Amiga Trombone shares a report from Insider: Facing signs of rising inventories and slowing sales, auto industry executives admitted this week that their ambitious electric vehicle plans are in jeopardy, at least in the short term. Several executives at some of the biggest automakers have expressed new unease over the growing electric car market, with concerns about the vehicles’ viability jeopardizing their multibillion-dollar electrification strategies. Among those concerned is GM’s Mary Barra, historically one of the auto industry’s most optimistic CEOs about the future of electric vehicles. But this week, during GM’s third-quarter earnings conference call, Barra and GM struck a more sober tone. The company announced with its quarterly results that it abandoning one’s goals build 100,000 electric vehicles in the second half of this year and another 400,000 by the first six months of 2024. GM doesn’t know when it will reach those goals.
Although GM’s turnaround was somewhat of a surprise to investors, the Detroit automaker isn’t alone in its new vision for the future of electric vehicles. Even Tesla’s Elon Musk warned Following a recent earnings call, economic concerns are reportedly leading to lower vehicle demand, even for the long-time electric vehicle market leader. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz — which is having to mark down its electric vehicles by thousands of dollars just to get them into customers’ hands — isn’t mincing words about the state of the electric vehicle market. “It’s a pretty brutal space,” Chief Financial Officer Harald Wilhelm said on a call with analysts. “I can hardly imagine that the current status quo is fully viable for everyone.” “It’s clear that we face a lot of uncertainty in the near term,” Barra said. “The transition to electric vehicles will have its ups and downs.”
Toyota President Akio Toyoda said people are “finally see reality” regarding electric vehicles. “I have continued to say what I consider to be reality,” said Toyoda, who recently resigned as CEO of Toyota. “There are many ways to climb the mountain to achieve carbon neutrality”, such as hybrids and plug-in electric vehicles. -in hybrids which have long represented a significant share of Toyota’s electric vehicle sales.
“The reason (hybrids) are so powerful is because they meet the needs of so many customers,” said Bob Carter, vice president of sales for Toyota North America. told CNBC Last year. “Demand for hybrids has been strong. We expect it to continue to grow as the entire sector transitions to electrification later this decade.”
