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The American consumer's "love affair" with electric vehicles turned out to be more of a figurative one-night stand. That's the conclusion of many economists today, along with the management at automakers including Ford and General Motors. The Biden administration attempted to force its EV mandate and goose the public into supporting it by spiking the punchbowl in the form of generous taxpayer-funded subsidies and rebates. (It's funny how generous they can be with your money, isn't it?) And for a little while it seemed to work, at least to a degree. There was an initial surge in EV sales, leading...

Ford had plans to build a lot of electric SUVs at a plant in Canada. Instead, it decided to make pickup trucks that people want to buy. As a result, the automaker is putting off plans for electric versions of its Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator and will churn out Super Duty pickup trucks at its Oakville, Ontario, plant, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Ford Motor will expand production of its large Super Duty trucks to a Canadian plant that was previously set to be converted into an all-electric vehicle hub. The new plans include investing about $3 billion to expand Super Duty production, including $2.3 billion at Ford’s Oakville Assembly Complex in Ontario, Canada, Ford said Thursday. Ford said the Canadian plant, which is expected to come online in 2026, will add annual capacity of roughly 100,000 units of the highly profitable pickups. The announcement comes weeks after Farley said full electrification of “big, huge, enormous” vehicles such as Ford’s Super Duty trucks...

Scientists have uncovered a new source of hazardous "forever chemical" pollution: the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries found in most electric vehicles. Some lithium-ion battery technologies use a class of PFAS chemicals, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, that helps make batteries less flammable and conduct electricity. Scientists found high levels of these PFAS in air, water, snow, soil, and sediment samples near plants that make those chemicals in the US, Belgium, and France, according to a peer-reviewed study in the journal Nature Communications. PFAS are known as "forever chemicals" because they build up quickly in the environment, people, and animals and don't break...

The electric vehicle revolution is encountering significant hurdles as consumers grapple with high costs, infrastructure challenges, and geopolitical tensions, potentially slowing the transition from traditional gas-powered cars, according to a report by Fast Company. Fast Company reports the automotive industry has undergone a significant transformation with the push towards electric vehicles in recent years. However, the road to widespread EV adoption is proving to be bumpy, with several obstacles threatening to stall progress.

A bill being considered in New York would, as of Jan. 1, 2025, prohibit the sale of gasoline-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers in the state, according to a May 23 report from WYRK. Legislation regarding gas-powered equipment bans was introduced back in 2021. The bill (Assembly Bill A705) is currently being considered by a committee assembly. For more info on ongoing attempts at regulating gas-powered outdoor power equipment, view our ongoing coverage here.

Concept art of the new XRQ-73 (Credit: DARPA) The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has revealed the official designation of a next-generation X-plane it currently has under development. The aircraft, now officially dubbed the XRQ-73, is part of DARPA’s Series Hybrid Electric Propulsion AiRcraft Demonstration (SHEPARD) program, which the agency defines as an X-prime program. SHEPARD program manager Steve Komadina said DARPA X-prime programs aim “to take emerging technologies and burn down system-level integration risks to quickly mature a new missionized long endurance aircraft design that can be fielded quickly.” By utilizing existing hybrid electric architecture and other related...

A significant share of Americans who own an electric vehicle have buyer's remorse, according to new data. McKinsey & Co.'s Mobility Consumer Pulse for 2024, released this month, found that 46% of EV owners in the U.S. said they were "very" likely to switch back to owning a gas-powered vehicle in their next purchase. The high percentage of Americans who want to make a switch even surprised the consulting firm. "I didn't expect that," the head of McKinsey's Center for Future Mobility, Philipp Kampshoff, told Automotive News. "I thought, 'Once an EV buyer, always an EV buyer.'" In the poll...

Secondhand electric cars are now cheaper than their gas counterparts for the first time - and the gap is widening quickly. This is according to a new study from comparison site iSeeCars, which found the cost of an average used EV dropped $265 below a typical gas car in February. This marked the beginning of the trend - and the price gap has grown to $2,657 as of latest data from May. In the last year, average used car values have dropped between 3 and 7 percent, the report found, while used EV values have plummeted between 29 and 39...

Nearly half of American electric vehicle (EV) owners want to buy an internal combustion engine model the next time they buy a car, according to a new study from McKinsey and Company, a leading consulting firm. Approximately 46% of Americans who own an EV want to go back to a standard vehicle for their next purchase, citing issues like inadequate charging infrastructure and affordability, according to McKinsey’s study, which was obtained and reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The study’s findings further suggest that the Biden administration’s EV push is struggling to land with American consumers, after 46% of...

