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 posit there was no revolution. There was the usual spate of early adopters and virtue signalers. People with the right specific uses are happy with their EVs and most of them still own an ICE car anyway. Many urban livers can easily get by with just an EV and rent ICE vehicles for long trips if they have range anxiety.
And we don’t have the infrastructure to support EVs. The grid needs to be expanded along with more charging stations.
And what happens to the used EV market and replacement batteries? The marketplace should determine the fate of EVs, not the USG.
“I was wondering if that included married couples who have an EV and an ICE car.”
I can’t tell you where, but I read some time back that 78% of EV owners also own an ICE vehicle.
Let it be true.
GOP committing political malpractice by not pointing out things like this and gas stoves, etc. that cross economic, racial, and ethnic lines. This crap has to be tied to the larger Democrat party. Time is wasting.
“ Bring back cheap gas for $2.00 or less.”
Bring back leaded gas. Then we can move back to global cooling.
That’s my wife and me. We own an EV crossover and drive most of our miles 26K per year) in it. We also have an ICE pickup. If we didn’t need 2 cars anyway we wouldn’t have gotten an EV because there are some trips an EV won’t do. Having one car as an EV is practical for us because we can charge it at home and also drive it enough for the gas savings to be worth it (even if gas prices go back down to Trump levels). Yet with all the driving we do in the EV, the next car we buy will almost certainly be replacing the old ICE pickup with another ICE pickup.
And there’s that.
“In 2022, they (pickup trucks) accounted for about 79 percent of vehicles sold in the country, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association.”
Does anyone else consider that number - 79% - unbelievable?
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Ford took the best swelling pickup in the nation for years and made it electric. Totally non-sensical. There needs to be a management clean out there.
Ditto. Once people found out range is cut in half when towing anything substantial, sales cratered.
How much damage can Biden do to the country?
VW has admitted they have put their company in danger by “embracing” EV
This means its impacting Audi and Porsche too.
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