EV adoption

gm’s-ev-push-will-cost-it-$1.6-billion-in-q3-with-end-of-the-tax-credit

GM’s EV push will cost it $1.6 billion in Q3 with end of the tax credit

Cars, EV adoption, General Motors, IRS clean vehicle tax credit / /

The prospects of continued electric vehicle adoption in the US are in an odd place. As promised, the Trump administration and its congressional Republican allies killed off as many of the clean energy and EV incentives as they could after taking power in January. Ironically, though, the end of the clean vehicle tax credit on September 30 actually spurred the sales of EVs, as customers rushed to dealerships to take advantage of the soon-to-disappear $7,500 credit.

Predictions for EV sales going forward aren’t so rosy, and automakers are reacting by adjusting their product portfolio plans. Today, General Motors revealed that will result in a $1.6 billion hit to its balance sheet when it reports its Q3 results late this month, according to its 8-K.

Q3 was a decent one for GM, with sales up 8 percent year on year and up 10 percent for the year to date. GM EV sales look even better: up 104 percent for the year to date compared to the first nine months of 2024, with nearly 145,000 electric Cadillacs, Chevrolets, and GMCs finding homes.

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How automakers are reacting to the end of the $7,500 EV tax credit

Cars, EV adoption, Ford, General Motors, IRS clean vehicle tax credit, Tesla / /

Just after midnight this morning, in addition to getting a federal government shutdown, we also lost all federal tax credits for new electric vehicles, used electric vehicles, and commercial electric vehicles.

Sadly, this was not a surprise. During last year’s election, the Trump campaign made no secret of its disgust toward clean vehicles (and clean energy in general), and it promised to end subsidies meant to encourage Americans to switch from internal combustion engines to EVs. Once in power, the Republicans moved quickly to make this happen.

Federal clean vehicle incentives had only recently been revamped in then-US President Joe Biden’s massive investment in clean technologies as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. To qualify for the $7,500 tax credit, a new EV had to have its final assembly in North America, and certain percentages of its battery content needed to be domestically sourced.

A separate $7,500 commercial tax credit for new EVs was created, which did not require domestic assembly or content and which applied to leased EVs. And Congress finally added a $4,000 tax credit for the purchase of a used EV.

Visiting the relevant IRS page today, though, you’ll see an update declaring that the “New Clean Vehicle Credit, Previously-Owned Clean Vehicle Credit, and Qualified Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit are not available for vehicles acquired after Sept. 30, 2025.”

How automakers are reacting to the end of the $7,500 EV tax credit Read More »

electric-vehicle-sales-grew-25%-worldwide-but-just-6%-in-north-america

Electric vehicle sales grew 25% worldwide but just 6% in North America

Cars, EV adoption / /

Here’s some good news for a Friday afternoon: For 2025 through August, global electric vehicle sales have grown by 25 percent compared to the same eight months in 2024, according to the analysts at Rho Motion. That amounts to 12.5 million EVs, although the data combines both battery EVs and plug-in hybrid EVs for the total.

However, that’s for global sales. In fact, EV adoption is moving even faster in Europe, which has grown by 31 percent so far this year (Rho says that BEV sales grew by 31 percent but PHEV sales by just 30 percent)—a total of 2.6 million plug-in vehicles. In some European countries, the increase has been even more impressive: up by 45 percent in Germany, 41 percent in Italy, and by 100 percent in Spain.

But despite a number of interesting new EVs from Renault and the various Stellantis-owned French automakers, EV sales in France are down by 6 percent so far, year on year.

Tesla has seen none of this sales growth in Europe, however—as we noted last month, this region’s Tesla sales collapsed by 40 percent in July.

China had bought an additional 7.6 million new EVs between January and August of this year, although this growth slowed in July and August, partially as a consequence of robust sales during those months in 2024 thanks to Chinese government policies. And as also noted last month, BYD recently saw a drop in profitability and has downgraded its sales target by 900,000 vehicles (down to 4.6 million) for this year.

