By Robert Bradley Jr.
Matthew Shaer’s 5,500-word New York Times essay, “The American E.V. Has Been Crushed. Will It Take the U.S. Auto Industry with It?” (July 15, 2026), documents the U.S. electric vehicle (EV) bust. Very useful. But then he spins a false narrative. And for credibility, the article comes with a statement: “Matthew Shaer spoke with dozens of auto industry analysts and academics for this article” … but not anyone who challenges the EV narrative in light of the failed domestic policy.
Shaer’s essay is a Malthusian masterpiece: doom-and-gloom with a prediction waiting to be refuted. It’s subtitle:
The largest U.S. automakers have backed away from electric vehicles, even as global sales are booming. The decision may make them obsolete.
The first sentence is factual and correct. The second sentence is wrong–and missing the other side of the story. Overall, Matthew Shaer refuses to consider:
- The consumer imperative (and “social justice”) of affordability
- Automaker decision-making in a subsidy-neutral market
- The improvements in ICE (internal-combustion engine) technology, including emission reductions
- China’s EV buildup as a money-losing, central-planning blunder
Quotations follow below with my comments and added subtitles.
EV Losses, EV Crash: Correct
Doug Field, the head of Ford’s E.V. unit … had good reason to be optimistic. Buoyed by billions of dollars in federal investment in charging infrastructure and a generous $7,500 consumer tax credit, the electric vehicle market in the United States had recently hit historic highs, climbing from annual sales of roughly 490,000 in 2021 to more than 800,000 in 2022 — an increase of approximately 60 percent.
Yes, it was government-enabled and woke driven. A false boom–and a colossal economic mistake in retrospect.
[Ford’s early EV model] seems to have been cursed from the outset. Unlike many of the earlier Ford E.V.s, the “bullet train” was not merely a retrofitted version of an existing vehicle with an internal combustion engine…. It was an entirely new car, requiring a large and complicated battery to match the vehicle’s projected heft.
The early reaction to Ford’s ambition ( wokeness) was green-is-great and the auto-transition-is-on. But reality set in.
In April 2024, Ford pushed back the sale of the “bullet train” by two years, to “enable Ford to take advantage of emerging battery technology”; that August, it confirmed it was killing it entirely. “These vehicles need to be profitable,” Ford’s chief financial officer, John Lawler, explained in a conference call with reporters. “If they’re not profitable, based on where the customer is and the market is, we will pivot and adjust and make those tough decisions.”
No kidding! And the verdict of losses was industry-wide.
At the time, his comments went relatively unnoticed. But it soon became clear that Ford — which went on to retire the Lightning, an electric variant of its best-selling F-150 pickup — was not the only manufacturer to have suddenly developed a case of cold feet. In July 2024, General Motors said it was delaying the introduction of a Buick E.V. S.U.V., and the following September, Volvo dialed back plans for an all-electric lineup of vehicles that would have debuted in the United States. In 2025, Dodge followed suit, axing a battery-powered Charger and its long-anticipated E.V. Ram pickup truck. Two plug-in hybrid Jeeps were sent to the scrap heap in the sky, as were several e-sedans that Honda and Nissan had designed for the U.S. market. Acura pulled the plug on an electric S.U.V. built at a G.M. plant in Tennessee.
A total fail….
The cancellations accumulated at such a rapid clip that the industry press often struggled to keep up: Late last year, for example, MotorTrend published an effusive review of the BrightDrop, a cutting-edge electric van from Chevrolet. The cargo hold of the vehicle was “cavernous,” the magazine’s writers noted approvingly, and the pedal feel supple. As for visibility, it was akin to “looking out of a giant terrarium.” The only problem was that the BrightDrop was no longer available, having been discontinued by Chevy two weeks after its press team dropped the thing off at MotorTrend headquarters. (“Well, this is awkward,” the article begins.)
Bad went to worse with the pullback of subsidies, moving towards a government-neutral policy.
Under the second Trump administration, the E.V. tax credit was eliminated and tailpipe-emission standards were gutted, which more or less instantly drove down sales of new battery-powered vehicles and encouraged the so-called Big Three — Ford, G.M. and Stellantis North America, the maker of the Dodge, Chrysler, Ram and Jeep brands — to refocus their considerable resources on trucks and plus-size S.U.V.s. Assembly lines at E.V. plants went dormant, and the battery plants that had sprung up around the country in the Biden years were unceremoniously closed or repurposed for other tasks, like the manufacture of industrial battery storage units. Thousands of workers lost their jobs. One of them was Doug Field, the brain behind Ford’s three-row “bullet train,” who departed the company this spring as part of an internal restructuring.
The overall malinvestment was huge, one of the greatest in U.S. history.
