Jim Farley is the CEO of Ford. Mary Barra says it is aninflection point. It is acrucial moment for the company according to Herbert Diess. Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, describes it as a diversified and uncharted era.
The auto industry is going electric. They have been telling us in earnings calls, virtual events, and in many television commercials. Malcolm Gladwell! Zero-tailpipe emission electric vehicles will replace the dirty internal combustion engines of the past. The future probably has a light bar.
The auto industry is in the spotlight. President Joe Biden has test driven two electric pickup trucks this year and is pushing for billions of dollars in EV charging infrastructure and incentives for car buyers. The car companies are under a lot of pressure. They know it.
The transition to EVs is happening much later than people had expected and is much faster than legacy OEMs had expected.
Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst for electric mobility at Guidehouse Insights, said that the transition to EV is happening far later than many people had hoped for. He claims that car companies have been downplaying the prospect of mass adoption of electric vehicles for years. The entire auto industry finally sees profit in plug-in cars, as EV sales are way up, and the company that is one of the most valuable in history, is also one of the most profitable.
The transition has been problematic. There have been battery fires, recalls, fraud allegations, a global chip shortage, and many missed deadlines. The number of new electric vehicles that went on sale this year is still small compared to all the gas-guzzling, planet-warming, glacier-melting trucks and SUVs that still dominate the roads.
The new EV's roll out is fairly thin. There is a Ford mustang, a Volkswagen ID 4 and a few other things. The BMW i3 and Ford Focus Electric got the ax, as did the VW e-Golf. The $140,000 electric sports car from AUDI is great to drive, but won't change sales much.
Sean O'Kane has a photo on his website.
Other launches have been mixed. Rivian, which went public in one of the biggest IPOs of all time, saw its stock plummet on the news that production of its first electric truck and SUV would be slow. The Bolt and Bolt EUV were both recalled after a number of battery fires. The Hummer EV trucks were delivered to the first customers just under the wire. The cybertruck was delayed until 2022.
The Mach-E came out, and that was it.
Jessica Caldwell, director of insights at Edmunds, said that it felt like they were setting themselves up for a big EV year. The Mach-E came out, and that was it.
There have been other setbacks as well. The launch of Ford's electric Explorer SUV was delayed to December 2024, after the company dropped its plans to make an electric SUV with Rivian. The company stopped taking reservations for the F-150 as it prepares to start production of the electric truck. If the automotive chip shortage doesn't improve soon, more delays could be on the horizon.
The Model Y is the best-selling electric vehicle in the world, with the Model 3 being the second best-selling electric vehicle in the US. The company got a 100,000-vehicle order from Hertz. It has stirred up controversy over its roll out of the controversial Full Self-Driving software to select customers. The options for a non-Tesla electric vehicle are pretty slim.
She said that the EV market feels like it is being rushed up and waiting because there is not a lot in the way of delivery.
It feels like the EV market has been rushing up and waiting.
The act of transforming century-old industry is like making a three-point turn in a cruise ship. It is much harder for a 100,000-employee company like GM to start a business than it is for a startup. These companies have been making internal combustion engines for a long time and it is hard to imagine them doing anything different.
The shift away from outsourcing production work and design to suppliers in favor of a more vertically integrated model of manufacturing is one of the reasons why it is taking so long to see more EV. In the past, designing and building engines and transmissions was a core competency for an automaker.
Noupscale is a file on thechorusasset.com.
Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota Motor, showed off dozens of new concepts for electric vehicles.
Noupscale is a file onchorusasset.com.
The electric F-150 is next to the Ford CEO outside of their headquarters.
The photo was taken by JEFF KOWALSKY.
Noupscale is a file on thechorusasset.com.
Mary Barra is the CEO of GM.
Photo by Nic Antaya.
Noupscale is a file on thechorusasset.com.
Herbert Diess, head of Volkswagen Group, spoke at the launch of the new VW ID.3 electric car.
Photo by Sean Gallup.
The ICE powertrains are at the end of the road, and there is no more room for improvement, which is why leading automakers and major suppliers are scaling back their investments. The new core competency of the automotive industry is the EV motor and batteries. Ford and GM are both building battery-making facilities. They are trying to lock down other key materials, like rare earth minerals.
The key components of the next-generation vehicles are being taken back by the OEMs.
The need to respond more quickly to shifts in customer demands was one of the main lessons that the auto industry took away from the financial collapse of 2008. Demand for EV is rising, but skepticism is also rising. It is odd that customers are aware of the environmental and financial benefits of going electric but are unsure if they can afford an EV or if there is a proper infrastructure to support their purchase.
Demand for electric vehicles is rising, but skepticism is also rising.
A majority of non-EV owners think that EV aren't reliable, are too expensive, and that there aren't enough charging stations to make owning an EV practical. EV owners are very enthusiastic about the benefits of the vehicle.
As more people get behind the wheel and see the benefits of EV ownership firsthand, the gap will narrow. The auto industry will need to make enough electric vehicles to meet the rising demand.
Every major automaker has a plan to shift to electric-only or at least electric-majority sales. Volvo, Mercedes, GM, and Volkswagen will do it by the year 2050. The likelihood that some gasoline-fed vehicles will slip past these deadlines is very high, because all of these pledges are just words floating in the ether.
There are a lot of new challenges for the automotive industry. They know how to assemble vehicles, but a lot of the rest is new and convincing consumers they know what they are doing won't be easy.
The false impression that we have time is given by the slow roll out of new EV.
The false impression that we have time is given by the slow roll out of new EV. Only 3 percent of the cars and trucks on the road in the US are electric. It will take roughly 16 years of EV-only sales to completely replace all of the gas cars currently on the road.
Climate change experts insist that we have to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels in order to avoid some of the worst-case scenarios that climate change could create. We are on track to surpass that in a few decades.
The speed and efficiency of the manufacturers of electric vehicles is dependent on how much we depend on them. Climate change will be helped by fewer cars on the road in urban areas where they create congestion and undermine more sustainable modes of transportation. Smaller, battery-powered vehicles like electric bikes can help pave the way by replacing car trips and making cities more liveable.
Car companies probably didn't think about that moment.
