Business View Magazine | June 2022

77 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 6 MARYLAND AUTOMOB I LE DEALERS ASSOC I AT ION forefront of encouraging this trend. “We were one of the first states that had a tax credit when you bought an electric vehicle. Unfortunately, that tax credit sunsetted two years ago during the pandemic, and we haven’t put it back.” Explaining that he believes infrastructure is the more important issue, he adds, “People want to know, if they buy an electric car, where they’ll be able to charge it. We have to work on building codes to figure out how we can make that easier for people to get their home ready when they bring an electric vehicle in. If we want to get to a significant number of these vehicles on the road, we need to address all these things.” Availability of product has been another challenge, although this is changing. Kitzmiller acknowledges, “There is this narrative out there that traditional car dealers don’t want to sell electric cars, for a variety of reasons. That is nonsense. Electric vehicles haven’t sold in any kind of volume, not because dealers don’t want to sell them, it’s because we haven’t had colleges and high schools to get people interested in being technicians. With electric cars coming, the job is going to change but the number one workforce issue for automobile dealers is technicians. We have a foundation, we give scholarships. We need to do a better job though. Nobody that I’m aware of nationwide has really come up with the magic bullet here, but we have to keep working at it because the need is definitely there.” Vehicles for Change, an organization offering car ownership and technical training to people in need, has introduced a re-entry program, providing automotive training to previously incarcerated individuals, as a bridge to employment. Other programs working to fill these workforce gaps include military organizations aimed at retired military who have automotive experience. With electric vehicles top of mind in the industry, Kitzmiller says that Maryland has been at the