Car-makers in Britain and Europe are scaling back production of electric vehicles amid falling consumer demand due to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis — that’s according to one British industry body.
In its latest quarterly review, the Advanced Propulsion Centre, the government-funded research group tasked with helping to finance zero-emissions vehicle technology projects in the UK, forecast that British factories would produce 280,000 electric cars and vans in 2025, a significant revision of its previous estimate of 360,000…
The same trend would also likely be seen across Europe, it predicted, with its forecast for EV production on the continent revised downward by one million units to 12 million, chiefly as a result of the rising cost of living, inflation and the vehicles’ affordability.
Or, is the “cost of living” narrative an excuse, while reality is that the early adapter wave is subsiding, while routine auto owners, who buy a car based on it’s merits, decline to move to an EV for the many well documented issues with range and lack of availability of fast, convenient, charging, vs gassing up an ICE powered car?
Ayup. Besides the price cuts, there is chatter that Tesla is dumping cars into daily rental fleets to inflate volume. The big three have been trying to back away from heavily discounted fleet sales, as they are all about inflating ATP and GP, and discounted fleet sales hurt those metrics.