It seems we’ve reached “peak EV,” with sales in trouble and assembly line workers losing their jobs. The hard truth is electric vehicle sales would have never reached the level they have if the government had not trespassed into private matters.
The EV troubles are all around. Sales are slowing. Unsold cars have piled up in lots. Surveys plainly indicate that fewer Americans want them. In response to dramatically slowing sales, Ford announced last fall that it was delaying $12 billion in EV investments. Which should surprise no one, considering that the company lost nearly $73,000 on each EV it sold in the second quarter of 2023.
At roughly the same time, General Motors walked away from its EV strategy. Mercedes was excited about its new EVs just a few months back but learned that customers weren’t thrilled about about them. Earlier this year Hertz decided it would dump as many as 20,000 of its EVs. Now Tesla is laying off 10% of its global workforce, meaning around 14,000 former employees will be looking for new jobs.
Rivian is also dropping one-tenth of its workforce. The company’s share price fell 15% when the announcement was made. Production at Lucid, another EV startup, is expected to be “much lower than Wall Street’s expectations,” Reuters reports.
Meanwhile, BYD, the Chinese EV maker that’s heavily subsidized by Beijing, has seen a sharp fall in sales.
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https://issuesinsights.com/2024/04/19/could-evs-compete-in-a-true-free-market/