In purely financial terms, the combined cost of this industry about-face remains nothing short of staggering: This year, Stellantis alone was forced to write down $26 billion in E.V.-related losses. (Ford reported a slightly less ghastly $19 billion loss.) But somehow, it’s the long-term repercussions that look worse. “The way I’d put it,” the auto journalist Martin Padgett told me recently, “is that we pulled a U-turn while the rest of the world was pushing forward.”
Global Growth, Loss Economics
Matthew Shaer then spins a narrative based on high global sales. But this “boom” is artificial, the result of government direction and special favor. Consumer affordability and taxpayer dollars get no mention in the article.
According to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based policy group, one of every four vehicles sold globally in 2025 was battery-powered. Analysts with Bloomberg have predicted that in the next decade, that number will more than double, putting gas-powered cars — for the first time ever — in the minority of overall new vehicle sales. Overseas, Asian and European manufacturers have spent years preparing for this eventuality, dumping billions into the development of battery technology. With predictable results: China now makes 75 percent of all E.V.s sold anywhere on earth. (The United States makes around 5 percent.) Many of those vehicles are produced by BYD, a Chinese company that recently became the largest manufacturer of battery-powered cars in the world.
Help us author. How is BYD doing. Is it losing money? AI answered:
No, BYD is not losing money on its overall EV sales in China, but its profit margins have shrunk significantly. A fierce domestic price war, cooling local demand, and reduced government subsidies have heavily squeezed profits—causing sharp net profit declines—yet the company remains profitable overall, leaning heavily on its massive scale and growing international exports to offset domestic margin pressures.
Is China losing money with its solar buildout? Again, AI overview:
Yes, China’s solar manufacturing industry is losing substantial money on its solar sales. Severe overcapacity—with factories capable of producing double the total global demand—has triggered a punishing price war, causing leading manufacturers like LONGi, Jinko Solar, Trina Solar, and Tongwei to post billions of dollars in losses.
This appears to substantiate the benefits of domestic free market policy versus foreign government intervention. But no, the narrative goes to a “technological gap” between the U.S. and foreign nations.
“Already, the technological gap is getting dangerously wide,” says Stephen Ezell, a senior economist with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, or I.T.I.F., a Washington-based nonprofit. “Today, China can get a new E.V. from blueprint to launch about 33 percent faster than a U.S. company, give or take. But that will accelerate, right? The speed of innovation, the speed of the production cycles at these foreign companies, is just going to get faster and faster. And at some point, the gap will get pretty close to fully impossible for American automakers to close.”
Shaer then spins that EVs were/are the way forward to reestablish “the U.S. auto industry’s once-dominant stake in the domestic car business.” “The timing could not be worse” for domestic automakers to have given up on EVs.
Since the 1960s, the U.S. auto industry’s once-dominant stake in the domestic car business has been slowly chewed up by foreign manufacturers, sinking from a near monopoly of 92 percent in 1965 to 46 percent in 2015. As of 2024, Ezell estimates, only a third of new cars purchased in the United States were built by the Big Three. The E.V. revolution was seen by its proponents as a way to reverse that trend. It was an opportunity for Detroit to rediscover its capacity for ingenuity and to re-establish credibility in an industry it helped to create.
The narrative is fanciful. Shaer claims that a profitable robust EV market exists in the United States!
Instead, whipsawed back and forth by shifting political headwinds and afflicted by all manner of self-enforced error, it appears to be in the process of sealing its own doom — at the precise moment interest in E.V.s is surging in the United States. In April, the analytics firm JD Power conducted a survey showing that 26 percent of prospective buyers in the United States were “very likely” to consider an E.V. for their next car. And that was before the chaos in the Strait of Hormuz helped push the price of unleaded gasoline to a four-year high.
So automakers do not know their market? Did the poll account for the up-front price premium for EVs over ICE and other issues?
“We’ve reached a genuinely existential moment,” Ezell told me. In a best-case scenario, Detroit manages to meet it by crafting a viable, long-term E.V. strategy while also servicing the still dependably lucrative existing market for ICE trucks. In the worst, it retreats onto what the economist Susan Helper calls a “shrinking island of ICE,” churning out outlandishly large trucks and not much else. At which point, the obsolescence of the mighty U.S. automobile industry — a sector once inextricably associated with American know-how and economic might — would be all but guaranteed. As Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, recently acknowledged in a statement that could apply to any member of the Big Three, “If we don’t put our chips on the right number and the right color, Ford could maybe not exist.”
What a poor, speculative conclusion. The problem with the domestic EV market is not so much the bust but government subsidies and bullying that created a false industry and resulting bust. And for the international EV market, characterized by anti-energy policies and loss economics: “Greater speed to the wrong destination is not a virtue.”
