Is America’s EV revolution stalling?
AMERICANS LOVE their automobiles. So long, it seems, as they don’t run on batteries. According to a poll published in July by the Pew Research Centre, less than two-fifths of Americans would consider buying an electric vehicle (EV). Despite continually expanding charging networks and there being ever more EV models to choose from, that is a slightly lower share than the year before.
Those words are backed up by relative inaction. In the third quarter of 2023 battery-powered vehicles made up 8% of all car sales. So far this year fewer than 1m EVs (not counting hybrids) were sold in America, a little more than half the number in less car-mad Europe (see chart). Chinese drivers bought almost four times as many. Between July and September General Motors (GM) shifted a piddling 20,000 in its home market, compared with more than 600,000 fossil-fuelled vehicles. Fully 92 days’ worth of EVs languish on dealership forecourts, compared with 54 days of gas-guzzler inventory. Outside California, Florida and Texas, which together account for over half of American EV registrations, electric cars mostly remain a curiosity.
Disappointing demand is now prompting American carmakers to reassess some of their ambitious electrification plans. In October Ford said it would delay $12bn of EV investments. The same month GM put off by a year a $4bn plan to convert an existing factory to one for electric pickups. The Detroit giant also ditched its EV-production targets, including the goal of churning out 100,000 EVs in the second half of this year, without setting new ones. Manufacturers of batteries that have teamed up with carmakers to build battery factories in America are turning cautious, too. In September SK Battery laid off more than 100 employees and reduced output at a plant in Georgia. In November LG Energy, a fellow South Korean firm, said it was laying off 170 workers at its factory in Michigan.
2023-11-27 15:52:08
Post from www.economist.com
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