Electric car crash: The American EV industry has hit the wall

DAVID BLACKMON
APR 08, 2024


Something big is happening in the US market for battery electric vehicles (EVs), and it isn’t positive for the industry that makes them, or for the Biden administration’s subsidized dreams.

During the final few months of 2023, the market saw sales slowing, unsold electric vehicles piling up on dealer lots, Tesla struggling to get a handful of its much-hyped CyberTrucks onto the market after five long years of promises, pure-play EV companies like Fisker teetering on the financial brink, and traditional automakers like Ford and GM announcing delays in their plans and investments for future EV development.


Things have not improved across the first quarter of 2024. If anything, the industry appears to be moving into something of a crisis mode now.

In recent days we have seen the following:

First: Fisker announced an unheard-of almost 40 percent price cut for its Ocean SUV model as part of its efforts to draw down inventories and avoid bankruptcy.

Second, photos of a big EV graveyard outside Detroit, where Ford is housing hundreds of unsold F-150 Lightning EV pickups in the parking lot of the Michigan International Speedway.

Third: Tesla’s CyberTruck has become an object of ridicule as new buyers complain of it breaking down after driving less than a mile off the lot, body rust developing within weeks of taking delivery, and the truck’s ballyhooed bells and whistles, like its $3,000 camping tent, failing to function as advertised.

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A) No point in buying an EV without Tesla’s charging network. I can’t imagine anyone wants a ford lightning without that connection.

B) City cars will probably all go electric. Or mostly electric. Cheapest drive train for that duty cycle.

C) neither of the pickups came with anywhere near the proposed range. They’re simply not useful in their current set up.

Fords can now use Tesla superchargers.

They are sending out free adapters for all their EV owners.

Such a negative opinion of EV's, it's like nobody is amped up about owning an EV.

BTW, GM just cancelled the base models of the Hummer which were $90K, now your option is only the $110K units.


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The technology is not yet mature. When the weight of these vehicles comes down; when the charging time from near zero to full charge is the same as filling up the tank of an internal combustion engine automobile (under five minutes); when EVs will run without recharging as long as an SUV will run on a 32 gallon tank of gasoline; when the cost of these vehicles come down; when the repair costs come out of the stratosphere; when the durability of EVs is that of IC autos, et cetera, et cetera, then the technology will be mature and EVs may be considered as a viable option to IC autos,

Until then, no and double no.

Look what is happening in the used EV market in the last week (source Car Edge on YouTube):

A few month old Fisker Ocean ($62k MSRP) gets a cash value offer of $21k.

Ford Lightning ($95k MSRP), used with 500 miles gets a cash value offer of $39,200.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
Look what is happening in the used EV market in the last week (source Car Edge on YouTube):

A few month old Fisker Ocean ($62k MSRP) gets a cash value offer of $21k.

Ford Lightning ($95k MSRP), used with 500 miles gets a cash value offer of $39,200.

"batteries not included"...? LOL

today's vehicles - all of them - are bad implementations of a good idea

the infrastructure does not exist to support EV's as anything but a toy

the technology does not exist in batteries to match the power density available in an internal combustion engine

when you can recharge in 5 minutes, with a charging station at every gas station around the country, when replacement batteries don't cost the equivalent of a 2 bedroom house in 1974, then it might be worth considering

as an engineer, I can get excited about a lot of things - nuclear SMR's and geothermal, solar in its various flavors, wind and tidal. Electric vehicles is not on the list.

Good. But it's too bad there is going to be zero accountability for the gov't officials who pushed this stupid, not-ready-for-primetime idea so hard in the first place.

I am amazed how crappy the range is in cold weather. I went on a ski trip to Crested Butte, CO with a friend and his brother over Presidents day weekend this year, so mid February. The brother has a Tesla.

He was fully charged when he left Ken Caryl, CO and it's 218 miles to Crested Butte. He had to stop in Poncha Springs to charge up. Now, I will say there are zero charging options between Poncha Springs and Gunnison, but he told me he couldn't make it to Gunnison without a charge. He did have to go over Monarch pass to get to Gunnison, and I think my Tahoe said it was between -7 F and -10 F on that 60 mile stretch.

The EV can't make it 218 miles in the middle of winter?

My 2010 Tahoe made it no problem! I did have to stop for gas in Gunnison on the way home though...4 minutes to fill up I think.

Not much to say on the subject except that I took a ride in the only Cybertruck in Orlando, only two in the whole state of FL. It was an experience. One of my customers owns it and rents it out to tourists for $1,000 a day. They're expecting two more this summer that will be rentals.

My son posted our ride on his youtube channel. You can see the speedometer on the console when he punches it. Before we pulled out onto the road, he put on the techno theme music for the Tron movie reboot (Daft Punk).
https://youtube.com/shorts/RQL...?si=0QG-gg7xYDs6oCoX

It was a pretty cool ride.

Tony.

I think almost all homes will have one all electric, one all gas and one hybrid to accommodate any demand necessary .

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
I think almost all homes will have one all electric, one all gas and one hybrid to accommodate any government laws to remain complaint demand necessary .

more likely rules and laws....

quote:

Originally posted by benny6:
Not much to say on the subject except that I took a ride in the only Cybertruck in Orlando, only two in the whole state of FL. It was an experience. One of my customers owns it and rents it out to tourists for $1,000 a day. They're expecting two more this summer that will be rentals.