The rest of Shear’s article can be read here.
“Two plug-in hybrid Jeeps were sent to the scrap heap . . .”
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We have a ’22 Ford hybrid Escape, gets 40 mpg. The old 2012 Escape got 20 mpg. If you have a plug-in hybrid your trip to the gas pump would be a rare event.
Electric cars in some shape or form are here to stay, get used to it.
I look forward to the down votes.
Happy to oblige, but be aware I’m downvoting your attitude, not the sentiment.
but your electric bill will be higher- you seem to ignore that fact
Telling me what I ignore is a straw man argument. You should stop doing that.
Google AI says: The typical charging cost for an all-electric car in the U.S.
is $0.05 to $0.07 per mile when charging at home.
Knowing Google AI, that’s probably a low ball estimate.
Wisconsin gas price is ~$4.00/gal That’s $0.10/mile for the hybrid, and $0.12/mile for my little 17 yr old two-door stick shift. It gets 32 miles/gal.
Thanks for the reply (-:
I say – given running an EV in the UK is far more expensive than running an ice car – your view is rather local.
$4.00/gal in Wisconsin against…
$4 is equal to £2.96
1 Gallon is equal to 4.54609 Litres
UK pump price is £1.62/l
Ergo, one gallon in the UK costs £7.36 or $9.96
More than double.
Call it $10/gal in the UK and the cost per kw/hour is what in the UK? Must be way up there if running a EV is more expensive an ICE car.
So, In U.S. Dollars what is the cost per mile to drive an electric car in the UK? And Google AI says:
“Driving an electric car in the UK costs roughly $0.04 to $0.09 per mile when charging at home on typical tariffs, and up to $0.33 per mile when using public rapid”
Pretty much the same for the U.S. and doesn’t agree with your an EV in the UK is far more expensive to run than an ICE car.
Dunno, something’s not adding up.
Electricity in the UK is about triple what it is in the USA.
Where does all the tax revenue on motor fuels go in the UK and EU? In the US we have a huge continental-scale road system to maintain and expensive bridges and interchange projects, often with union wage requirements.
Welfare and net zero
It’s time, IMHO, to end those union wage requirements. Put those projects out to bid. If one company can find good workers willing to work for less than the union requirements, that’s a good thing for the public. This is a big problem here in Wokeachusetts. Every construction project the state pays for is obligated to pay those union wages. One of many reasons its so expensive to live here.
If you charge an EV at home in the UK, the fuel cost per mile is 2p if charged on the off-peak EV tariff and 7p at the standard rate. An equivalent gasser cost 17p per mile for the fuel.
I might add that, where I live, electricity is cheap. It costs 10.8 cents/kWh, and my Chevy Bolt is getting 4.3 miles/kWh this summer, which makes the fuel cost 2.5 cents/mile. Come winter, I expect to get more like 3.3 miles/kWh, which means about 3.2 cents/mile for fuel.
Elsewhere in the U.S. electricity is about 50% more expensive, so that would mean 3.75 to 4.8 cents a mile on average. Still far cheaper than gas or diesel. Not to mention the maintenance side, which is much cheaper for EVs.
Strativarius
A US gallon is only 3.80 litres so the $4 is £0.79 per litre. There are 4.54609 litres in an Imperial gallon = £3.59. You are paying £7.36. The 100% difference is taxes.
The average gasoline price in the U.S. this week is $4.09/U.S. gallon, or $1.08/L. Higher on the West coast, lower in the South. U.K. average petrol price is 1.62 GBP/L = $2.19/L = $8.30/U.S. gallon.
At $8.30/U.S. gallon and average 35 mpg, UK gassers cost $0.33/mile for fuel. My EV costs $0.026/mile at my electricity rate of $0.108/kWh, at 4.1 mi/kWh in the last 6 days. If that were to be converted to mpg based on the energy in gasoline, it would be 131 mpg; if converted to equivalent price per gallon of gasoline, it would be $0.23.
If instead I drove my Toyota RAV4 gasser, at $4.89/U.S. gallon where I live, the fuel would cost $0.196/mile at 25 mpg. If I drove my Ram 3500 diesel pickup, at $5.99/U.S. gallon where I live, the fuel would cost $0.374/mile.
All of these numbers are direct observations since the most recent recharge six days ago (I have driven 116.8 miles on 28.8 kWh of electricity or 4.056 mi/kWh to be ridiculously precise); observations of mpg for my gasser and diesel truck over time; and research within the last half-hour for national average fuel prices and average fuel economy of gassers in the UK.
Of course that cost figure/mile for your EV ignores all the subsidies that make it possible. And the hassles of finding a charger- or installing one at your location.
