60 Minutes - Sunday, February 24, 2019

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

In his first television interview, Bryant Vinas, an American-Muslim who joined Al-Qaida tells Scott Pelley about his experiences, before being an informant for the U.S. Bill Whitaker learns the FDA's role in the opioid epidemic. Plus, Holly Williams reports on the race on electric cars. Who is currently in first place? Those stories on this week's "60 Minutes."  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Let me remind you of some of the words that you have used to describe the pharmaceutical industry, your industry. Yeah. Corrupt? Yeah. Immoral? Yes. Depraved? Yes. They're appropriate for the behavior that's taken place. You are a drug executive.

You manufacture drugs. Many drugs. Are you at fault in this epidemic in any way? Absolutely. But once you find out that it's not correct, you have to do the right thing. Is there anything more important? There's no question Bryant Vinius betrayed America

by joining al-Qaeda. What you'll have to decide for yourself is whether he's done enough to earn the protection of the U.S. government. I've had many trials involving murderers and drug kingpins on my docket. And I was shocked that they took such a cavalier, irresponsible step as they did to deny Mr. Vina's witness protection. This year, China will build more than a million electric vehicles.

And with massive support from the government, they are prepared to challenge not just the American auto industry, but the world. I heard that you were the one who called this car the Tesla killer. There are a hundred or so electric car makers here, including NIO. It's a luxury brand whose ES8 goes from zero to 60 in 4.4 seconds and has a built-in personal assistant named Nomi. I'm Steve Croft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Scott Pelley. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Holly Williams. I'm Bill Whitaker. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. Thank you. experience you can count on pacific life to be there so you can go out and keep living your best life pacific life is one of the most dependable and experienced insurers in the industry and has

been named one of the 2019 world's most ethical companies by the ethosphere institute the freedom to go after whatever is next for you that's the power of pacific ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help give you the freedom to do what you love. Or visit www.pacificlife.com. We have reported on the causes and effects of the opioid epidemic for several years, interviewing government whistleblowers, doctors, and Americans who've grown dependent on the powerful pain pills. We have not had a high-ranking executive from the pharmaceutical industry sit before our cameras until now. Tonight, Ed Thompson, a drug manufacturer who spent decades managing and producing opioids for Big Pharma, breaks ranks to denounce his industry and its federal regulator, the Food and Drug Administration,

which he says opened the floodgates on the crisis with a few little changes to a label. The root cause of this epidemic is the FDA's illegal approval of opioids for the treatment of chronic pain. The FDA ignited this opioid crisis. Without question, they start the fire. Ed Thompson told us when the top-selling opioid OxyContin was first approved in 1995, it was based on science that only showed it safe and effective when used short term. But in 2001, pressured by big pharma and pain sufferers, the FDA made a fateful decision and with no new science to back it up, expanded the use of OxyContin to just about anyone with chronic ailments like arthritis and back pain.

So this is what a package insert looks like. The FDA did it by simply changing a few words on the label, that lengthy insert no one ever reads. Today, the label says, the powerful pain pills are effective for daily, around-the-clock, long-term treatment. And that small label change made a big change in the way drug companies would market all opioids, allowing them to sell more and more pills at higher and higher doses. A drug's label is the single most important document for that product. It determines whether somebody can make $10 million or a billion dollars. How so? Because it allows you to then promote the drug based on the labeling. Ed Thompson owns PMRS, a successful Pennsylvania pharmaceutical company that manufactures drugs for big pharma.

It's made him a rich man. But now he's putting his livelihood at risk. He's doing what no other drug maker has ever done. He's suing the FDA and federal court to force it to follow the science and limit the opioid label to short-term use. Thompson is challenging the FDA to start with his newest opioid. It's Thompson's creative way to sabotage the system. He may lose money rolling out his new drug, but if he is successful, it would set a precedent. Other manufacturers would be forced to change their labels and limit their marketing.

