Posted on 10/22/2023 3:44:12 PM PDT by Libloather
The effort to electrify America's most popular and influential vehicle class is under way, but it appears to be faltering at the hands of reluctant motorists.
This week, Ford said it would lay off about 700 workers at the Detroit plant that manufactures its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck and GM pushed back production of the Chevrolet Silverado EV, citing slowing demand.
And Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors during an earnings call on Wednesday, 'we dug our own grave' when referencing the company's much anticipated electric pickup Cybertruck.
Pickup trucks have long been the crown jewel of the US automotive industry. In 2022, they accounted for about 79 percent of vehicles sold in the country, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association.
And thanks in part to billions in EV subsidies enacted by President Biden, automakers have launched ambitious projects to capture the market. The White House has pledged to make all car sales electric by 2030.
But despite initially promising sales, Americans now seem increasingly disinterested in swapping out their combustion engine trucks for electric equivalents.
'Electrification is a governmental and environmental initiative. It is not consumer driven,' said Joe McCabe, President and CEO of automotive consultancy AutoForecast Solutions.
'The demand for electrified vehicles is not meeting or exceeding supply so we're at a point where [manufacturers] may have to pare back on this EV initiative because the new set of buyers are going to be a more difficult hurdle to clear,' he added.
At the end of last year, the F-150 Lightning was the best-selling electric truck in the US but recently Ford reported that sales in the third-quarter fell 46 percent year over year, to around 3,500 vehicles.
'There are early adopters, and the early adopters have adopted,' said McCabe, suggesting that those adopters tended...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I heard Ford lost $3 billion last year, largely due to costs associated with converting to electric vehicle production.
Biden and Democrats can push policies to favor electric vehicles, but, what if people just don’t want an electric car, and people don’t buy them??
Bring back cheap gas for $2.00 or less.
Bring back cheap used trucks.
Bring back more affordable new F-150s with the regular $10-$12,000. off.
Trump 2024.
Wondering when the insurance companies are going to say, enough is enough.
EV Owners Facing Insurance Challenges https://hotair.com/headlines/2023/10/22/ev-owners-facing-insurance-challenges-n586772
I would have to think that with all the problems the folks in Florida are having with insurance companies, across the board, at what point do the companies say they aren’t going to insure EVs anymore. After the next hurricane and subsequent flooding and the EVs are rendered a pile of metal if not a hot pile of metal after catching fire.
Add that to the fact that they can be totaled after a minor accident.
https://jalopnik.com/ev-battery-damage-minor-crash-car-totaled-recycling-1850243294
https://www.hotcars.com/electric-cars-totaled-after-minor-accident/
“Never underestimate the ability of Biden to F*** things up.”
Obozo
Look at the lawm mowers market
What spark?
If GovDome persists (and they may very well do just that — they don’t back down for mere “facts”) then check back in a few years, and we’ll look like Cuba — with a bunch of old rust-buckets and field-expedient “fixes” keeping them all going. You may be driving a Classic right now, and just not know it.
GovDome will have to collapse of its own weight before they throw in the towel. After all, they’re doing it “for the children!”
ping
They don’t care if you buy EVs or not. The point is they are making personal transportation too expensive for ordinary people to have.
Ford reported that sales in the third-quarter fell 46 percent year over year, to around 3,500 vehicles.
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That’s pitiful.
I don’t even want to park next to an EV due to the risk of fire from the EV engulfing my car.
Dilbert San Diego wrote: “Biden and Democrats can push policies to favor electric vehicles, but, what if people just don’t want an electric car, and people don’t buy them??”
Doesn’t matter what the people want if the dems force the car companies to only make EV which they will do by sky-high mileage mandates and taxation. Plus they’re doing everything possible to make gasoline unavailable or affordable.
Guess I might as well download a few repair manuals on the Kia Soul, because I’m not giving up my ICE.
I think we’re reaching a point where the EV fad is over and the only ones buying EV’s are people who think one is best for his particular driving situation.
I have a photo from November 9, 2020 at my gas station in Morgan Hill, CA when gas was 2.47 per gallon
Just got back from a trip to Calif. At the airport I reiterated to the Hertz guy that we would not accept an EV due to the vagaries of recharging at hotels. He told me that no one wants them for that reason.
19 Oct: Business Insider: Most Americans still don’t want an electric car — and many EV buyers end up going back to gas
by Tim Levin
Most Americans don’t intend to buy an electric car in the near future, according to a new study.
People who do spring for an EV often buy a gas car as their next purchase, per another study...
In a recent poll conducted by Yahoo Finance and Ipsos, 57% of respondents said they were not likely to choose an EV when they buy their next car. (For the purposes of the study, EVs included fully electric cars and plug-in hybrids, which have a larger battery and more electric range than traditional hybrids.)
Of that majority, 36% said they were “not at all likely” to go electric, while 21% said they were “not too likely.”...
The biggest factors turning potential buyers off from EVs are the same worries that consistently pop up in these kinds of surveys: High vehicle cost, limited driving range, and insufficient charging infrastructure...
https://www.businessinsider.com/most-americans-dont-want-an-electric-car-2023-10
19 Oct: Drive.com: Study finds up to half of all electric-car owners considering a switch back to petrol power
by Ben Zachariah
According to a US study from S&P Global Mobility, first reported on by website Electrek, three-quarters of electric vehicle owners say that would buy another battery-powered car – but that number falls to about half once Tesla owners are removed from the statistics...
https://www.drive.com.au/news/study-finds-some-electric-car-owners-considering-a-switch-back-to-petrol-power/
I like how it’s NEVER mentioned that if everyone swapped to an EV tomorrow, the power infrastructure would collapse, and we’d have brown-outs.
I was wondering if that included married couples who have an EV and an ICE car. (The EV is the new car, thus the next car needing replacing is the ICE car.). Then I read the linked article within the linked article: Libby adds a caveat: The household data does not necessarily measure whether an EV has been replaced by another EV. The new purchase, in other words, could be a replacement for a different household vehicle.
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