Ever see the movie Fargo, where the cooked car salesman tries to sucker the grizzled customer into a “clear coat” job? Same goes for home EV chargers. In the U.S., depending on the details — location and voltage of outlets — no one needs to spend more than about $200, and usually less. My charging cable cost $150, and it was all I needed.
Someone without a 240v outlet in the garage could either run a splitter off the electric dryer outlet, a 50-foot extension cord, and a 16amp charging cord for a total cost of $200. Or just charge at Level 1 for $100 and add 60-70 miles of range overnight.
People who yammer about the high cost of home charging equipment for EVs only disclose that they don’t know anything about the subject.
Are you saying the oil industry in the US does not get tax breaks specific to that industry? Are you saying those should be taken away?
There’s a difference between legitimate deduction for COSTS vs. tax breaks to encourage an industry.
Both industries, EV and and fossil fuels, have received “targeted” government support to give them money, that would otherwise go to the tax payer. If you think there is a difference that “matters,” I’d love to know what it is?
So despite the down votes, it seems no one here can give me a single significant difference between the two government handouts that the oil and EV industries get. That is so telling. And yet there seems to be only one industry that gets criticised here for support from the tax payer. How could that be?
Over the last 15 years, the EV industry has gotten much more by way of subsidies. Once the tax credits expired in ’25, most of the subsidy went away. A few states still give tax credits, but that’s minor, and the sale of federal credits has pretty much disappeared.
The oil & gas industry gets very few subsidies in the United States.
You are utterly clueless.
The fossil fuel industry receives roughly $35 billion per year in direct federal subsidies, whereas the EV industry is estimated to receive between $5 billion and $10 billion per year in active annualized support.
Prove it.
Google is your friend.
To the question …How much does the fossil fuel industry and the EV industry receive in government grants and subsidies annually?
The answer came back….. Globally, the fossil fuel industry receives an estimated $725 billion to $1.1 trillion in annual direct (explicit) government financial support. In comparison, the electric vehicle (EV) industry and broader consumer-facing clean energy spending receive roughly $70 billion annually from governments worldwide.
This comes from the IMF https://www.imf.org/en/publications/wp/issues/2025/12/20/underpriced-and-overused-fossil-fuel-subsidies-data-2025-update-572729
Proved….
What will the charge be once the road tax subsidies are removed?
Your argument does not hold up to scrutiny.
There are two broad classes of road vehicles: light passenger (cars, minivans, SUVs, pickups) and heavy trucks. Weight-driven pavement wear is a function of the vehicle class divided by “ESAL,” or “equivalent single axle load,” which is 18,000 lbs. — and then you take the result to the 4th power. This formula is 70 years old, and is used in highway design.
On that side of things, a fully loaded semitruck, at 80,000 lbs., does anywhere from 15,000 to 30,000+ times the pavement damage of a sedan, and 135x the damage of my monster Ram 3500 truck if I’ve got 4,000 lbs in the bed. (That’s about as heavy a passenger vehicle as you’ll find on a highway.)
Now let’s look at sedans, both electric and gasser. Since I just acquired a used 2019 Chevy Bolt, I compared it to the equivalent gasser, a 2019 Chevy Sonic, which is 700 lbs lighter. You could argue that the Bolt does 1.9x the pavement damage that the Sonic does, and it would be correct. But you should keep in mind that the semitruck does 33,000x more damage than the Sonic and 17,400x as much damage as the Bolt.
Some fallouts from all that.
First, the weight differences between EV and gasser are immaterial. To use an analogy, if there’s a big tree with strong limbs, i.e. a highway, the Sonic is a sparrow on the limb, and the Bolt is a cat that just ate the sparrow. The pickup is a fat squirrel; a city bus would be a horse if you could somehow coax it onto the limb, and the semitruck would be a buffalo. And you want to point at EVs and say they are getting a road tax subsidy? I don’t think so.
Secondly, those pavement damage numbers need to be viewed in perspective, because the other big issue for pavement is weather. It does a number on pavement no matter what. There are 15x as many light vehicle miles driven than semitruck miles, and volume matters. However, the weight issue still cuts against trucks because a heavy vehicle will do more damage to weather-weakened pavement than a light vehicle will do, and the difference between EVs that, on average weigh 600 or 700 lbs more than gassers is immaterial compared to the difference between either of those and trucks.
Now let’s look at it from a different angle.
On average, combined federal and state gas taxes are 50-51 cents/gallon, and light passenger vehicle fuel economy averages 25-26 mpg in the United States. Call it 2 cents/mile. There are competing studies on average miles driven by EVs and non-EVs; if you throw out the extremes and concentrate in the middle (which happen to be the most rigorous), EVs are driven roughly 2/3 to 3/4 as many miles as gassers. Which makes sense given vehicle ranges and how they are actually used.
