Interesting article on the costs of EVs:
In the past year, the world’s biggest carmakers have written off more than $60bn from their balance sheets as they retreat from an EV boom that never was.
The figure includes a €22bn (£19bn) charge reported by Vauxhall owner Stellantis, along with a $7.6bn hit to General Motors, €5.1bn at Volkswagen Group, $4.5bn at Honda and $1.2bn at Volvo, among others.
I’ve got a low milage Q5 (petrol) and am hanging onto it!
Tesla is outselling Toyota in California 2 to 1.
People in other areas speak in different voices.
intercst
But a $60 billion write off in one year!!!
I’m a retired FCA so i know that must hurt, however big you are.
Automobile manufacturing is often cited as the single largest manufacturing enterprise in the world by volume and revenue. In 2025, EVs accounted for 25% of worldwide production, rising from 13% in 2022 and 3% in 2019.
That’s a trajectory that would make any owner of an enterprise think about jumping in, even if only as a defensive measure. That they over-invested in an area they didn’t know anything about is not surprising, that happens all the time. Think of how many acquisitions that were supposed to be “bolt on” end up being written off, for instance.
Whoever that writer is, you would likely to do well to ignore him in the future. Taking 25% of the largest industrial sector in the world in a mere six years is hardly “never was.”
Something strikes me as wrong from a financial point of view with such losses. I’d be interested to find out what these losses are made up of. This could make things a bit clearer.
AI overview
Recent analysis as of early 2026 indicates that major Western automakers have incurred over
$114 billion in losses and write-downs related to their electric vehicle (EV) strategies between 2022 and early 2025.
Something is not right with the EV industry
2025 sixty or seventy Chinese EV manufactures went out of business.
Let’s try it this way:
Something is not right with CEO’s who try to jump into a new field without understanding it, its complexities, and its risks.
Or maybe: Something is wrong with Facebook ; it wrote off $73 billion for its escapade with the Meta world.
WeWork wrote off $47 billion in commercial leases after the business did not pan out the way it was expected to.
Target wrote off $2.5 billion and abandoned its expansion in Canada when it was not accepted as well b y Canadian consumers.
Airbus wrote off $6.1 billion when the A380 was designed by vendors using different CAD systems which were incompatible and which produced parts which did not match.
Heck, the Facebook write off on one project alone is bigger than the entire automotive sector loss on jumping into EVs. That ought to be the headline.
Incumbents (ICE cars) have a hard time dealing with innovation (EVs). Read
The Captain
The US sells 16 to 18MM vehicles per year. 50% EVs in 2030 requires lots of capacity. Companies invested to meet that anticipated demand. But now 50% looks unlikely. Scale back by what? Half? So now writing off capacity planned, partially built, and not likely required.
Its a risky business. What will consumers decide to buy?
Tesla was unprofitable for a very long time, with losses from 2003-2013 of well over a billion dollars, according to Perplexity.ai. And they did that while creating just the Model S. They went slow, burned a lot of cash, took in a lot of regulatory credits help soften it too. By contrast, GM is producing far more models of EV, of greater variety, than Tesla is even doing today. Moving fast like that costs money and makes mistakes. However, after having ridden in and driven Model Y’s and Lyrics, give me the Lyric any day of the week.
Another point: there are different markets for EV’s. U.S. automakers made big bets on the U.S. market, and that’s been slower to grow. European and Asian EV sales have been growing rapidly. Or to put it another way, there’s not a single “the customer” that has spoken - U.S. customers are different than customers in other parts of the world.
It may simply be that investing in EV’s for the U.S. market was a poor choice, while investing in EV’s for other markets was not. So U.S. automakers ended up losing a fair amount of money betting on rapid expansion of domestic EV sales, even as global EV adoption continues apace.
And there’s some fundamental reasons for that, which we’ve discussed on these boards for years. Other countries have higher gas prices and shorter average trip lengths, which make EV’s a more economically competitive product. They also tend to have regulatory environments that are more consistently supportive of EV’s vs. ICE vehicles (especially China).