My son posted our ride on his youtube channel. You can see the speedometer on the console when he punches it. Before we pulled out onto the road, he put on the techno theme music for the Tron movie reboot (Daft Punk).
https://youtube.com/shorts/RQL...?si=0QG-gg7xYDs6oCoX

It was a pretty cool ride.

Tony.

Gotta be more than two in the whole state as I saw two on the same day in Cape Coral. I’ve got pictures of the one and know it’s local because it’s wrapped in black matte and I saw it every other day for three weeks.

You can’t really look at what is happening right now and make any big proclamations. The economy is terrible for buying any cars right now and the manufacturers also screwed up and tried to make all of them luxury cars at high prices which is the wrong angle with high interest while trying to make them popular.


The EV proliferation will no doubt happen but it will not happen on the governments timeline and they will not happen for every car in every household. Almost every household in America can easily get by with one EV right now with an ICE vehicle to compliment it.

There’s a name for the tipping point of new technology and I can’t remember it but it’s something like when it hits something like 10% then the tech just takes off. We recently had 9% so once the economy gets back in shape and manufacturers start producing reasonably priced EV’s I have no doubt they will take off. The average person has no clue how many cylinders their car even has and most just want a reliable car that saves them money. All it will take is a company putting a 15 year warranty on their battery and it will take away the biggest worry most people have. Then once you show them that they can fill up for $16 dollars instead of $70 and don’t have to worry about belts, hoses, oil, transmission, engine, brakes etc. it will become an easy sale for the majority of people with charging capability at home.

Every one of these conversations has the don’t tell me what to do crowd turning into Bear Gryllas everytime they leave the house. I can’t fill up my tank in 5 minutes on my 500mile trip to the grocery store. It’s the same thing every single time.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
The technology is not yet mature. When the weight of these vehicles comes down; when the charging time from near zero to full charge is the same as filling up the tank of an internal combustion engine automobile (under five minutes); when EVs will run without recharging as long as an SUV will run on a 32 gallon tank of gasoline; when the cost of these vehicles come down; when the repair costs come out of the stratosphere; when the durability of EVs is that of IC autos, et cetera, et cetera, then the technology will be mature and EVs may be considered as a viable option to IC autos,

Until then, no and double no.

...And when I can quickly top up the tank out on the trail or in the desert like I can with my spare 3 gallon gas can on the back of my Jeep...

I have been able recently to drive some really amazing electric cars, a Tesla Model S and a Porsche Taycan Turbo S, Were they entertaining, absolutely. Did they make any sense given the current charging infrastructure? the Tesla, maybe, the Porsche not so much. Did either make me want to spend the money to buy one -- not even close. As noted above, until the charging abilities (of the cars and the charging stations) approximate ICE vehicles, the vast majority of American drivers will not have the patience to put up with the limitations of an electric vehicle.

What surprises me is that the major American manufacturers decided to go all out for pure electric, high end vehicles. My thought is that reasonably priced hybrids make more sense as a "bridge" to pure electics for when the charging infrastructure can finally be completed. I guess the lure of greater profits generated by high dollar value electric cars overcame their common sense or their understanding of the American consumer.

I think many that are looking in that direction have decided a hybrid makes more sense. I know multiple people that own Honda and Toyota hybrids and they love them. Toyota had a great Q1 in hybrid sales, well above last year.

The EVs are caught between the long-established ICE powered vehicles, and emerging driverless vehicle on-demand services. They will not survive. (I'm not sure about the self-drivers). Uber and Lyft have already killed private bus companies, taxis seem to be hanging on by a thread. Govt. meddling is only making things worse.

As a person with mechanical engineering and business degrees and enough econ for a minor, and most of my career in the auto, commercial truck, and IC engine industry, no one ever had to tell me EV's were not going to be viable for the vast majority of consumers.

Plus, total lifecycle energy for EV's is higher than IC's, and that negates any environmental or energy conservation benefits.

I give credit to Elon Musk and Tesla for figuring out the way to sell EV's was to follow the tech industry early adopter model. Go after the kinds of people that bought the first home computers, flat screen TV's, and smart phones. Don't build a slow "green" EV for the Prius crowd, build a fast cool EV to displace high end BMW's, Audis, and Mercedes.

In the tech industry, where production of key components is based on "yields" and you start with more discrete components and integrate them into fewer and fewer IC's over time, costs come down as production goes up due to economies of scale and increased yields as the kinks are worked out.

But this is simply not the case with vehicles. Sure, some things will scale up and reduce cost over time, like the electronics and control systems. But electric motors, bodies, interiors, axles, wheels, etc. really don't have anywhere to go because they have already been through decades of optimization for cost.

Batteries are another issue, and still way too heavy and can't hold enough charge. A couple more decades of development and batteries might become truly viable, but there is a limit on the energy that can be generated from the types of chemical reactions that can be used in batteries so don't expect a miracle of 5x the charge in 1/5 the weight.

The total $$ in gov't subsidies, tax breaks, incentives, etc. for each EV sold is in the 10's of thousands. So the question is why the gov't is pushing technology that is not yet commercially viable, not demanded by consumers for more than 10% of the market, and only appropriate as a second or third vehicle to relatively wealthy people? Because of CO2?

No, I think it's because of money. Startup companies can make a mint for the people that are let in on the stock IPO's. And if you dig into it I bet you will find plenty of politicians getting paid off via IPO's. Except it's legal - because IPO's are invitation only, and a single day bounce can get a big return on the initial investment.