A decision going in your direction could pull down a multi-billion dollar industry. Correct. Probably somewhere between $7 and $10 billion a year would come off the market. We made a decision to stop selling snake oil to U.S. citizens in 1962. Snake oil? Yes, sir. You're using high-dose, long-duration opioids when they've never been designed to do that. There's no evidence that they're effective. There's extreme evidence of harms and deaths when you use them. Brandeis professor Dr. Andrew Kolodny is one of the country's most recognized addiction specialists and has been an expert witness in litigation against big pharma, including Purdue, the maker of OxyContin. He has been trying to get the FDA label changed since 2011 to make clear opioids are not for everyone.

These are essential medicines for easing suffering at the end of life and when used for a couple of days after major surgery or a serious accident. If you're taking them around the clock every day, quickly you become tolerant to the pain-relieving effect. In order to continue getting pain relief, you'll need higher and higher doses. As the doses get higher, the treatment becomes more dangerous and the risk of death goes up. And that sounds exactly like heroin addiction. It's essentially the same drug. To understand how this began, we traveled to this small courthouse in Welch, West Virginia, where we uncovered the minutes of secret meetings in 2001 between Purdue Pharma and the FDA. The files were part of the

state's lawsuit against Purdue for deceitful marketing. 60 Minutes got a court order to obtain these documents. They reveal it was at those secret meetings the FDA bowed to Purdue Pharma's demands to ignore the lack of scientific data and change the label to quote around the clock for an extended period of time. I can't think of anything more harmful taking place that took place then. It opened the floodgates. It was the decision of no return for the FDA. Perdue told us OxyContin always was approved for long-term use, but an internal document shows the company was jubilant about the labeling change. Quote, the action by the FDA has created enormous opportunities to expand the market. The drug company's ads soon extolled the virtues of

OxyContin's effectiveness, and sales tripled. It was a marketing tsunami, and the agency didn't catch it. Think about it. 60 Minutes has called on former FDA Commissioner David Kessler many times for his expertise on drug safety issues. He ran the FDA in the 1990s when OxyContin was first approved, but he left before the labeling change. Today, he's been retained by cities and counties suing Big Pharma for the opioid crisis. After reviewing the documents we obtained and checking on his own, he says changing the label to long-term use was a mistake. There are no studies on the safety or efficacy of opioids for long-term use. But there's a law that says that a drug cannot be promoted as safe and effective

unless it's proven to be safe and effective. But yet, with FDA sanction, these opioids are being used in that way that you say have not been proven. That's correct. The rigorous kind of scientific evidence that the agency should be relying on is not there. The label change was a blank check, one the drug industry cashed in for billions and billions of dollars. Now, Big Pharma had a green light to push opioids to tens of millions of new pain patients nationwide. Let me remind you of some of the words that you have used

to describe the pharmaceutical industry, your industry. Yeah. Corrupt? Yeah. Immoral? Yes. Depraved? Yes.

They're appropriate for the behavior that's taken place. You are a drug executive. You manufacture drugs. Many drugs. Are you at fault in this epidemic in any way? I wish I was smart enough to have seen this epidemic before. I got three or four years into it, absolutely. But once you find out that it's not correct, you have to do the right thing. Is there anything more important? Why some wanted to fight for his country, His country failed him. If there is one victim who confirmed for Ed Thompson

that turning on his industry was the right thing to do, it was Emily Walden, who would become an unlikely ally. Thompson manufactured an opioid, oxymorphone, the same drug that took the life of Walden's son, T.J., a private in the Kentucky National Guard. He was getting ready to be deployed to Africa, and a few weeks prior to that, he went on a camping trip with a group of friends, and a police officer knocked on my door the next morning telling me that he had passed away.

T.J. had grown addicted to the drug and was easily able to get it without a prescription. Walden went to Washington, D.C. to ask the FDA why her community was being flooded with pain pills. It was there she met Ed Thompson. What did you say to him? You manufactured the drug that killed my son. He is now on your side. Yes. That just seems like an odd connection. It is. But Ed might be my only hope in getting this fixed.

The FDA's responsibility is public health and the safety of drugs. And they're not doing their job. They haven't been doing their job for 20 years. Dr. Andrew Kolodny agrees. The Brandeis addiction specialist began his own investigation into why the FDA would approve the long-term use of opioids when there was no credible science to back it up. What did you find?