This amounts to a “subsidy” of maybe $150 a year. Ah, but you are forgetting that 41 states + D.C. have EV registration surcharges. The median is $130. What were you saying about “subsidies” again? If you want to look at “subsidies” on the road tax side of things, I might suggest taking a closer look at trucks, which cause a whole lot more pavement damage than light vehicles.
That has been quantified. Trucks pay about 4x per mile more than light vehicles in road use taxes (about 8.5 cents/mile on average), while doing 13 cents/mile in pavement damage. And the damage number is almost certainly a lowball estimate, because it comes from 1999, and semitruck weights have increased by an average of 15% since then. And that 15x number above is also conservative; truck miles as a share of total miles driven have also risen. But for reference purposes, I have always preferred to use data that work against my thesis as a test of the ideas.
Oh well. You hate EVs anyway because liberals like them or some such, while I am a three-footed curmudgeon with one foot electric (with an NRA sticker on the back window of my first EV, and a nice big American flag decal on the one I just bought, and will be confused for a DSA member or climate activist or even AGW believer by no one), one foot gasser, and one foot diesel. And who would prefer to be as factual, intellectually rigorous, and logical about all of this as possible.
Dang. You mean there are people who discard their biases and look under the hood? You mean right knees jerk along with left knees? Who knew?
What a ludicrous comment. So his electric bill is higher IF it’s a plug-in, but not by as much as his gasoline bill declined.
Great, if he and you adore EVs, then buy one but be honest and buy it without subsidies and tax breaks- and don’t try to force the rest of us to get one.
I have had two EVs, and have never claimed a tax credit. Subsidies are beyond my control. I oppose them, and oppose any form of coercion regarding vehicle propulsion choices. By the way, I don’t “adore EVs” any more than I “adore” diesel-electric trains. And you?
I don’t see you offering to pay more for your vehicles to compensate for the subsidies the automaker’s receive. Instead you try to pretend that so long as you didn’t personally request the subsidy directly, there’s no harm.
You seem angry and resentful. Your problem, Gomer.
And I don’t see you offering to pay more to compensate for the cheaper subsidised gas you receive Mark?
Do you not understand the fundamental distinction between a tax break, which oil companies receive, and a subsidy, which only EV manufacturers get??
I understand that economists and governments view tax credits, deductions, and exemptions as functionally similar to direct cash subsidies because they let a person or business keep money that would otherwise go to the state. I.e the state is giving a hand up to an industry which is what is happening with the oil industry in the US. Now the key question GTC is do you support that and if so why not subsidies to the EV industry?
I would like to downvote you, but that’s just lazy. Certainly you would deserve to get shit but on second thought you’re not really worth my time. The hybrid bonkers mpg claim has already been debunked a couple times on this site.
Maybe for a last time: how many gallons of gas over it’s lifetime equals your battery in total? Get lost…honestly.
There are over 1.4 billion ICEVs in the world. In comparison the number of EVs is tiny and will remain tiny for years to come.
Hybrids make much more sense than fully electric vehicles, so I won’t downvote you.
Electric vehicles never went away. They were here before the ICE was developed.
EV remains what it has always been, a niche market. Without mandates and massive subsidies, EVs will not spread beyond that niche within any time soon.
The free market ensured that EV’s were only ever employed as golf buggies and forklifts.
So what? As long as they can compete on a level playing field, with no government largess, no one cares.
And as long as the Trump government doesn’t stop them coming in from China.
China EVs are highly subsidies..
Trump needs to stop them coming from China…
… build what the American people want and can use.. build them in America
For the large majority of USA people, the vehicle they want and can use… is NOT an EV.
What is wrong with long-termed compressed sun-based energy as in petroleum?
I personally agree that hybrids make sense if you do lots of short stop and go driving. However stay away from lithium batteries. There are safer batteries out there. However if you drive long commutes nothing beats an ice. On longer trips my 2017 Toyota gets 45mgh. Even around town if I take the parkway (no trucks) some of the timeI get over 30.
My 3.8 litre (232 cubic inch) supercharged V6 gets about 18 litres per 100 km (13 mpg in US gallons) but what the heck, it makes a lovely sound for greater driver awareness and it is fun to drive. Fun counts a lot. It is better than quiet boredom and range anxiety and falling asleep at the wheel.
Petrol heads have wants and needs.
Geoff S
Entertainment value is a big thing for cars for me. The day someone puts out an EV with a 6-speed manual transmission is the day I may consider buying one.