In just the last twelve months, how many electric vehicle-related corporate financial disasters have there been? I count no fewer than seven, depending on how meticulous you want to be, so let’s do quick rundown of all the E.V. woes, not in any particular order or importance. 💩 First disaster: This is the headliner and hot off the presses, from Stephen Council’s new report at SFGate:California carmaker Fisker, once worth $2.9 billion, finally goes belly-upFisker, an electric vehicle company based in Southern California, has finally declared bankruptcy.After months of brutal news — a bankruptcy warning, hundreds of layoffs, a massive...

Fisker Group Inc., the EV startup founded by famed designer Henrik Fisker, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — a capstone to months of problems with its Ocean SUV that included recalls and dozens of lemon law lawsuits. The California-based company, which filed for bankruptcy in Delaware District Court, had been seeking a deal with another automaker in a last-ditch effort to rescue the enterprise. The company estimated assets of $500 to $1 billion and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million, according to the filing. Fisker reported between 200 and 999 creditors, including SAP, Adobe, Salesforce and Ansys,...

Originally, Ford had said in 2021 that it would start production in 2025. Full production at a Ford EV factory in west Tennessee that was to deliver the company’s F150 Lightning electric pickup truck is being delayed. State Sen. Page Walley, a Republican, told the "Tennessee Outlook" full production of the vehicle line was being pushed back by nine months as a result of a “read on the economy.” Ford said in 2021 that it would start production in 2025. Now the electric pickup trucks aren’t expected to be delivered to dealerships until 2026, according to the "Outlook." Ford lost...

General Motors is trimming its expected sales and production of all-electric vehicles this year, as U.S. adoption of EVs occurs slower than expected. GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said the company now expects production of 200,000 to 250,000 EVs this year, down from a previously announced range of 200,000 to 300,000. ... Jacobson said GM expects EVs to make up 8% of U.S. sales industrywide this year. That’s lower than many other auto analyst forecasts, which expect EVs to represent around 10% of industry sales in 2024.

... Forty-six percent of Americans say they are "not too likely or not at all likely to purchase" an EV, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press -NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. Earlier this year, luxury German automaker Mercedes delayed its electrification plans by five years, with CEO Ola Kaellenius telling investors the company was still committed to producing combustion engine cars. Last month, Toyota executives announced its engineers were developing smaller, next-gen engines that can run on alternative fuels like liquid hydrogen. Industry insiders are calling...

The Biden administration on Friday tightened vehicle fuel mileage standards, part of its strategy to transform the American auto market into one that is dominated by electric vehicles that do not emit the pollution that is heating the planet.The new mileage standards announced by the Transportation Department are among several regulations the administration is using to prod carmakers to produce more electric vehicles. In April, the Environmental Protection Agency issued strict new limits on tailpipe pollution that are designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids...

This announcement out of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin's office yesterday is pretty cool news. In 2021, under the benevolent eye of uber-prog Democratic black-face aficionado Gov Ralph Northam, the completely Democratic-held VA legislature decided to commit the state to follow the California emission standards, which, as everyone knows, are tougher than the federal ones. Progs of a feather flock together. In 2022, doubling down on their infinite wisdom, VA lawmakers saw fit to impose what's known as CA's Advanced Clean Car II regulations on their fellow Virginians. In essence, what that was going to do was impose a 100% EV...

Saying electric and hybrid vehicles need to pay their own way for the wear and tear they put on Wyoming roads, legislators are resurrecting a bill to tax fast-charging stations. The Wyoming Legislature wants electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle users to pay their fair share, and for the second straight year is considering a fuel tax for EV owners fueling up at high-speed charging stations in the state. The tax of 4 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) would only apply to Level 3 DC fast chargers, such as the Tesla Supercharger stations. It would not include Level 2 public charging...

25 refrigerators. That’s how much the additional electricity consumption per household would be if the average US home adopted electric vehicles (EVs). Congressman Thomas Massie—an electrical engineer—revealed this information while discussing with Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, President Biden’s plan to have 50% of cars sold in the US be electric by 2030. The current and future grid in most places will not be able to support each home running 25 refrigerators—not even close. Just look at California, where the grid is already buckling under the existing load. Massie claims, correctly, in my view, that the notion of widespread...

My residential electric service contract is up in about a month and just checked the markets for renewal. The rates have SKYROCKETED. I don't know if this is because of EV usage increase or just the general crappy economy under Biden, but it's about to price me out of home ownership. Anyone else seeing this? [Service company is Oncor.]