{"id":243591,"date":"2023-10-30T20:49:19","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T20:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automotobuzz.com\/?p=243591"},"modified":"2023-10-30T20:49:19","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T20:49:19","slug":"why-tesla-ford-and-gms-bad-news-doesnt-spell-ev-doom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automotobuzz.com\/car-reviews\/why-tesla-ford-and-gms-bad-news-doesnt-spell-ev-doom\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Tesla, Ford And GM\u2019s Bad News Doesn\u2019t Spell EV Doom"},"content":{"rendered":"
If you went into 2023 thinking this year would mark the permanent rise of electric vehicles along some perfect, up-and-to-the-right growth curve, a gloomy tide of recent news may have you wondered how and when, exactly, you ended up in the Twilight Zone.<\/p>\n
In just the past few weeks, General Motors had a disastrous Q3 earnings call where it abandoned its goal of building 400,000 EVs by mid-2024, announced a delay of more electric models and even hit pause on a new battery plant. Similarly, Ford\u2019s Q3 saw an even bigger loss on EVs than in Q2, perhaps as much as $36,000 per vehicle; this, after it already tweaked its strategy to focus more on hybrids than full EVs amid high costs and slowing sales. Both automakers have struggled to get new EV models out the door at affordable prices while keeping costs and quality problems in check.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, even Elon Musk, of all people, recently warned of production headaches ahead and seemed noncommittal on plans for a Mexican factory thanks to high interest rates. This isn\u2019t what investors want to hear, especially in America, where quarterly profits are upheld as sacrosanct above almost everything else.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Is the EV revolution dead on arrival before it ever really started? That\u2019s the undertone you find in a lot of news stories lately, complete with the \u201cI told you so\u201d quotes from current and former auto execs who would rather do the same thing they\u2019ve always done than transform their businesses. You can be forgiven for reading those stories and wondering: was this all a mistake?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The problem is that this line of thinking is wrong. What we\u2019re seeing right now isn\u2019t the premature death of the EV transition. Instead, it\u2019s an injection of reality \u2013 and perhaps a badly needed one. It turns out that transforming an industry that spent a century making internal combustion engines and has a giant supplier network in support of that goal into a business that specializes in software and batteries is \u2013 wait for it \u2013 hard. Harder than expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But this transformation is still\u00a0inevitable and necessary. The current moment is proof that EV adoption isn\u2019t going to be a permanent upward growth curve, but one with a lot of ups and downs and winners and losers. And for these automakers, it is a question of fortitude and survival \u2013 not one of electric vehicle technology as a concept.\u00a0<\/p>\n