[throwaway19972]

Expecting the market to sell EV when there's such pressure to subsidize lower fuel costs was never going to work out. Americans' inability to stomach discomfort without destabilizing the country is really, really bad news for the human race.

[alephnerd]

The EV slowdown is global, not just in the US.

Even in China non-T1 city purchasers are leaning towards hybrids due to a mix of range anxiety and worries about xharging resources [0]

EVs today are in the same position that hybrids were 20 years ago. They will eventually become more prominent, but the current iteration of EVs is still early in the life cycle, and big budget purchases like EVs still need more time in order for consumers to understand how EV depreciation works.

[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/5efcef9f-645d-44cb-96cf-9cd19719d...

[ZeroGravitas]

The global "slowdown" means selling roughly 3 million (20%) more than last year, with the share of all car sales up from 18% to over 20% of total and all predictions expecting that to continue.

Why do words no longer mean anything when people want to deny a reality they find uncomfortable?

[alephnerd]

Slowdown doesn't mean a net zero or net negative delta. It just means that the YoY delta has slowed.

When any company makes significant CapEx investment like retooling ICE factories for EV manufacturing, the AOPs are generated based on certain assumptions of industry rate of growth.

The recentish rush of ICE manufacturers into EVs thanks to global subsidizes (something I support because battery supply chains have dual use implications) was predicated on the assumption that the rate of EV adoption and new car sales would be consistent with 2019-23, but these projections didn't take into account that overall automotive consumer demand would shrink rapidly (ICE and EV) or the fact that ESG financing would lose relevance due to external shocks from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

What this means is a number of very new players in the EV space got burned really bad because their AOPs have fallen apart.

Companies like Tesla and BYD weren't as badly affected because they had been investing in EV manufacturing for over a decade, unlike more recent entries who only began these investments in the 2019-23 period.

Adoption is happening, but it's not going to be as fast as EV fanatics say, but it's not going to be as slow as ICE fanatics say either.

That said, for most manufacturers who entered the EV space without a cohesive strategy, they are in a world of pain now because they have financial obligations to make whole.

> Why do words no longer mean anything when people want to deny a reality they find uncomfortable

Frack off.

I'm not making a moral judgement on EVs or biasing in favor of ICE vehicles.

[lesuorac]

Yeah, the chargers build-out was done a bit too poorly.

Really needed to subsidize / give a premium per kwh dispersed at a charger instead of just paying them to make them. The current incentives meant we got a ton of chargers but not that they stayed in working order which is pretty much the worse situation. It's better to know that the few chargers work than have many options to charge at but not know if they work (or they work poorly).

[Log_out_]

Thanks goes to all those "humanists" who did not wamt to engage with humanity as it is and consider the physical building human material for their perfect sky castle. You took away moments of vital debate thinking it was all about air superiority, meanwhile its all about engaging a hostile physical universe with a brittle spoon.