doing to invest in our grid maybe then more will catch the buzz of EVS just think that does it for this edition of let it rip the let it rip discussion continues online sound off on Fac
ebook X formally Twitter or Fox2 detroit.com
Comments