Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
That aphorism, coined by former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, now applies to the World of Electric Vehicles.
Legacy auto industry executives just two years ago were boasting about the billions they planned to spend on waves of new electric vehicles and EV battery giga-factories.
Now the same executives are racing to reassure investors that they are reining in runaway EV budgets and are committed to returning to shareholders more of the cash generated by their combustion engine trucks and SUVs.
The EV strategy detours – led by GM, Ford and Volkswagen – do not mean the end of the shift away from combustion vehicles, industry executives and analysts agree. Forecasts vary, but they all point to significant increases in EV sales and production globally over the next decade – led by China.
What’s changed are expectations for how soon mainstream, middle-income car buyers will adopt electric vehicles, and how quickly the costs for EV batteries will drop to allow automakers to turn a profit on vehicles that sell at prices average families can afford.
The answers as of now: Not yet, and not fast enough.
What’s ahead in 2024? More wrangling over government EV subsidies. In the United States, there will be an election year brawl over EV policy.
Western automakers, meanwhile, will be racing to slash EV production costs before China’s automakers make their lead even wider.