It’s not entirely surprising that the U.S. market, with our <$3.00 gasoline and sprawling high-mileage travel patterns, would be a money pit for EV’s compared to the rest of the world.
Note GM’s 170000 units sold. That is getting into a territory making the assembly lines profitable. The reason GM can make several models is by tacking the model onto the drivetrain. Many models can go on each drivetrain, so one assembly line can surfice creating varity.
AI Overview
GM’s EV sales in 2025 showed
strong growth with nearly 170,000 units sold, a 48% increase year-over-year, securing its position as the second-best EV seller in the US behind Tesla. However, Q4 2025 saw a 43% drop, largely due to consumers pulling forward purchases before the $7,500 federal tax credit expired on September 30, 2025.
[image]Cox Automotive Inc. +4
Key highlights and trends for 2025–2026:
[image]General Motors +4
I have no data. (disclaimer!) Also, I own an EV. But it may also be region-dependent.
Locally (Phoenix metro) I see more and more EVs. Lots of Teslas, many ID4s, not so many Bolts (very few, in fact), lots of IONIQs, some Lucids, some Rivians…they (EVs) are pretty popular here. Still a minority, to be sure. Maybe not so much in other parts of the country?
I do recall that when gas was over $4/gal that automakers made a big deal about moving to EVs. Eventually, gas will get that expensive again, and there will be renewed demand for EVs.
As seen in another thread, this graph shows that US market penetrating has stalled out around 8%.
DB2
Thanks to all on thread for the cool and useful appraisal.
Something was. Is that the future you see for EVs?
“The metaverse, once seen as the future of technology, has struggled with low user engagement and high costs, leading to a decline in interest and investment. While it hasn’t completely disappeared, the initial hype has faded, and many companies are shifting their focus to other technologies like AI instead.”
DB2
My ‘accountant’s nose’ tells me that something is seriously wrong with the EV market. This man sees it:
Stellantis’s European boss has admitted there is currently ‘no natural demand’ for electric vehicles with carmakers left ‘burning cash’ as a result.
No. There was never a market for the Metaverse; Zuck just got entranced like some fanbois do over a new technology. That doesn’t mean it had any significant place in the world. (Ironically, the newer RayBan and other manufacturer camera glasses are selling like hotcakes, well, if hotcakes sold any more). My take is that Zuck got into a Legend of Zelda spiral, convinced that everyone was going to follow along and it didn’t happen.
As for the future, I see no reason why EVs won’t become a significant part of the fleet of consumer cars (semis, I’m not so sure). here have been alternative drive trains/systems: diesel, propane, gas, and now electricity. I don’t expect them to be 100%, but neither do I expect them to remain at 8-10%.
Some manufacturers will make them and thrive. Some will make them and lose. (I note that Ford has now decided the F150 electric is too expensive, and is planning a less expensive pick-up. Meanwhile my sense is that “pickup” is the wrong place for this completely, that “sedans” are likely to be the sweet spot, robotaxi or not.
I expect the penetration will vary by country; those who want to unhook from the gas drug, i.e. have little access to it, or care about the planet (i.e. Israel or Norway, respectively). Lower in the US, but still a substantial enough segment to be economically viable. Heck, look at Tesla. They’ve done wonders even with a tiny “dealer” network.
Dodge customers were never going to embrace EVs, at least not in the near term. This is the least likely customer base to believe that global warming is real that there is. They pride themselves on large, powerful, gas guzzling engines. It’s their identity.
Moreso, the petroleum industry in America has done a great job, just like Big Tabacco, of convincing people that global warming is a “hoax”, the CO2 is good, that EV batteries take hours to charge and need to be replaced in 5 years at twice the cost of a rebuilt engine.
No structural demand? That demand is being actively manipulated, to the detriment of us all. Free market capitalists should be appalled about this.
Who told you about me 