Electric vehicle sales grew 25% worldwide but just 6% in North America Read More »

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Americans’ junk-filled garages are hurting EV adoption, study says

Cars, charging, EV adoption / /

Creating garage space would increase the number of homes capable of EV charging from 31 million to more than 50 million. And when we include houses where the owner thinks it’s feasible to add wiring, that grows to more than 72 million homes. And that’s far more than Telemetry’s most optimistic estimate of US EV penetration for 2035, which ranges from 33 million to 57 million EVs on the road 10 years from now.

I thought an EV would save me money?

Just because 90 percent of houses could add a 240 V outlet near where they park, it doesn’t mean that 90 percent of homes have a 240 V outlet near where they park. According to that same NREL study, almost 34 million of those homes will require extensive electrical work to upgrade their wiring and panels to cope with the added demands of a level 2 charger (at least 30 A), and that can cost thousands and thousands of dollars.

All of a sudden, EV cost of ownership becomes much closer to, or possibly even exceeds, that of a vehicle with an internal combustion engine.

Multifamily remains an unsolved problem

Twenty-three percent of Americans live in multifamily dwellings, including apartments, condos, and townhomes. Here, the barriers to charging where you park are much greater. Individual drivers will rarely be able to decide for themselves to add a charger—the management company, landlord, co-op board, or whoever else is in charge of the development has to grant permission.

If the cost of new wiring for a single family home is enough to be a dealbreaker for some, adding EV charging capabilities to a parking lot or parking garage makes those costs pale in comparison. Using my 1960s-era co-op as an example, after getting board approval to add a pair of shared level 2 chargers in 2019, we were told by the power company that nothing could happen until the co-op upgraded its electrical panel—a capital improvement project that runs into seven figures, and work that is still not entirely complete as I type this.

Americans’ junk-filled garages are hurting EV adoption, study says Read More »

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Ford switches gears, will push smaller EVs over full-size pickup and van

affordable EVs, Cars, EV adoption, Ford / /

The Ford Motor Company is adjusting its electric vehicle strategy. The automaker will prioritize smaller and more affordable EVs ahead of the replacement for the F-150 Lightning fullsize pickup truck and e-Transit van. The Lightning replacement, codenamed T3, should now appear later in 2027, with the van a year behind.

Here in 2025, EV adoption isn’t exactly going the way everyone thought—or rather hoped—it would. The hype surrounding EVs worked fast, and the glinting dollar signs in people’s eyes as they saw Tesla’s share price soar higher and higher convinced even people who don’t care about decarbonization that going all-in on EVs was the way to go.

But it takes longer to develop a new vehicle than it takes to excite an investor. And it takes longer even than that to build out the charging infrastructure necessary to transform EV motoring from something for early adopters and the eco-conscious into a viable alternative for a largely incurious and change-averse general public. Which is a long-winded way of saying the industry got out over its skis.

Take the Ford F-150 Lightning. Americans adore their pickup trucks, and the Lightning is a darn good pickup in most regards. It looks like a normal F-150, and while it might not tow as far before it has to stop, it does most other things as well or better than the gasoline-powered equivalent.

But something the size and shape of a full-size pickup truck is always going to require a lot of energy to push it through the air—even if you squeezed the drag coefficient, there’s no getting away from so much frontal area. And that means you need a gigantic battery in order to meet range expectations. And that means the truck that customers thought would cost $40,000 actually costs way more; sometimes as much as twice that. So it has hardly been the sales success people once imagined.

Ford switches gears, will push smaller EVs over full-size pickup and van Read More »

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Trump’s trade and environment policies are a disaster for carmakers

Cars, EV adoption, trump tariffs / /

General Motors blamed Trump’s tariffs for costing it $1.1 billion in Q2 and as much as $5 billion by the end of the year. And while the new anti-EV adoption policies are yet to fully bite, it’s clear they’ve motivated some action inside the GM boardroom. Although GM CEO Mary Barra wrote to investors that the company believes “the long-term future is profitable electric vehicle production,” she followed by explaining that GM’s flexible factories will help it succeed in a world where EPA fuel economy targets are no longer a thing. That’s probably why GM added 300,000 more units of capacity for “high margin light-duty pickups, full-size SUVs and crossovers.”