We found out that a group of experts and FDA and pharmaceutical companies were having private meetings, and at these meetings, changing the rules for how opioids get approved. He filed Freedom of Information Act requests in email after email between the FDA, Big Pharma, and consultants. He learned of closed-door meetings at luxury hotels like this Four Seasons in Washington, D.C., where for $35,000 apiece, drug makers paid consultants to, quote, sit at a small table with the FDA,

hobnobbing with the regulators. Emails show one participant worrying it might be seen as pay-to-play. They had drugs in their pipeline, pain medicines that they wanted approved, and through these meetings they were able to get those products on the market. That sounds unethical. It is unethical. If not illegal.

If it's not illegal, it should be illegal. Equally suspicious, but legal, the large number of key FDA regulators who went through the revolving door to jobs with drug manufacturers. The two medical officers who originally approved OxyContin, Curtis Wright and Douglas Kramer, went to work for the opioid maker Purdue Pharma not long after leaving the FDA. The culture at FDA continues to be much too cozy with the industry it's supposed to be regulating. The agency bills drug companies more than $800 million a year in fees and depends on that industry money to pay the salaries of staffers

who not only change the opioid label, but also review new drugs like Desuvia, the most powerful opioid pill ever approved. Just a few weeks ago, the FDA approved a new opioid that is a thousand times more powerful than morphine. And this is in the middle of this opioid epidemic. How is that possible? I don't get it. I get your question. I don't get the agency's action. Isn't the FDA supposed to be our watchdogs to protect us?

How many people do you think were working in a division that oversaw promotion when this epidemic started to occur? I have no idea. Five. When I'm looking at the carnage in American towns and cities, that just doesn't seem like a good excuse to me. It's not an excuse. It's the reality. You have a system of pharmaceutical promotion that changed the way medicine practiced, and no one stopped it. Current FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb declined our request for an interview,

but in a statement said, the FDA has taken aggressive steps to confront the crisis. But he admitted, many mistakes were made along the way. While the agency followed the law in approving and regulating opioids, we at the FDA include ourselves among those who should have acted sooner. You say they have to do things to fix the label? The label has been in place since 2001. I'm not a scientist, but that doesn't seem like that's that hard to do. And it needs to be done. We got a real problem here. Ed Thompson isn't waiting. He has now joined a growing movement of doctors, lawyers, and patient activists who want Big Pharma to kick its addiction to opioid profits.

That's why he made the decision to take on his industry and the FDA. If you succeed, you could pull down a multi-billion dollar industry. And if I fail, you're going to have ever-increasing deaths every day as well. It's a pretty good decision, isn't it? There's no question Bryant Vinius betrayed America. What you'll have to decide for yourself is whether he's done enough to atone for his crimes. The New York City man, raised Catholic on Long Island, joined Al-Qaeda in 2008. But after he was caught, Vines became an informant, cooperating with the

FBI. Today, U.S. prosecutors say Bryant Vines may have been the most valuable witness ever in the war on Al-Qaeda. Vines impressed prosecutors and the judge in his case so much that they prepared to shield him from the prospect of al-Qaeda's revenge by putting him in the Federal Witness Protection Program. All was prepared until Bryant Vines says he was double-crossed. You can assume that al-Qaeda wants to kill you. Yes. Right now, today.

Yes. Why now, today. Yes. Why be on television? To let people know what went wrong. Life went wrong for Bryant Vinius at an early age. He was a troubled teenager. His mother kicked him out. Vinius was searching for purpose and converted to Islam. Later, he was seduced by the online fanaticism of Al-Qaeda recruiter

Anwar al-Awlaki. We are fighting for a noble cause. We are fighting for God. Al-Awlaki was an American, killed back in 2011 by a U.S. drone. A lot of his sermons were captivating, very mesmerizing, I guess you could say. He was talking about the injustices in the world, oppression going on in the Middle East, and it hit me in my heart. And you decided that the problems in the Middle East were your problems? It was a problem that I could get involved in, yes. In 2007, at the age of 24, Venus journeyed to Pakistan and Afghanistan. You wanted to kill Americans. At the time of 24, Vinyas journeyed to Pakistan and Afghanistan. You wanted to kill Americans.

