Not the latest model
Is the niche EV market running out of niches to fill? Supposedly saving the climate, or whatever the latest slogan may be, looks like a dud selling point with the majority of private transport buyers now the novelty has worn off. Where that leaves the ‘net zero’ mandates of various governments, aimed at squeezing other vehicle types out of the marketplace altogether in the next decade or so, is an open question.
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With signs of growing inventory and slowing sales, auto industry executives admitted this week that their ambitious electric vehicle plans are in jeopardy, at least in the near term, says Climate Depot.
Several C-Suite leaders at some of the biggest carmakers voiced fresh unease about the electric car market’s growth as concerns over the viability of these vehicles put their multi-billion-dollar electrification strategies at risk.
Among those hand-wringing is GM’s Mary Barra, historically one of the automotive industry’s most bullish CEOs on the future of electric vehicles.
GM has been an early-mover in the electric car market, selling the Chevrolet Bolt for seven years and making bold claims about a fully electric future for the company long before its competitors got on board.
But this week on GM’s third-quarter earnings call, Barra and GM struck a more sober tone. The company announced with its quarterly results that it’s abandoning its targets to build 100,000 EVs in the second half of this year and another 400,000 by the first six months of 2024. GM doesn’t know when it will hit those targets.
“As we get further into the transformation to EV, it’s a bit bumpy,” she said.
While GM’s about-face was somewhat of a surprise to investors, the Detroit car company is not alone in this new view of the EV future. Even Tesla’s Elon Musk warned on a recent earnings call that economic concerns would lead to waning vehicle demand, even for the long-time EV market leader.
Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz — which is having to discount its EVs by several thousand dollars just to get them in customers’ hands — isn’t mincing words about the state of the EV market.
“This is a pretty brutal space,” CFO Harald Wilhelm said on an analyst call. “I can hardly imagine the current status quo is fully sustainable for everybody.”
EVs are getting harder to sell
But Mercedes isn’t the only one; almost all current EV product is going for under sticker price these days, and on top of that, some EVs are seeing manufacturer’s incentives of nearly 10%.
That’s as inventory builds up at dealerships, much to the chagrin of dealers. While car buyers are in luck if they’re looking for a deal on a plug-in vehicle, executives are finding even significant markdowns and discounts aren’t enough.
These cars are taking dealers longer to sell compared with their gas counterparts as the next wave of buyers focus on cost, infrastructure challenges, and lifestyle barriers to adopting.
Full article here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Could not afford one even at ¼$ticker. Calculated yrs ago electric per mile cost compared to gas (including battery replacement) gas had to nearly double the going rate to break even, all else the same. Now electric rates are nearly double while gas went up ~170%.
I also laugh at insurance adds claiming how much I could save. If it were possible, they’d be paying me plus covering the vehicle.
I’ll make a prediction. The Volvo car company will go bankrupt and not exist in the near future.
Ref Volvo; clearly if they actually do what they promised (only EV by 2026) they will have a rotten time in Europe (except Scandinavia) and other developed markets. Do not however forget they have significant Chinese investment including factory and production volumes, as a subsidiary of Geely. They could conceivably cease manufacture in Europe in very few years. But their Swedish design centre (and thus design philosophy) is likely to persevere much longer.
Interestingly, Euro design and ‘posh’ nameplates are respected by the Chinese, but these nameplates are almost certain to get nailed to Chinese EV’s in volume right now. Real-life reference is ‘MG’.
This evolution/revolution is unlikely to affect Volvo in isolation, the whole Euro car industry is under imminent threat of collapse due mainly to the invasion of cheap, small EV’s made in China – where EV’s are already accepted and operated widely. They may be the major reason why China is building so many more coal-fired power stations.
No woolly-brained self-serving crooked politicians in China then!
They’re not going to save the planet by having motorists holding on to their old fuel-powered cars for as long as possible, if/when there aren’t any new ones entering the market.
From the CD article:
“People are finally seeing reality,” Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda said at the Japan Mobility Show, the Wall Street Journal reported. Toyoda has long been skeptical of his peers’ pure-electric blueprints.