Ford said that the tariffs could cost it as much as $2 billion this year, despite it making more actual vehicles in the US than any other automaker. That’s because it has to pay the US government to import raw materials like steel and aluminum, as well as components and subassemblies.

Foreign automakers are also feeling the effects, given the importance—until now, at least—of the US car buyer. Stellantis, which owns the Jeep and Ram brands, said it had already lost $2.7 billion this year due to tariffs, although the automaker stands to benefit in the coming years from the gutting of fleet fuel efficiency fines.

Aston Martin may benefit from a lower 10 percent tariff for UK-made cars, but it described the process as “extremely disruptive,” and although it has now restarted shipping cars to America, it issued a profit warning last week.

BMW is among the less badly hurt; although its operating margin fell to 5.4 percent, this was within its expectations. Mercedes had to warn investors to expect less this year, and it says the US will become a less-important market for the company, which plans to make up for it with growth in China. Volkswagen Group said the tariffs have cost it $1.5 billion so far this year, and it has also revised down its forecasts for the rest of the year.

Although Porsche announced record deliveries in North America just a week ago, its operating profit was a third of that a year ago. “In the US, import tariffs are also putting huge pressure on our business. Looking ahead, the movement of the dollar could also have an impact. In addition, the transformation to electric mobility is progressing more slowly than expected overall, with consequences for the supplier network,” said Porsche and VW Group CEO Oliver Blume.

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Tesla is the least-trusted car brand in America, survey finds

Autonomous Driving, Cars, EV adoption, Tesla / /

Tesla’s eroding popularity with Americans shows little sign of abating. Each month, the Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report surveys thousands of consumers to gauge attitudes on EV adoption, autonomous driving, and the automakers that are developing those technologies. Toyota, which only recently started selling enough EVs to be included in the survey, currently has the highest net-positive score and the highest “view intensity score”—the percentage of consumers who have a very positive view of a brand minus the ones who have a very negative view—despite selling just a fairly lackluster EV to date. Meanwhile, the brand that actually popularized the EV, moving it from compliance car and milk float to something desirable, has fallen even further into negative territory in July.

Just 26 percent of survey participants still have a somewhat or very positive view of Tesla. But 39 percent have a somewhat or very negative view of the company, with just 14 percent being unfamiliar or having no opinion. That’s a net positive view of -13, but Tesla’s view intensity score is -16, meaning a lot more people really don’t like the company compared to the ones who really do. The problem is also growing over time: In April, Tesla still had a net positive view of -7.

Tesla remained at the bottom of the charts when EVIR looked more closely into demographic data. Tesla was the least-positively viewed car company regardless of income, although the effect was most pronounced among those with incomes less than $75,000, as were the results based on geography (although suburbanites held it in the most disdain) and age (where those over 65 have the most haters).

Vinfast is the only other automaker with a negative net-positive view and view intensity score, but 92 percent of survey respondents were unfamiliar with the Vietnamese automaker or had no opinion about it.

When asked which brands they trusted, the survey data mostly mirrored the positive versus negative brand perception. Only Tesla and Vinfast have negative net trust scores, with Tesla also having the lowest “trust integrity score”—those who say they trust a brand “a lot” versus those who distrust that brand “a lot,” at -19.