At the time, yes. Vinyas found himself welcomed by terrorists who had longed for an American recruit who traveled on a U.S. passport. I asked somebody, I was like, what group is this? And he says, no, this is Al-Qaeda. I said, this is Al-Qaeda? And he says, yeah. I'm like, this is not what you see in the videos. This is not what you see on the news.

What do you mean? Usually you see monkey bars where guys are training or crawling underneath barbed wire. And I didn't do any of that. That's not how it was when I was there. What type of training did you get in this al-Qaeda camp? So we did basic Soviet weapons. They go a little bit into explosive theory, suicide bombing vests. Vines says a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader asked him for advice on possible targets in the U.S.

I gave information on the Long Island Railroad, a plot on how to attack it. Basically the tunnel that connects all the trains that lead into Manhattan. So if the tunnel is destroyed, then it would hurt the economy in New York. They wanted to attack the economy of the United States. Yes, sir. The death toll isn't really the primary target. They probably never heard of the Long Island Railroad before. You might have relatives or friends on the railroad. Yeah, very possible, yeah. How do you feel about that now?

Regretful. Actually, I'm very thankful nobody got hurt. And it was in the idea stages, and that's as far as it went. Did you take part on any attacks on U.S. bases in Afghanistan? Yes, sir. I was part of a defensive team to protect the group that was launching the rockets. What was your job? In case a Pakistani helicopter came, we were supposed to attack that helicopter so it wouldn't attack the group down below. In 2008, after seven months in terrorist camps, Veniz took a short break to visit the city of Peshawar. Apparently, the Pakistanis were watching. He was arrested,

turned over to the United States, and within days found himself in federal prison in Brooklyn. There, FBI agents offered him a choice, life in prison or tell all about Al Qaeda. To help convince him, agents took him to Coney Island. They took you to Nathan's hot dog stand? Well, I was in the car and then one detective went and got an order, brought it back. And brought you a hot dog? Hot dogs, burgers, fries, drink. And they showed you around Coney Island and they said you can have a life again. Yes. He holds out his arms. He says, you really want to go back to prison and go to Supermax for the rest of your life? And I said, you know what, this is my chance

to get a second chance at life. And I said, you know what, I'll take it. So Vines decided to plead guilty. His sentencing was postponed until the government could assess the quality of his cooperation. Confined to prison, Vines spent eight years

meeting more than 100 times with prosecutors and the FBI. Vines changed the way we thought about how Al-Qaeda recruits and who Al-Qaeda recruits. Andrew McCabe was the head of FBI counterterrorism and oversaw the Vines case.

This was before McCabe became better known for opening two investigations of President Trump. How valuable was Bryant Vinas to the FBI? Incredibly valuable. Through his testimony, through his debriefings, identifying people, teaching us how he had walked this pathway from Long Island, New York, into Al-Qaeda.

You didn't know that stuff before? Learning about his experience completely broke the mold from the way that we thought business was happening. Prior to Venus, the idea that any American could just head to Pakistan and go seek out Al-Qaeda and affiliate with that group was something we thought couldn't be done. He was a game changer for the FBI in terms of al-Qaeda? I would say so, yes. His information has stopped more attacks than you can even conceive of. Steve Zissou is a defense lawyer with a top security clearance. He's represented several terrorism suspects, including Bryant Venius. I have reviewed both classified and unclassified information

and the government's submissions to the court make it unequivocally clear that his information stopped attacks, saved lives, and permitted our military to continue the battle, to take it to them, if you will. Were drone strikes launched on the basis of his information? No doubt about it. Venus's defense attorney points to drone strikes that killed 14 suspected jihadists where Venus had lived. So they were killing these people who used to be your friends.

