Electric cars got a huge boost when the federal government said car companies needed to switch. Then, as now, companies pivot with political reality. But the cracks were obvious; you can pay people to buy them, you can force companies to sell them, but no one outside the subsidy sphere is bothering. Politics is why Hertz announced it would move 25% of its fleet to electric and activists cheered that government control had finally achieved a win in the free market. Except it didn't. Instead of converting 25% of their fleet they ended up dumping 20,000 of them. Insurance costs are too high and oil changes are not the only car maintenance in an automobile. Electric cars cost far too much to service and even more to repair. So Hertz instead took a loss.
RIP F-150 Lightning. You'll be in technology heaven with HD-DVD and SACD now. Credit: Ford Motor Company
Businesses built a few charging stations, outside store parking lots and places like that for customer goodwill, but very few were willing to build them for travel purposes. Tesla, the world leader in electric cars and most popular in California, canceled its Supercharger plan because they saw what advocates were not telling; demand was not going up. Even with President Biden adding another $7500, you still have to be rich to afford them. As with solar panels. And as with solar panels, rich people already had them so more subsidies weren't making a difference, they get to use the roads while paying none of the taxes that governments add on to gasoline. Neither helps the environment. Even in states like California, where electricity is double the national average, all to pay for solar panel net metering, 80% of electricity overall is derived from conventional fuels.
Without convenient, fast charging, electric cars remained commuter vehicles rather than a way of life. Miles driven went down 4,500 per year because for anything meaningful people drove their conventional vehicles.
Tesla sales are down in Europe, but not because one-time Democratic darling Elon Musk helped a Republican President, it is instead because rich people have them and the poor don't want them. The only country where electric cars are popular is Norway, and that is only because nearly half of government incomes comes from oil. It is more profitable to sell it and subsidize residents $27,000 to buy an electric car than to have them use the country's oil. Yet Norwegians still use conventional cars for long trips. Norway desperately wants to get out of the subsidy mandate but, like the US has learned time and again, subsidies do not translate into demand. Without them, the market consolidates.
In the US, that will be about 2% of customers.
That is why Ford announced it is going back to hybrids, where people feel more comfortable. Ford CEO Jim Farley wrote in their statement, “The operating reality has changed, and we are redeploying capital into higher-return growth opportunities."
They have to make cheaper cars if they want people to buy them, and they have to make more cars people want. Now that they have a choice again, it is what companies are doing. The Ford F-150 Lightning is a casualty of market demand, but F-150 gas trucks are getting more production, and they hope the hybrid version will also.
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