A few weeks ago, I offered you an article titled: The Electric Car Bubble Bursting: Headlines From The News talking about the shift in sentiment away from EVs. If you missed it, you can catch up here.
This week I bring you more recent headlines along those same lines:
Porsche AG shareholders are calling on the luxury-car maker to ease off its electric-vehicle push as a global slowdown for the technology threatens sales and profits. At the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Friday, Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blume was asked why he’s sticking with a goal for plug-in Porsches to account for more than half of sales next year. Rivals including Mercedes-Benz Group AG are walking back their EV ambitions due to poor demand.
General Motors has a not-so-secret weapon when it comes to getting U.S. consumers into its new all-electric vehicles: Costco Wholesale. The Detroit automaker said it’s increasingly using the retail giant’s Costco Auto Program for EVs as it expands its portfolio from niche vehicles to mass-market segments with vehicles such as the Chevrolet Equinox and Chevrolet Blazer EVs.
Virginia is backing away from electric-vehicle requirements that would have forced the state to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, said Wednesday that Virginia, starting in 2025, would no longer follow the emissions standards set by California and would instead abide by less-strict federal rules. Many Democratic-leaning states use emissions policies set by California, which has a waiver that allows it to determine its own requirements separate from the federal government’s.
General Motors is delaying plans to build electric-vehicle motors at its St. Catharines Propulsion Plant, according to the union representing hourly employees at the Canadian plant. Unifor Local 199 Plant Chair Trevor Longpre told members in a memo posted online that on May 22, “the company verbally relayed news of a delay in the [battery-electric vehicle] project through group leaders without providing any further details to the membership or union leadership.
Read More from Automotive News →
General Motors CEO Mary Barra stood firm on the automaker's strategy to transition to electric vehicles even as some shareholders questioned market demand for the vehicles during GM's annual shareholder meeting Tuesday. Barra did say that, ultimately, the composition of GM's future vehicle lineup will be guided by customer demand. That appeared to be an easing of GM's previous stance that all of its new vehicles would be all-electric by 2035, but later in the day, a company spokesman said GM retains that goal.
Read More from The Detroit Free Press →
Many Americans still aren’t sold on going electric for their next car purchase. High prices and a lack of easy-to-find charging stations are major sticking points, a new poll shows. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they would be at least somewhat likely to buy an EV the next time they buy a car, according to the poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, while 46% say they are not too likely or not at all likely to purchase one.
Read More from The Detroit News →
J.D. Power’s prediction for a healthy sales month is coming true, with a 2.9% increase in retail and non-retail — such as F&I products — from May 2023. But that doesn’t mean EVs are moving. The decline in shopping interest for EVs comes as the industry has reached an all-time high in EV availability. EV availability is at 54.3 — the highest it’s ever been on a 100-point scale — as it moves toward parity with gas-powered vehicles.