Yes, sir. How did you feel about that? At one time they were my friends, but, you know, if I have to leave that life behind, I can't have them be my friends no more. In 2017, prosecutors wrote this to the judge in Venus's case, Nicholas Garifus. To say that the defendant provided substantial assistance to the government is an understatement. Indeed, he may have been the single most valuable cooperating witness with respect to al-Qaeda. Judge Garifus agreed, adding that Venus had placed his life in grave danger to help his country. He was the extraordinary case. Mr. Venus has certain

God-given gifts, one of which is that he has a photographic memory. He remembered every place he had been. He remembered most of the people he had met. He was able to explain to the government how al-Qaeda recruits. That's why he was so valuable. With that in mind, Judge Garifus ruled that the eight years Vignes had spent cooperating from a prison cell were enough. The sentence was time served with an additional 90 days. Why 90 days? In order for him to have the opportunity

to be placed in witness protection once he's released. So it was your understanding that he was going to be brought into the witness protection program? Yes, it absolutely was. And what happened? On the 88th day of the 90-day period, I was advised that he had been refused witness protection status by this office at the Justice Department, the Office of Enforcement Operations. There had never been a

problem before in any of my cases involving cooperators who sought witness protection. In prison, Vignes already had been in witness protection. Judge Garifus told us it's routine for the same protection to continue after release. But the U.S. Department of Justice Witness Security Program, known as WITSEC, turned him down with no explanation. They don't give the reasons. And the prosecutors moved for reconsideration. Reconsideration was denied. The prosecutors worked for the Justice Department.

The FBI agents are part of the Justice Department. All of them agree that he should be in the Witness Protection Program and then another agency inside the Justice Department overrules them? That's what troubles me, that they've had at least 8,700 cooperators placed in witness protection. And I know some of these cooperators. They've been my defendants. I've had virtually the entire banana organized crime family on my docket. I've had many trials involving murderers and drug kingpins on my docket. So I'm not a newcom did to deny Mr. Venus witness protection. The Justice Department's WITSEC office declined an interview, but in a statement to 60 Minutes, it hinted at an explanation. It singled out just one of the factors in its decision process.

WITSEC must take into account the risks associated with giving a person a new identity and placing them in a community that is unaware of the person's actual identity. Judge Garifus argues that if Vinyas does pose a continuing risk to the community, then witness protection would ensure that the government kept tabs on him. And after all Venus has done, Garifus says, the Justice Department has an obligation to keep him safe. It's extremely rare, Your Honor, in my experience, to have a federal judge talk about a case.

And I wonder why you have done this today. I've never done it before in 18 years as a judge. I won't allow the folks who made this decision to hide behind their decision. And it's a potential problem in the future. This would have a chilling effect, in your opinion, on people who might consider cooperating in the future. That's right. Today, Bryant Venius is on his own. Right now, I'm working washing dishes at a restaurant. So that's how I'm paying the bills. The greatest Al Qaeda informant of all time, we're told, is washing dishes. That's correct. You're probably the only dishwasher who lectures at West Point.

Yeah. After eight years in prison, cooperating with the government, Vignes is still fighting terror. He's spoken at the U.S. Military Academy and to research organizations about the false lure of jihad. And he's still helping investigators.

Do you consider yourself, as we sit here right now, square with the United States? I always feel that it's a continuing process that I should do for years to come. I don't forgive him for seeking to engage in jihad against the United States. It's not that you forgive him, but he turned a corner and he was successful in doing it. The government needs to meet emblematic of the American century than the automobile. Assembly lines rolled out millions of Fords, Chryslers, Chevys and Buicks and made Motor City, Detroit, Michigan, the capital of the global car industry. But in the race to dominate the auto industry of the 21st century, it is China vying for the pole position. It's Chinese automakers building the smart cars of tomorrow,

and the energy fueling them is electric. Today, US automakers are caught between a tariff-fueled trade war and threats of cuts to electric car subsidies by the Trump administration. At the same time, Beijing is trying to win the race by ensuring the electric vehicles of the future are made in China. This year, China will build a million electric vehicles. That's nice scale. That's half of the electric vehicles in the world. Michael Dunn grew up in Detroit, America's Motor City. Then, as a graduate student seeking adventure in the late 1980s, he went to Chongqing in western China. Everyone was poor, wearing greys and blues, riding bicycles. There were no cars. No cars?