I have owned or shared 17 vehicles in 52 years of driving, including some that were quite entertaining: a 1965 Ford Mustang (mostly bondo), a 1983 Nissan compact pickup, an early ’90s Pontiac Bonneville SSEi, a 2004 VW Phaeton W-12, a 2013 Ram 3500 … and a newly acquired 2019 Chevy Bolt EV. The Bolt and the Nissan had the most responsive throttles, while the SSEi, the Phaeton, and the Ram 3500 were (and are, for the Ram, which I still own) complete beasts.
All that said, I find your nostalgia trip to be laughable, and even pathetic. Yep, the Nissan 4-cylinder (2 valves per) 5-speed manual was a kick, and so was my mother’s late-1960s VW Bug, but I have never been stupid enough to demand that everything be a manual. Good God, old man, get with it. LOL
The more I think about that “entertainment” angle, the harder I laugh at some old man who somehow thinks that retro Covettes and Camaros are the future. Hey, grandpa, why not the Model T, or for that matter the horse and buggy? Honest to God, are you always that addled? Is it your bedtime yet? Want some warm milk and chocolate chip cookies? LOL
Sorry, 45 mpg.
even as global sales are booming.
That should read as global sales are crowbarred by government mandates and hefty fines to back them up.
And, too bad total electricity production ain’t booming for all those EVs. And of course, much of the electricity EVs are using is coming from fossil fuels.
Where I live, less than 3% of the electricity is from fossil fuels, and more likely about 1%.
And I suppose you think the rest of the world should get there to save the planet.
And I suppose that you have been making wholly unsupported assumptions about what I think. Good wingnut! Damn, that felt good. Usually it’s “good liberal” when one of them is ridiculous. LOL
They “boom” because EU governments misallocate resources through the use of carbon credits which EU based auto manufacturers must buy from BYD. BYD uses that revenue to reduce the price of its vehicle while bolstering their bottom line (shrinking as it is) and undercutting EU manufacturers. Do away with the carbon credits and other subsidies and make them compete the BEVs will virtually disappear. Hybrids are a better choice but if you have to plug it in that is a poor choice. You are still free to buy one but don’t expect me to subsidize your purchase.
EVs are like wind and solar, they’re only happening because of Govt regulations and subsidies.
Take away the subsidies, and reduce the ludicrous regulations, and they lose.
Even with the subsidies and regulations, they are losing.
How much was this breathless hack paid by China to push this biased narrative?
I wonder the same about the YouTube channel of the Electric Viking.
“26 percent of prospective buyers in the United States were “very likely” to consider an E.V. for their next car”
The same “very likely” as the IPCC uses.
I suspect 26% of all alcoholics say that today they’ll stop drinking. 🙂
And 75% of that 26% decided no.
Shear sounds a lot like a particular EV-promoting commenter here at WUWT going under another name. 🙂
Take away taxpayer subsidies and EV’s are not economically viable, as has become obvious. The same goes for windmills and industrial Solar.
Government should stay out of private businesses and let the Free Market decide which products people want to buy.
‘This year, Stellantis alone was forced to write down $26 billion in E.V.-related losses. (Ford reported a slightly less ghastly $19 billion loss.)”
************
But yet, Fox Business is reporting that Ford is moving forward with pumping $2 billion into its Louisville assembly plant to manufacture a new EV truck known as the Fathom with production to start next year…..
Inside Ford’s 3-million-square-foot Louisville plant transformation | Fox Business
“The automaker is investing $2 billion to transform the roughly 3-million-square-foot Kentucky factory from gas-powered vehicle production to EV manufacturing, according to an announcement from Ford.
The plant will build Ford’s new Fathom midsize electric truck using the company’s Universal EV Production System, which is designed to cut parts, simplify assembly and speed up production.”
***************
I should think that a $19 billion loss would make them think twice about doing something like this with another one of their assembly plants, but apparently not. Maybe they believe that their new Universal EV Production System will solve production issues enough to make electric EV trucks more commercially acceptable.
But if there is still a lack of recharging infrastructure away from home throughout much of the country, I still have my doubts. And there is still the issue of range anxiety and the risk of battery fires if Lithium batteries are being used. We’ll just have to wait and see.
and they can’t fathom why they lost $19 billion . . .
Regarding the Ford Fathom midsize electric truck:
It appears the take-home price will start at about $33,000, so Ford is trying to reach a market for people that want a truck bed to carry home the groceries. I walked past a row of the current F150s and 250s a month ago. Sticker price was about $60,000, take-home would be near $68,000.
I am skeptical of the Fathom. I could be convinced, but suspect that those buyers will want more range than it will deliver. If I’m going to be wrong, it will be because Ford finds a way to stick a gel battery into it at the $33K price. I doubt they will.
