Is This the Death of the Electric Car?

Most people act with good intentions. 

Now, I know we’re usually a little harsh on green zealots for aggressively pushing for the inevitable transition away from fossil fuels. Yet it’s not their intentions that we criticize; deep down I trust that most of them come from a good place. 

Believe me, it’s a good thing to want a world powered by clean energy sources like wind, solar, and dare I say out loud nuclear. 

The problem comes when you eschew reason for fantasy. 

There’s an unignorable hypocrisy in protesting for the end of oil, and then hopping in your car and driving back home. To be fair, it’s impossible to practice what you preach in that endeavor, especially when petroleum products are found in our everyday lives.

Whether it’s the kayaktivists benefitting from the plastic that produced their kayaks, or the disgruntled protestors that haven’t yet recognized how much oil were used for the clothes on their backs to the plastic markers they used to write down their witty slogans onto signs that they brought with them to the Capitol to bring about the downfall of hydraulic fracturing.

But I’ll tell you something worse than a few individuals preaching for the green transition. Far worse than any well-intentioned protestor are virtue-signaling companies that take those fantastical ideas and embrace them. 

And there’s no better example of this right now than in the auto industry. 

Is The American EV Boom Going Bust?

Perhaps I’m being a little hard on the world’s largest car companies for making grandiose plans to eliminate ICE vehicles from the road. 

After all, we’ve been following the EV boom for nearly a decade at this point. 

A few years ago, car companies were head over heels to show the world how great they were by setting ambitious goals to go 100% electric. We’ve cataloged quite a few of them, from Jaguar’s plans to go all-electric by 2025 and Mercedes by 2030, to Volkswagen projecting half of its sales to be EVs by 2030 and 100% electric by 2040. 

They weren’t alone. Nearly every major automaker you could think of had plans to be fully electric at some point in the next ten or so years. 

At some level, we can understand their exuberance. Setting ambitious targets like these helps push the Biden administration’s goal for net-zero emissions no later than 2050. 

That’s a bold move, and apparently they bit off more than they could chew. America’s appetite for the electric vehicle is waning, and we’re starting to get an idea of just how bad things might get going forward. 

Some of you might remember last month when Hertz announced it was downsizing its EV fleet, selling-off 20,000 cars at a discount. It was right around the time we learned that ford was reducing its workforce making the F-150 Lightning truck due to weak demand. 

Then last week, Mercedes decided to delay its ambitious goals of an all-electric fleet. Thanks to lackluster demand, the company made the unfortunate announcement that it wouldn’t meet its 2025 deadline for EVs and hybrids to make up half of all sales. 

Don’t worry, Mercedes’ CEO assured that they’ll continue producing ICE vehicles well into the next decade, and the Biden administration is even planning to scale back its own policies to give automakers a little leeway.

Point is, the EV penetration into the U.S. is going to take a lot more time than the hype led us to believe. 

Is this the death knell of the American electric car? 

Not exactly, but reality is finally starting to set in.

Until next time,

Keith Kohl

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A true insider in the technology and energy markets, Keith’s research has helped everyday investors capitalize from the rapid adoption of new technology trends and energy transitions. Keith connects with hundreds of thousands of readers as the Managing Editor of Energy & Capital, as well as the investment director of Angel Publishing’s Energy Investor and Technology and Opportunity.

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