No cars at all. Dunn has watched China evolve from an isolated socialist state to a controlled capitalist powerhouse. And from a nation of bike riders to car drivers. He's been working as an auto industry consultant in Asia for 30 years, including a stint as a top executive at General Motors. And now Dunn is witnessing the Chinese government literally electrify its burgeoning auto sector. What is the Chinese government doing to encourage people to buy electric vehicles?

Lots. Without government regulation, Chinese government doing to encourage people to buy electric vehicles? Lots. Without government regulation, there would be no electric car industry or market here. What's completely created by the government? Totally created by the government. So you get up to $10,000 in rebates when you buy an electric car in several cities. What else does the government do? In the city of Shanghai, for example, typically you have to pay $12,000, $13,000 to buy a licence for the ability to buy a car. They waive that. They're free if you buy an electric vehicle?

Yes. The result, an explosion of electric car makers. A hundred or so, eagerly feeding at the government trough. You can buy a great wall. or you can build your dreams. A carmaker in which American billionaire Warren Buffett was an early investor. The latest entrant to the crowded Chinese auto market is Nio. Hi, you're holy. Hi, William.

Nio's founder is William Lee. Nice to meet you. Okay, nice to meet you. OK, nice to meet you too. A 44-year-old billionaire entrepreneur who we met last year in Beijing. NIO is China's only all-electric luxury car brand. It's sort of similar to a Tesla. And the similarity to a Tesla is no coincidence. NIO's ES8 is competing with American-made Tesla for wealthy, status-conscious Chinese.

Their conspicuous consumption has made China one of the biggest markets for luxury goods in the world. With no import costs at US$60,000, the NIO is about half the price of a Tesla. I heard that you were the one who called this car the Tesla killer. And maybe it was you. Maybe, maybe. It doesn't look like a killer.

You should take it for a spin. Yeah. What's the acceleration like on this thing? Li claims his car goes from zero to 60 in 4.4 seconds. 650 horsepower, and about 220 miles on a full charge. Plus, the car has a built-in personal assistant called Nomi, who follows voice commands, as long as you speak Chinese. Can you turn off the music? What's up? It's done.

Wow, cool. She understands me. Yeah, sure. Nomi is an avatar of artificial intelligence. She'll entertain you with a music playlist, adjust the temperature, or snap a selfie on command. You can see.

Okay, take a picture. Nomi. Yeah, OK. This is Chinese innovation, a great leap forward from China's communist past. What would Chairman Mao make of a capitalist like you? Li told us Chairman Mao would have said, you're doing a good job. Really? He was a communist.

He hated capitalists like you. We're trying to make a better world, Li said. In Chinese, the slogan of Li's car company is Blue Sky Coming. That dovetails nicely with one of the reasons the Chinese government is pushing electric vehicles as a way to reduce the country's choking air pollution. You've been called the Elon Musk of China. Is that fair?

I'm younger than him, yes. I've been speaking to quite a lot of Chinese people since I got here and they say they really like Teslas. How are you going to compete with that? Li said it's like the clothes fashion models wear on the catwalk. The clothes may be beautiful, he explained, but you can't wear them every day. So the Tesla is the supermodel and you're the girl next door? Auto analyst Michael Dunn says the first challenge for NIO is to overcome China's

reputation for building cheap, low quality cars. Are they trying to knock Tesla out of China and take on Tesla perhaps globally? There's plenty of market here to allow Tesla to play and NIO to play. What NIO needs to do is establish credibility with consumers and say, we're legit, we're a really good car. In September, NIO became the first Chinese all-electric car company to debut on the New York Stock Exchange. The splashy initial public offering raised a billion dollars. This is your race car. A NIO team has competed on the Formula E circuit for two seasons,

including this race in Brooklyn, New York. It's that electric cars are catching up with gas engines in power and speed. But NIOs are really designed for tech-savvy Chinese owners who link to their cars with a mobile app. Tap on a screen for repairs or maintenance. Tap to order a mobile charging van for a quick power boost. Tap again to visit a swap station where a depleted battery can be replaced in three minutes

by robot mechanics. It's the kind of futuristic scene that William Lee could only dream of as a child. Did anyone in your village have a car? No. Ironically, the founder of this high-tech electric car company grew up in a farming village with no electricity. So you learned about business? Yeah. Raising cows with your grandfather? Yes, yes. What did you learn?