Car makers losing money on EVs…
Ford hits the brakes on $12 billion in EV spending because EVs are too expensive
Ford’s EV business continues to lose money, around $1.3 billion this past quarter in adjusted earnings. So far this year, Ford has lost $3.1 billion on its EV spending and has said it’s going to lose a total of $4 billion for the year.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23934172/ford-12-billion-ev-investment-postpone-q3-earnings
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Not much of a business model there. Bowing to government edicts isn’t good business, but the days of being allowed to decide what to offer based on customer demand are fading into history.
I expect there was a rush of the gullible who really believed they were saving the world, looking cool and going for kudos, but the huge inconvenience, the cost, inadequate structure and the false idea of human CO2 involvement in Climate Change will turn this into pain whilst the guilty politician seeking subjection hides from reponsibility.
Cruise news…
CRUISE PAUSES ALL DRIVERLESS OPERATIONS, SAYING IT’S TAKING A “HARD LOOK INWARDS”
It’s a huge setback. With a dramatic decision like this, though, Cruise is looking like a company in crisis, as it struggles to get on the good side of regulators, regularly becomes involved in traffic blunders, and continues to bleed billions of dollars.
And this is bigger than just GM. As a standard bearer of self-driving tech among the Big Three automakers, Cruise’s hamstrung efforts show that the future of autonomous cars, let alone robotaxis, is anything but certain.
Center of Attention
Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced it was opening an investigation into Cruise, after receiving reports of its robotaxis endangering and injuring pedestrians.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/cruise-pauses-driverless-operation
As I have said before there are too many problems associated with electric cars for every day use, they are fine if you subscribe to the WEF idea of everyone crowded into 15 minute cities leaving the countryside as the elite playground.
I can’t help wondering how long an BEV would last on the country roads that lack maintenance , how many fires would there be when the BEV bottoms out on a pothole and how many people would die because they couldn’t get out of the car?
Another thing, where is the electricity coming from to charge the EVs, certainly not the unreliable renewables. There is also the fact that the electric infrastructure is not set up for home charging on a large scale so the people that are rejecting electric cars have the right idea.
‘GM doesn’t know when it will hit those targets.’
Or even *if’.
if your product is any good the government does not need to bribe you to buy and use it. Duh.
There’s been no “project manager” at the top level planning the timing of all the parallel and serial build lines of this EV fiasco. Not particularly surprising when people like Obozo and Joetato are “running” the show.
Something I found a little while ago – Someone took a close look at the EV scam.
Click to access 2023-10-TrueCostofEVs-BennettIsaac.pdf
I suspect new buyers are fewer now at least some of those who bought an EV are now replacing it with an ICE car. What happens with fleets is the next event – if say Hertz finds its taking a bath on the second-hand value of its EVs, its going to be very unwilling to buy new again. And how many people want tobreht sn EV in a city/country they aren’t familar with anyway? The simple fact is, EVs are worse for most people in most situations.
CD: ‘Most of the early adopters have, well, adopted, and the next tier of possible customers has enough sticker shock to keep their wallets closed.’
Jo Nova has the full skinny on this. It’s turning into a disaster for the auto industry.
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/10/vw-orders-are-down-50-ford-loses-38000-on-each-car-toyota-chief-says-people-are-waking-up/
NEWS RELEASE 6-NOV-2023
New study finds electric vehicles are driven less than gas cars
One of the largest studies to date finds the current generation of EV owners drive far fewer miles than owners of gas vehicles, translating to lower emissions savings from EVs.
Peer-Reviewed Publication
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
…they found that while Teslas were driven more than other EVs, Teslas were still driven less than conventional gas cars.
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While not a focus of the study, Helveston suggested a couple of factors that may be affecting how far EV owners are driving their cars, including a lack of charging infrastructure that may limit EV owners’ ability to reliably take longer-distance trips. Researchers also suggest multi-vehicle households may be another reason behind these findings; people who own EVs often own multiple vehicles, and they may be spreading out their annual miles over each of them, resulting in lower overall mileage on the EV.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1007100
No surprises there.
Aye, translating to lower…. savings from EVs. more likely.
Like the Hybrids ( in name only) Fuel drinkers by any other – carrying all that other unnecessary weight around. ” Remove the roof rack, clear out the Boot, …all that unnecessary clutter of weight /air resistance adds to your fuel consumption” squawked the Motoring Media.