A telling example of this loss of momentum is the American manufacturer, Ford, one of the standard-bearers of this niche, behind Tesla, which recently declared that it wanted to purely and simply cancel the construction of a large electric SUV that it had announced with great fanfare.
Less enthusiastic demand from American consumers than expected, combined with tough competition from Chinese companies, forced the American manufacturer to reduce its scope, opting for more modest projects.
The big three-row SUV, which Ford CEO Jim Farley once described as a “personalized bullet train,” was originally scheduled to go on sale in 2025 before being pushed back to 2027 in April.
In the end, the promised machine will no longer see the light of day, a reflection, analysts note, of the manufacturer’s disarray, but above all of the unpredictability of this market despite the strong support of the Biden administration, which is trying to boost it with forceps through restrictive regulations.
The manufacturer has also delayed, for the second time, the opening of an electric truck factory under construction in Tennessee (south), the most significant investment in its 120-year history, the launch of which is now planned for 2027, instead of 2025.
According to estimates from the Wall Street Journal, Ford will have to lose nearly $5 billion, due to an estimated sales loss of $44,000 per vehicle sold at the end of the second quarter of 2024.
Ford isn’t the only automaker scaling back its green ambitions. The other American auto giant, General Motors, also announced in July that it will delay plans to market a new Buick electric vehicle and push back the opening of an electric truck factory.
Announcing the news, the American manufacturer’s CEO, Mary Barra, had indicated that GM “does not want to get ahead of consumer demand”, opting instead for smaller electric models which “represent the greatest growth opportunities for us”.
Explaining this backpedaling, market observers point to the very tough competition from Chinese manufacturers, led by BYD, and the high cost of batteries; all factors to which is added the difficulty of finding charging stations, which dissuades consumers.
But far from being irreversible, these decisions are, according to industry experts, only tactical steps while waiting for better days. “This is clearly a difficult decision in the short term, but we believe it makes sense in the medium to long term,” Bank of America analyst John Murphy said in a note to investors.
Automakers have no intention of pulling out of the EV market. In fact, two forces are pushing them to continue on this path irreversibly: tougher government emissions rules and the rapid global expansion of Chinese electric vehicle makers and Tesla, observers say.
“If you don’t meet your emissions requirements, you can’t sell vehicles,” Ford’s boss said recently.
A recent law passed by the U.S. administration gives automakers until the early 2030s to make EVs the majority of their sales. The exact percentages depend on the level of pollutants emitted by other vehicles sold.
However, market experts seem more suspicious in this regard. Since industry is never completely dissociated from politics in the United States, all these ecological rules could come to a sudden halt if the Republican candidate for president next November wins the elections.
In his election platform, Donald Trump clearly promises to “cancel the mandate for electric vehicles and reduce costly and burdensome regulations” on the automobile market.
Very unconvinced by the merits of ecological thinking, Trump also wants to “make America, by far, the world’s leading energy producer.”
2024-08-29 18:01:30