Li explained that when you're doing business, honesty is very important. This is all neo... Li has founded or backed about 40 start-ups, including an online auto marketplace and a bike-sharing company. His estimated net worth is $1.2 billion, and Li has ploughed $150 million of his own money into NIO. Americans have been quite slow to adopt electric cars. Is it different here in China? It will definitely be fast, Li told us, because the Chinese government is pushing electric cars. Is it different here in China? It will definitely be fast, Li told us, because the Chinese government is pushing electric cars. There are also Chinese companies as well.

In Shanghai, China has built the largest EV database in the world. This is a map of all the electric cars in Shanghai. Yeah. Ding Xiaohua is the deputy manager of the Shanghai Electric Vehicle Data Centre, which collects millions of bits of information every day on nearly 200,000 electric cars on this city's streets. So let's find a Tesla. This is only Tesla brands. These are all Teslas?

Yeah, all Teslas. Inside every electric vehicle in the city is a black box, automatically transmitting data to the centre every 30 seconds. For example, the speeds, the mileage, the battery temperature. And does that help the government plan for the future? Yes. Public charging points, how many public charging points and where it is best place for the public charger. There is nothing like this in the US or anywhere else.

Because it's real time. China is paving the way for the electric cars of the 21st century. And the blue ones are in use. Yes, it's moving. Most of the country's 100 or so EV startups will be killed off by the competition. But William Lee thinks NIO will survive and points out his company met its modest goal of delivering 10,000 cars last year. Why are the numbers so small at the moment? There are always problems and delays

when a company ramps up production of something new, Li told us. And NIO's cars, he added, are all made to order. We visited NIO's production line, where the made-to-order cars are assembled in a spotless, automated, high-tech factory dominated by a core of whirring robots. And with China's massive manufacturing machine behind it, NIO may be able to scale up faster than its foreign competitors. At the company's research and development outpost

in San Jose, California, Padma Wariya, NIO's CEO in the United States until last December, predicted its cars will someday be on American roads. But she was cagey about when. What will it mean to American consumers and American drivers, you hope? I would hope consumers will look at it as a future. A Chinese future? A China-driven future. NIO is one of nine Chinese electric vehicle or EV companies to set up shop on the West Coast, where they can entice the world's best engineers,

programmers and software developers. NIO has hired more than 600 of them many people hear that i worked at at google at apple at cisco at tesla you name it i think some people might see that as the transfer of american technology to a chinese company i don't see it that way i think i see it more as where is the biggest market for EVs, right? And where is the biggest problem with respect to pollution? Clearly, that's China. And so I look at it as taking the best of the talent pool that's available and changing the world for the better.

This year, the Chinese government will require all global automakers in the country to make 10% of their vehicles electric. American automakers are already investing billions in electric vehicle technology. But unlike Chinese companies, they don't have the government trying to fix the race. Auto industry consultant Michael Dunn warns China is determined to bend the electric car industry in its favor. The size of the market alone makes China an irresistible place to be for any global automaker. If you're not in China, you're not playing. So China says, how badly do you need our market? All right, you're welcome to sell as many cars as you want,

provided that you also abide by our new rules with regards to electric vehicles has america already ceded leadership in this industry not too late it's so early china's been making electric vehicles three years four years when will it be too late if we wait to 2025 china will $5 million a year, and if we're still making a half of a million, now all of the technology and design engineering is concentrated in China. How do you catch up with that? In the mail this week, some viewers objected to last Sunday's story investigating the president, in which we referred to President Trump as Mr. Trump.

As longtime CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller wrote on several occasions over his decades covering the White House, no disrespect is intended, just the opposite. It is CBS News practice to refer to the president and former presidents on second reference with the honorific Mr. Everyone else in the political universe is referred to only by their last names. That goes for Putin and Pelosi, Pence and Pompeo. After identifying President Trump, we use Mr. Trump or Mr. Bush.