| Thanks for reading Hyperdrive, Bloomberg's newsletter on the future of the auto world. Read today's featured story in full online here. When Tesla hands over the first of its Cybertrucks to customers on Nov. 30, it will embark on one of its toughest challenges yet: overcoming America's partisan divide over electric vehicles. EV ownership is deeply tied to voting behavior in the US, according to a report by BloombegNEF. For every 10 percentage-point increase in Joe Biden's share of votes in the 2020 election, the concentration of EVs was roughly 50% higher. The partisan rift goes well beyond preferences linked to income, urban density or the current rate of truck ownership. As the US wades into a bitter presidential election year, EV partisanship has only increased. The national Republican Party wants to repeal EV incentives passed under Biden, and presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed without evidence that EVs will all be made in China, destroying the US auto industry. Bill Ford, the executive chair of Ford, has likened the polarization to what happened with vaccines since the pandemic. "I never thought I would see the day when our products were so heavily politicized," he said in an interview last week with the New York Times. Ford and General Motors recently pushed back their timelines for electrifying trucks following a disappointing reception of their first attempts. Ford is shifting its focus to hybrids, which use smaller batteries to help power gasoline engines. Including plug-in hybrids, the US is on track this year to cross a critical threshold of 10% of new-vehicle sales being electric, the point when widespread adoption typically occurs, according to a Bloomberg Green analysis of EV tipping points. So far 10 states have passed that milestone — and none of them lean Republican. In the middle of it all sits Elon Musk, who built an unrivaled fortune selling EVs to green-minded early adopters before engaging with right-wing politics in the US. Hoping to flip the script on EV ownership with the Cybertruck, Musk moved Tesla's headquarters from California to Texas and started wearing cowboy hats in public appearances. Tesla, which is responsible for about 60% of EVs ever sold in the US, aims to reach a production rate of 250,000 Cybertrucks a year at some point in 2025. That's six times more than all the electric pickups sold until now. Whether Musk's outreach to Republicans results in the Cybertruck being embraced by both sides of the political spectrum, or by neither, could shape the pace of EV adoption for years to come. — By Tom Randall  A United Auto Workers sign held on a picket line outside the Stellantis Sterling Heights Assembly Plant in Michigan. Photographer: Emily Elconin/Bloomberg The United Auto Workers union offered a new contract proposal to General Motors similar to the tentative agreement signed with Ford, according to people familiar with the matter, in the latest bid to end a six-week-old strike. UAW President Shawn Fain spoke face-to-face Thursday morning with GM CEO Mary Barra in a meeting that lasted several hours, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the non-public details. There is no tentative agreement yet, but the sides are close on many key issues, the people said. Join Bloomberg's Supply Chain Resiliency: Risk & Mitigation event in Detroit on Nov. 16 for an afternoon with our research analysts and subject experts to discuss trends, risks and innovative ways to monitor and manage critical supply-chain elements — and especially their impact on the auto industry. To register for this free, in-person-only event, click here.  A rear component Toyota manufactured using a gigacast. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg As Toyota, Honda and other Japanese carmakers seek to make up for lost ground in the shift to electric vehicles, they're starting to embrace a disruptive technology that's become one of the industry's hottest topics: gigacasting. Tesla pioneered the use of huge machines capable of casting entire sections of a chassis in a single step, replacing dozens of parts that were welded together previously. The process helps manufacturers squeeze out savings — in terms of time, equipment, labor and cost — from every EV they assemble. | 
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