Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) plunged across Europe last month, fuelled by a sharp drop-off in demand in Germany.
Official figures show that sales for new EVs fell by 30pc in Germany last month, which led to a broader fall of 12.5pc across the continent.
It comes a week after Brussels launched a crackdown on an influx of cheap electric vehicle imports from China, which they claim have benefited from unfair state subsidies.
Premier Doug Ford is calling on the federal government to place a 100 per cent tariff on electric vehicles manufactured in China, warning that failure to do so could put jobs at “risk” in Ontario.
The U.S. announced last month that it planned to place new tariffs of more than 100 per cent on Chinese made electrical vehicles but the Canadian government has not yet indicated whether it plans to follow suit.
In a statement released on Thursday, Ford called on the feds to “immediately match or exceed” the U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, which will eventually apply to some other goods as well.
EVs depend on batteries that must be replaced. This has crushed their resale value.
The truth about battery-powered devices (EVs) is finally being emitted. One of these truths — styled a “hurdle for EV adoption” — is the plummeting resale value of these devices.
How much — and how fast?
How about more than 30 percent in just one year? That’s about five times as much loss in over 12 months as you’d typically lose (about 10 percent) if you bought a vehicle rather than a device. It’s a loss that is actually fast — as opposed to how long it takes to charge a device.
OTTAWA—Canada’s EV-building strategy will cost Ottawa and provinces about $6 billion more than announced, the federal parliamentary budget watchdog says.
A new report released by Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux says a total of $46.1 billion in government spending across the nascent EV supply chain has been announced. But the PBO estimates the total government support for capital and operating expenses to be up to $52.5 billion, which is $6.3 billion or 14 per cent higher than announced.
Fisker filed for bankruptcy protection late on Monday, as the U.S. electric-vehicle maker looks to salvage its operations by selling assets and restructuring its debt after burning through cash in an attempt to ramp up production of its Ocean SUVs.
The hyper-competitive EV market has seen several companies, including Proterra, Lordstown and Electric Last Mile Solutions, file for bankruptcy in the past two years as they grappled with weakening demand, fundraising hurdles and operational challenges from global supply chain issues.
h/t DS
The federal government has mandated that all new light-duty vehicles be electric by 2035. Achieving that goal would require vastly more electrical generation capacity and an enormous expansion of charging stations.
A Fraser Institute study published in March found that handling the higher load would require either 13 large new gas plants or the equivalent of 10 new mega-dams the size of B.C.’s $16-billion hydro Site C. Just one problem: almost all viable hydro sites have already been dammed. Plus, it took 10 years to get environmental approval for Site C and another 10 to build it.
Ford Motor is ending a controversial electric vehicle dealership program that initially asked store owners to invest upward of $1 million to sell EVs.
The “EV-certified” program was announced in September 2022 by Ford CEO Jim Farley amid high demand for the vehicles, low supplies and industry-wide optimism for all-electric cars and trucks. That optimism, however, has not panned out as expected.
EV sales for Ford and other automakers are growing but at a far slower pace than many expected. That’s led to automakers delaying or canceling future electric vehicles and investments.
Electric vehicles have swiftly gone from a bright spot in the global climate fight to cause for concern, leading BloombergNEF to slash sales estimates and warn that the auto industry is falling further off the track toward decarbonization.
In its annual Electric Vehicle Outlook, BNEF reduced its battery-electric sales projections by 6.7 million vehicles through 2026. While the demand deceleration isn’t universal across countries and EVs will be buoyed somewhat by the resurgence of plug-in hybrids, a few Nordic countries and the state of California are the only places on pace to eliminate passenger vehicle fleet emissions by 2050.
This seems an optimistic outlook …
World faces ‘staggering’ excess of oil by end of decade, warns IEA
Monday’s episode of CBS Mornings included a segment on declining interest in electric vehicles. CBS admitted the complications, with correspondent Ben Tracy citing customers’ desire not to feel “forced” in their car purchases.
Uh oh, it’s fixing to be a battle between reality and leftist ideology—but who will win?
Writing for Fox News, Charles Creitz recently reported on a very inconvenient truth, from a new study: fracking wastewater is full of lithium, making it a “promising domestic source” if tapped, and the process to extract it “reduces the cost” of traditional water decontamination efforts.
Political fantasies keep crashing into automotive reality.
It’s become common for some politicians to present a transition away from fossil fuels as similar to other historical transitions in which societies abandoned old energy sources in favor of new ones. But this time really is different. Consumers in previous societies embraced new technologies because they afforded easier and cheaper ways to sustain and enhance life. The contemporary mania is to abandon consumer preference and instead enforce a trade-down to uneconomical but politically favored methods of powering our lives. So it’s important to understand just how far the new government mandate and subsidy systems will travel away from economic sense.
This should be read by Frankie Bubbles and Junior but it won’t.
For years now I’ve been saying that electric vehicles, and EV mandates, are bad for Canada.
Back in 2020, when the then-CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, voiced his concerns that governments were moving too fast in their push for an all-electric car market when there were other good options available which didn’t require the same multi-billion dollar infrastructure overhaul or increase in electricity generation, I asked why we weren’t listening to a man who knows his own business.
On June 4, the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released their second annual survey on Americans’ attitudes toward electric vehicles, which showed yet again that most Americans do not intend on buying electric vehicles in the near future.
In 2023, 47 percent of Americans said they are “not too likely/not at all likely” to purchase an electric vehicle (EV) the next time they buy a car while 19 percent answered “extremely likely/very likely.” One year later, those numbers have barely budged. In 2024, 46 percent of Americans remain in the “not too likely/not at all likely” camp, whereas 21 percent responded that they are “extremely likely/very likely” to purchase an EV the next time they buy a car.
All the new electrical generation and metal mining required means EVs don’t have a hope of getting up to speed in the 11 years left
The federal government has mandated that all new light duty vehicles be electric by 2035. Achieving that goal would require vastly more electrical generation capacity and an enormous expansion of charging stations.
A Fraser Institute study published in March found that handling the higher load would require either 13 large new gas plants or the equivalent of 10 new mega-dams the size of B.C.’s $16-billion hydro Site C. Just one problem: almost all viable hydro sites have already been dammed. Plus: it took 10 years to get environmental approval for Site C and another 10 to build it. That leaves the natural gas plants. But powering EV’s with natural gas puts the kibosh on zero emissions.
Ontario expects to land another EV battery plant
Ontario expects to land another major electric vehicle battery plant, its economy minister said, as Canada’s most populous province tries to capitalize on what it views as a short-lived opportunity to secure the future of its auto sector.
It has already lured commitments for major plants from Stellantis NV, Volkswagen AG and Honda Motor Co., with the help of promises of billions of dollars from government. Ontario has its eyes on three more prospects and is confident it will land at least one, said Vic Fedeli, its minister of economic development and trade.
h/t Mauser