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Here’s why there are so few new cars for under $30,000

Cars, EV adoption, trump tariffs / /

Winners and losers

However, averages conceal a lot, and not all cars are becoming more expensive. US-made vehicles got cheaper to the tune of $191 per car, and cars.com says that more and more consumers are searching for domestically made vehicles to save money. Imports from the UK have gotten the most expensive—increasing by an average of $10,129—since these are almost all luxury cars with high purchase prices. (A new, lower tariff was recently negotiated by the UK.) A less pronounced effect can be seen with vehicles from the EU, where the mix still contains plenty of premium cars; average EU car prices in the US have risen $2,455 since the start of the year. Japanese imports are in third place, with an average increase of $1,226.

But imports from South Korea, China, and Canada have also dropped in average price. Some of this is due to a reduction of imports or a change in trims—General Motors is bringing in fewer cars from South Korea, and both it and Hyundai are bringing over more cars with lower trim levels.

Which is a spot of good news for the bargain hunter. While the perception is that dealerships only stock fully loaded vehicles, cars.com found that 34 percent of new car inventory is made up of low trim-level vehicles, up from 30 percent two years ago. And only a quarter of new vehicles are fully loaded. Meanwhile, it’s the middle that’s been squeezed, as mid-level trims make up 41 percent of new vehicle inventory, down from 46 percent in 2023.

The electric vehicle market is facing perhaps the most significant challenge this year, as the Republican Party has succeeded in its efforts to eradicate incentives meant to drive EV adoption. The EV tax credit for both new and used cars will be gone on October 1, which will make many new EVs $7,500 more expensive for most of their buyers. And it’s not like EVs were cheap to begin with: average MSRP for a new EV is around $65,000, although KBB found that the average transaction price for a new EV in June was $56,910, reflecting the current incentives.

Bargain hunters should consider buying pre-owned. While new EV supply has grown by 15.1 percent year on year, used EV inventory grew by 31.3 percent over the same period, with prices dropping by 3.5 percent to an average of $35,629 in the process.

Here’s why there are so few new cars for under $30,000 Read More »

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Despite everything, US EV sales are up 28% this year

Cars, EV adoption / /

With all the announcements from automakers planning for more gasoline and hybrid cars in their future lineups, you’d think that electric vehicles had stopped selling. While that might be increasingly true for Tesla, everyone else is more than picking up the slack. According to analysts at Rho Motion, global EV sales are up 30 percent this year already. Even here in the US, EV sales were still up 28 percent compared to 2024, despite particularly EV-unfriendly headwinds.

Getting ahead of those unfriendly winds may actually be driving the sales bump in the US, where EV sales only grew by less than 8 percent last year, for contrast. “American drivers bought 30 percent more electric vehicles than they had by this time last year, making use of the final months of IRA tax breaks before the incentives are expected to be pulled later this year,” said Charles Lester, Rho Motion data manager.

With the expected loss of government incentives and the prospect of new tariffs that will add tens of thousands of dollars to new car prices, now is probably a good time to buy an EV if you think you’re going to want or need one.

Perhaps surprisingly, growth in the much more EV-tolerant European Union was barely higher, at 29 percent for the year to date, helped by a new tax on plug-in hybrid weight in France, Rho Motion says. Both Germany and the UK EV markets have grown by 40 percent this year.

China is speeding past the rest of the world in terms of electrifying its transportation, and unsurprisingly it comes out on top in Rho Motion’s data, with 35 percent growth for the year to date compared to 2024. Looking month by month shows an even more impressive 73 percent increase year over year, thanks to where the lunar new year fell in 2024 and 2025.

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The EV transition hits some snags at Porsche and Audi

Audi, Cars, EV adoption, porsche / /

Now Audi has gone a little further, abandoning its almost-new nomenclature in the process. As naming conventions go, Audi at least tried to keep things a little logical when it told everyone last summer that henceforth, odd-numbered Audis—A3, A5, Q5, Q7, and so on—would be internal combustion or hybrids, and even-numbered Audis—A4, A6, Q6, Q8—would be electric, or e-tron.

This was the case when we went to see some of those new Audis in the studio last summer. There was an all-new gasoline-powered A5, which comes in a handsome fastback sedan or even more handsome Avant (station wagon) version, that won’t come to the US.

