is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.
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For decades, America’s auto industry was the envy of the world, driven by mass production, the rise of Detroit’s Big Three automakers, and the iconic stylings of the 1950s and ’60s.
Then, through a series of blunders and missteps, things started to unravel. There was the fuel crisis of the 1970s, which led to an influx of Japanese imports that bested Detroit in fuel savings and reliability. And then there were various global financial collapses throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, and a significant decline in automotive quality as the Big Three continued to push bigger and more expensive vehicles, at the expense of road safety and global competitiveness.
And then there was, for lack of a better term, the great EV whiff of the 2010s and 2020s. After sleeping on electric vehicles for too long, the Big Three finally got in the game — but they botched it, rolling out a series of electric versions of gas cars that lacked the finesse or gee-whiz software tricks of Tesla. They were also too expensive for most Americans.
And now the real financial fallout begins. Ford announced a $19.5 billion write-down on its EV investments — one of the largest in corporate history. On the same day, the Blue Oval said it was killing the F-150 Lightning, a vehicle once heralded as the return of the Model T. General Motors came next, with a $7.6 billion charge. And then Stellantis, with a colossal $26.6 billion hit on its EV investments.
Cumulatively, that’s over $50 billion gone. Poof.
How did the US get EVs so wrong? The lazy answer is that Americans just don’t want them, preferring to keep pumping dead dinosaur sludge into their lifted Ford F-150s and not have to deal with all that charging. But the real reason is that Detroit never took the challenge seriously, while dealers actively worked against the transition, worried about losses in service and repair. And then President Donald Trump turned EVs politically toxic, and here we are. Americans are now falling behind in what may be one of the most significant technological shifts since the first car rolled off the assembly line.
Cumulatively, that’s over $50 billion gone. Poof
As such, Trump seems happy to accelerate the auto industry’s rush toward irrelevance. Along with Congressional Republicans, Trump eliminated the $7,500 EV tax credit, right when the market was finding its footing. GM’s EV sales dropped 43 percent in the quarter right after the tax credit ended.
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