Gee, who ever could have seen THIS coming?

Almost as stupid an idea as a high-end vegetarian restaurant

Pay people to buy an otherwise unwanted product, force manufacturers to produce that product, and you can create an artificial market with artificial demand. Take away that coercion, however, and normal market place rules will return. As here.

GM Takes $1.6 Billion Charge on EV Pullback

Automaker cites end of government-funded subsidies and regulatory mandates that fueled electric-vehicle growth

General Motors said it is reducing its electric-vehicle manufacturing capacity and booking a $1.6 billion charge on its EV business as demand sinks.

In a regulatory filing, the company said that EV sales are expected to fall with the end of government-funded subsidies and regulatory mandates that fueled EV growth.

The automaker has dramatically scaled back EV plans after spending billions on the technology. In 2021, GM had said it was committing $35 billion on EVs and autonomous vehicles. Money went toward new models, EV battery development and converting traditional auto factories into EV plants.

GM has been among the most active automakers lobbying for relief from some EV rules, saying that consumers aren’t ready to switch from gas-powered vehicles. The policy changes give automakers more years to improve their money-losing EV fleets and sell profitable gas-powered vehicles.

EV growth stagnated in the U.S. partly because of high sticker prices but consumers raced to buy the vehicles ahead of the expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit at the end of September. GM recorded a record level of EV sales in the third quarter. Without that incentive, automakers have forecast that EV market will crater in the absence of the credit.

…

GM Chief Executive Mary Barra said in 2021 that the company planned to have an all-electric lineup by 2035. At the time, EV maker Tesla’s sales were soaring and the industry anticipated rapid growth for years to come, buoyed in part by government mandates to reduce vehicle emissions and improve fuel economy.

Sales last year fell well short of expectations, leading GM and other carmakers to pare back plans. EV ambitions took another big blow this year as the Trump administration and Congress eliminated a string of regulations that for decades have pushed carmakers to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Rival Ford lost $5 billion last year on its EV business.

And last year to the day, this:

October 14, 2024:

GM To Reach Variable Positive Profit With EVs In Q4 2024

GM anticipates that its growing lineup of electric vehicles will achieve positive variable profit during the fourth quarter of 2024, according to statements made during the Investor Day presentation by General Motors CEO and Chair Mary Barra.

Notice this fudgework:

This does not mean that EVs are profitable for GM overall, but it does indicate that profit will soon be higher than variable costs such as labor and raw materials. Positive variable profit means EV units are now covering the variable costs needed to produce them and are beginning to contribute to covering fixed costs as well.

Mary Barra remarked that “this inflection point in EV profitability is arriving much faster than many people thought.” In fact, it arrived slightly faster than Barra herself predicted in 2022. At that time, during that year’s Investor Day presentation, she forecast profitability would be achieved by The General’s electric vehicles in 2025.

Overall losses for GM’s EV portfolio should shrink by about half in 2025, dwindling from $4 billion to $2 billion, thanks to the transition to positive variable profit. Paul Jacobson, the automaker’s Chief Financial Officer, remarked that the company predicts the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) “benefit to be approximately $800 million in 2024 and only expanding from there.” He also pointed out that the goal is “long-term profitability without any IRA benefits.”

The General expects its North American EV production to top 200,000 units in 2024. Against this backdrop and the planned unveiling of the next-generation, 2026 Chevy Bolt EV, GM President Mark Reuss said “we don’t need to create a skunkworks to create affordable electric vehicles,” apparently taunting Ford.

HAHAHAHAHAH

I have a number of friends who own Teslas, and without exception, they love them. All, however, have at least one other vehicle, and it’s an ICE. Here in Maine, that ICE is often a heavy-duty pick up, used to tow camping trailers, boats and just plain old stuff up to summer camps in the northwoods, 5-10 hours away. I posted a road test here earlier this year that reported on a car magazine’s editors endurance test of GM’s largest EV pickup, with the largest battery available, towing a 7,000 lb camping trailer; the best range they could achieve was half the claimed range, approximately 125-175 miles. That would translate to 2-3 hours — maybe — before stopping to recharge for 1-8 hours (there are practically no Level 3 chargers north of Portland), turning a trip up to camp into a multi-day journey; not happening.

A national policy of forcing every driver into an EV might be unobjectionable to rich Americans with garages allowing indoor installation of chargers (and whose longest recreational drive is to the golf club) but for the poor schnooks who don’t have garages, park on the street, and, like some of my friends, commute 60 miles to work at the Boston or Bath shipyards, it’s an impossible, oppressive burden, dreamed up by city dwellers and liberal arts majors, and to hell with them.