There’s also an all-new, fully electric A6, available as a sedan but also as a handsome fastback sedan and even more handsome Avant. This one also isn’t coming to America.

As of this week, things are back to where they used to be. Forget the odd and even distinction; for now, it means nothing again. A gasoline-powered A6 will break cover on March 3, Audi says. And as for names? “A” means a low floor, and “Q” means a high floor (i.e., SUV or crossover).

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California’s air pollution waiver and the “EV mandate” are banned by Trump

Cars, EV adoption / /

To do this, it eliminates “state emissions waivers that function to limit sales of gasoline-powered automobiles.” That spells bad news for California and the 17 other states that follow the California Air Resources Board’s Zero Emissions Vehicles regulations. California has been granted waivers under the Clean Air Act to set emissions controls within its state borders, but the first Trump administration spent much time and energy battling CARB’s waiver.

The previous moves to block CARB’s waiver were partially successful and only reversed by the US Environmental Protection Agency just over a month ago.

The revised clean vehicle tax credit, which provides up to $7,500 in credit toward the purchase of a new EV, or up to $4,000 for the purchase of a used EV, also looks to be in trouble. The executive order also calls out “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies and effectively mandate their purchase by individuals, private businesses, and government entities alike by rendering other types of vehicles unaffordable.” However, as the clean vehicle tax credit is a part of the tax code, changes to it will require Congress to pass legislation to that effect.

As you might expect, environmental groups are not impressed. “The transition to electric vehicles is opening factories and putting people back to work across the country,” said Katherine García, Sierra Club director of the Clean Transportation for All campaign. “Instead of building upon progress we’ve made, Donald Trump remains intent on fear-mongering around electric vehicles and taking the US back in time while the rest of the world moves forward on auto innovation. Rolling back vehicle emission safeguards harms our health, our wallets, and our climate.”

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Only 5 percent of US car buyers want an EV, according to survey

Cars, EV adoption / /

Only 5 percent of US consumers want their next vehicle to be a battery electric vehicle, according to a new survey by Deloitte. The consulting company gathered data from more than 31,000 people across 30 countries as part of its 2025 Global Automotive Consumer Study, and some of the results are rather interesting, as they pertain to technologies like new powertrains, connectivity, and artificial intelligence.

Among US consumers, internal combustion engines (ICE) remain number one, with 62 percent indicating that their next car will not be electrified. Another 1 in 5 would like a hybrid for their next vehicle, with a further 6 percent desiring a plug-in hybrid. (The remaining survey respondents either did not know or wanted some other powertrain option.)

By contrast, only 38 percent of Chinese consumers want to stick with ICE; meanwhile, 27 percent of them want a BEV next. That’s a far higher percentage than in other large nations—in Germany, only 14 percent want a BEV; in the UK and Canada, only 8 percent are BEV-bound; and in Japan, the number is a mere 3 percent.

Meanwhile, hybrids are far more attractive to consumers in most countries. While only 16 percent of Chinese and 12 percent of German consumers indicated this preference, 23 percent of Canadians, 24 percent of UK consumers, and 35 percent of Japanese consumers replied that they were looking for a hybrid for their next car.

Deloitte suspects that some of this reticence toward BEVs “could be due, in part, to lingering affordability concerns.” The hoped-for parity in the cost of a BEV powertrain and an ICE powertrain has still not arrived, and fully 45 percent of US consumers said they did not want to pay more than $34,999 for their next car (11 percent said less than $15,000, 9 percent said $15,000–$19,999, and the remaining 25 percent said $20,000–$34,999.)

Why the reticence?

Despite popular sentiment, there are actually quite a few electric vehicles available for much less than the average new vehicle price of $47,000. But other than the Nissan Leaf, all of them have prices starting with a “3.” (Meanwhile, 75 percent of car buyers in the US buy used cars, and the transition to electrification will not change that underlying reality.)

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