How about speaking with the dozens of Dems who signed the congressional letter calling for blocking of all Chinese EVs from the American market?
I am all for electric vehicles – with a right technology. A fuel-cell powered EV burning ethanol would be great. Unfortunately, the alarmists are pushing immature technology down our throats.
A personal transport vehicle is a tool we use to complete the efficient movements of ourselves and our kit from place to place as needed.
As with all tools, we should use the most useful and effective one to do the jobs we need to do.
If you have the inclination and $$$s, by all means indulge yourself with a transport tool that not only serves your needs, but doubles up as some sort of status symbol, or demonstration of your pleasures.
Your money, spend it however you like.
It’s when governments take it upon themselves to start manipulating our choices in transport tools that we need to be very concerned.
“MotorTrend published an effusive review of …”
… everything electric. That explains why I did not renew a subscription (about 2 years ago).
The charging units at a local gas/convenience place were recently replaced with newer ones just three years after the initial install. The crew ripped up the pavement to upgrade wiring. On my occasional visits to the station I rarely see EVs with their snout in the grid. I’m only there about once a week for 7 minutes, or less. Maybe I miss the crowd.
I wonder if these chargers are subsidized, or will they ever produce a positive return on investment.
Build cars that people want and can afford. I should become CEO.
An affordable car that doesn’t spy on you, how hard can it be? We peaked in the 90’s and 2000’s, cars were excellent, a car was just a war. My Toyota has been parked on the street for 20 years, heat, cold, rain, hail, and still in good condition, what wonderful craftsmanship.
Face it ….. AGW provided a niche for EVs and those that fell into that niche bought one and they aren’t necessarily tree huggers. The niche grows with population growth so some sales continue. There aren’t a lot of used EVs on the market (by volume) so that means the majority of the buyers stick with them because they like them for various reasons. LOTS of pick up trucks are sold in America and EVs failed in that market and the long drive rural market. Even if they replaced every gas station with charging stations the time to charge inconvenience remains. If you can’t charge overnight at home it’s a no-go for increasing EV market share. My only complaint with EVs is the noise. Yes, the noise they create in slow moving traffic because they are mandated to make that noise at slow speeds to be heard and avoided by pedestrians. Imagine the traffic patterns in large cities filled with nothing but EVs. It would sound like a casino.
EVs work very well for trips up to 150-175 miles in winter (not an Arctic winter, but a typical continental U.S., UK, or European winter) and 200-225 miles in summer. The stated ranges are longer than that, but they are based on total capacity. In practice, an owner will use 2/3 to 80% of capacity, with another 10% as a reserve past the conservative numbers above.
60% of U.S. households have more than one vehicle, and they are concentrated among single-family detached houses easily amenable to home charging. The typical EV sold today has a battery capacity of 65 to 90 kWh, which makes all the sense in the world for an urban runabout.
Within a decade (it’s starting right now in China), battery electrolytes are changing from liquid to gel, a/k/a “semi-solid state.” They’re more expensive but will get cheaper with manufacturing scale economies and will be the standard. When that happens, all the ranges above will be 65% longer.
This will make EVs well suited to pretty much all cars in Europe, but not in the United States. What will happen here is that the urban second car market will be mostly electric, but first cars won’t be because even gel batteries won’t have enough range for comfortable road trips.
Hmm. I have a 2013 Ram 3500 diesel. Upvote me now. Wait! I also have a 2019 Chevy Bolt EV. It is my second EV in 14 years. Downvote me now. Decisions, decisions. I know a lot about EVs and am rational, so hate me! I am for them and not for them, depending on how you will use it and where you live. This will make you have to think rather than jerk your knee, and isn’t that just the worst?
I forgot to mention that I also have a 2008 Toyota RAV4. I hardly ever drive it, but there it is.
Fuel cost per mile:
Bolt: 2.75 cents
Toyota: 19.6 cents
Ram: 37.4 cents
There are things that the Ram does that the Bolt cannot do at all, or nearly as well. The Toyota? It’s so beat up that it’s almost not worth selling.
Jake, it’s the licenses and insurance on all those rides that’s gonna burn a hole in your pocket.
But hey, your $$$s, spend ’em however you like.
You don’t have to justify to anyone.
Yeah, true. I just got the new used Bolt, and am hanging onto the Toyota for another year to be sure that the Bolt doesn’t turn out to be a lemon. I don’t think it will, but still …
Have you factored in the rapid depreciation on your EV?
