Last week’s $26 billion EV write-down by Stellantis follows similar moves by Volkswagen ($6 billion), GM ($7.6 billion), and Ford ($19.5 billion), underscoring a strategic retreat from electric vehicles back to gasoline cars and hybrids. Legacy automakers frame this as pragmatism, but in essence, they are abandoning investment in the future. These write-downs reveal their failure to achieve manufacturing scale, jeopardizing their future competitiveness. A genuine commitment would involve scaling production, cutting prices, and stimulating demand. Meanwhile, aided by subsidies and affordability, EV adoption in China is soaring.
ARK’s research indicates that manufacturer hesitancy, not consumer reluctance, has hindered EV adoption. Vertically integrated companies like BYD are now scaling and unleashing mass-market demand. With prospective operating costs approximately one-third those of gasoline vehicles, ARK says that with just one third the operating costs, battery electric vehicles will dominate global auto sales within five years.
“We’ve tried nothing and we’re out of ideas”
I’d say they tried, but didn’t commit - especially not to anything near the levels China did. Part of the blame rests upon the constantly shifting political sands in the West (which were likely surreptitiously encouraged by our competitors), while China has kept to (for better and for worse) a long-term singular vision the entire time.
Case in point: The no emission backpedaling, BMWs new hydrogen grants…
All China did was to look towards the future. All the US did was to look for profits.
If they won’t produce the future fuck them. It is not like we owe them anything as they have already outsourced everything that they possibly can.
Time to cut these clowns loose and let China into the US market. Sorry, but not sorry. Ya’all suck.