Yes, in fact. I checked it against a 2019 Honda Accord gasser that sold for $36K vs the ’19 Bolt that I got for $18K. It sold for $40K, and net of that year’s tax credit for $36K. The Bolt was $3K cheaper in ’26 than a ’19 Accord, and with a recall-replaced battery with hardly any miles used. All of which is to say that someone else paid the depreciation; also, it’s not as if ICEVs somehow don’t depreciate. They simply depreciate less, but not all that much less.
I laughed when Ford started with the EV F-150. I know dozens of men who own F-150s and I can ensure you not one would ever buy an electric version. I knew it wouldn’t last more than a few years before they gave up on it. It’s mostly a work truck for tradesmen. They want and need a dependable vehicle not something to show off to their woke friends and neighbors.
A lot of F-150s are suburban grocery getters, but the truck is too heavy for its battery, and batteries that really fit are just too expensive. Not to mention that Ford really and truly screwed up the charging mechanism, requiring the use of a smart phone. Very dumb.
As I and others on this site and beyond have commented about the whole EV issue, neither governments nor manufacturers conducted proper surveys of consumers to determine the interest in and support for EVs in the first place. Such surveys should have been carried out just as they hit the market and again after a few years when their shortcomings and limitations were becoming more and more evident. Instead their proponents foolishly believed that by attaching the combating the climate crisis scenario to them, people would start lining up to buy them. Now that demand for these has fallen off, especially in North America, their supporters—i.e.’ the climate alarmists—are in some sort of damage control by trumpeting the sales increase beyond Canada and the US while downplaying the cutbacks to their production in development on this continent.
Most people had no idea what an EV even was when they hit the market in 2009 and 2010. I was interested, but am sometimes on the leading edge. I never bought into the so-called “climate crisis.” To me, it was a combination of curiosity and engineering. EVs are cars, not causes.
This article was useful only to point out how delusional EV promoters are. Can an EV be a useful and enjoyable vehicle? Absolutely to a certain segment of the market. Can they compete with gas and diesel vehicles on a level playing field? Not in your dreams. I don’t care what Ford or GM say, the only reason we are talking about EVs today is because of government mandates, subsidies and tax preference. EVs are not a substitute for internal combustion vehicles and everybody knows that.
Where I live, no mandate, no tax preference, and any subsidies are in the past. Gasoline costs $4.85/gallon and my EV gas-equivalent cost is 89 cents.
Much of the commentary here is ridiculous wingnuttery, the mirror image of a lot of wokenuttery elsewhere on other issues.
EV sales are not cratering. There’s been a correction in the U.S. from the withdrawal of tax credits. Sales spiked in ’24 and fell in ’25 because the coming withdrawals pulled future sales forward. This sort of thing is common across many sectors for diverse reasons. Sales of used EVs are rocking and rolling this year (up ~12%), as opposed to used ICEVs, which are in their usual pattern (up ~2%.) If EVs were falling through the floorboards, this simply would not be happening.The EV market is at an inflection point on the vaunted S-curve. EVs have a ~6% share in the U.S., but could easily have one-third of the market if that industry made some changes in its approach.60% of U.S. households have >1 road vehicle, and most of them are suburban/exurban single-family detached who use the second vehicle for commuting. That’s where the EV industry should be aiming.
Now, how to do it:
Emphasize value: much lower fuel cost, much lower maintenance cost.Move away from the bogus total range numbers, and instead emphasize daily usage range, which is about two-thirds of the gross number.Follow the lead of the cellphone makers and incorporate battery-saver features into the cars and the changing cords by default. Explain that these features (which could be overridden, just as cellphone battery savers can be) are to protect the value of the battery and hence the car.Develop an industry standard battery capacity measurement protocol to ensure that buyers of used EVs know how much battery capacity remains, and to assure buyers of new EVs that, if they use the battery saver features, their car will depreciate more slowly than otherwise. In short: Remove the mystery around this. Not hard; many industries have equivalent product standards.Make the software user interfaces in EVs simpler and more informative to the ordinary user who really doesn’t want to be obsessed by the details
Kids, EVs are here to stay. Yep, there will be the curmudgeons who sputter about the V-8 muscle cars. So be it. But there is a much larger market of people who would love to pay a lot less for fuel and have what, the curmudgeons notwithstanding, is a superior driving experience in a short-range urban area commuter car.
Today, the EV world in the U.S. is still aimed at the early adopter, but the real prize is the mass market. ICEVs are also here to stay. The heavy duty pickups will not be electric. Road trip vehicles will be ICEVs. The installed base will be heavily ICEV because of the replacement cycle alone.
If I wanted to know what an AI had to say, I would have asked an AI myself. But right now I’m reading an article by a human author, and I expect that author to do their own fact-checking instead of referring me to an AI.
What are you talking about?
So the addled wingnut can’t tell us. On the pipe tonight? LOL