Report: Automakers Collectively Revise Goals for Electric Vehicles

With so many manufacturers retreating from their earlier promises of electrification, the public has begun to take notice. While industry targets often go missed, the EV debate has grown rather contentious due to the strong rhetoric used by automakers for years. Companies weren’t just vowing to sell all-electric vehicles, they were claiming a fundamental shift in transportation was about to happen.

These are likewise businesses that were heavily subsidized to sell EVs, souring the grapes of some of the most ardent EV supporters. Automotive News has put together a list showing just how much backsliding is being done after years of bold promises from numerous brands. It also explored some of the reasons behind why this is happening.

From Automotive News:

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021 resulted in an ambitious pledge — six major automakers and 30 national governments promised to halt the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles in "leading markets" by 2035 and globally by 2040.

Times have changed.

A once clear vision of a rapid transition to an electric vehicle future has blurred. While industry analysts and automakers still see EVs eventually replacing gasoline-fueled autos, cooling sales growth, high vehicle prices and uncertain political outcomes have forced automakers to pivot.

Politics have, tragically, become a major issue for automotive manufacturers. However, automotive companies were already lobbying legislators to get their way and have been for decades. Suggesting that business sectors have no role in helping to determine government policy is extremely well intentioned. But it also ignores the present reality where industries are highly influential in terms of governance, perhaps even more than voters.

The truth of the matter is that these companies often lean into whatever government policies appear to be on the horizon and then use their lobbying arm to try and tweak the outcome in a way that might ultimately benefit them. For the automotive industry, Western governments were already starting to fine manufacturers over emission quotas they were having trouble meeting. So the pivot was to try and get the tax base to subsidize the pivot to all-electric vehicles. However, this has a tendency to manifest some unintended consequences that might not work out well in the long run.

The industry thought it had a clear pathway to make EVs a success. But the realities of the market were that they still didn’t work for a multitude of households. Sales of all-electric vehicles are cooling off now that the early adopters have largely bought in. Increasing vehicle prices have likewise forced more homes into owning a single car and that’s likely to be (at least partially) gasoline-powered until battery technologies and the charging infrastructure improve.

Anecdotally, your author has noticed that the vast majority of EVs appearing in driveways seem to stem from manufacturers that specialize in all-electric vehicles. One typically sees a dozen or so Tesla and Rivian badges before encountering a battery powered vehicle sporting a logo belonging to a legacy automaker. Sales volumes reflect this, which undoubtedly helps explain why certain brands are walking back targets.

We’re also silly for believing that these goals would be met. The automotive industry has a long and storied history of over-promising in terms of technology. The last decade has just been worse than usual with companies setting relatively firm timelines for things like self-driving cars and battery electric vehicles. Some of that stems from pressure being applied by the government. But the industry itself has likewise claimed it wanted these things and believed they would open up the door to new revenue streams, reduced manpower, and higher overall profitability.

As for how much those targets have been walked back, many brands were targeting an EV-first lineup by 2025. But the industry is way off the mark and having to revise targets.

In 2019, former president of Cadillac Steve Carlisle claimed “the majority, if not all, Cadillacs will be electric by 2030." Its current plan has it selling combustion vehicles alongside EVs well beyond 2030.

General Motors has likewise started discussing plug-in hybrid technology as an alternative to pure battery electrics across brands. Despite the company promising electrification as an essential part of its strategy, and even expanding the number of electrified models, GM delivered 16,425 all-electric vehicles Q1 of 2024. That’s down 21 percent year-over-year and only comprises 2.8 percent of its total volume.

Ford is likewise prioritizing hybrids after having a rough time attempting to field several of its first all-electric models — though that could be said of most brands. While it never quite made promises as firm or lofty as some other manufacturers, it was still among the very first to claim fundamental changes to the industry were coming and had been working with Volkswagen on all-electric vehicles. Now, the best it hopes for is having every model come with a hybrid option by 2030.

Speaking of Volkswagen, it’s the legacy manufacturer that arguably has gone the furthest with electrification. It was previously predicted to have a majority sales volume of battery electric vehicles by 2030. But development of these vehicles have been costly and the rollout has been loaded with issues. CEO Thomas Schäfer has since expressed a desire to see the company pivot toward hybrid vehicles as a stepping stone to the all-electric future it promised after the Dieselgate scandal where it was fined heavily by government regulators.

Porsche (which is a subsidiary of Volkswagen) said in 2022 that it anticipated more than 80 percent of new-vehicle sales to be all-electric by 2030. The luxury brand has since started discussing the value of synthetic fuels and formally stating that the “transition to electric cars is taking longer than we thought five years ago.”

European brands seemed particularly obsessed with going all electric. A few years ago, Mercedes-Benz proclaimed it would be exclusively selling EVs and hybrids by 2030 assuming conditions allowed for it. They have not and the brand is really struggling with making electrification work for its bottom line.

Like all Japanese brands, Honda has been more hesitant to lean into pure EVs than Western companies. But it did announce a partnership with GM in 2022 to start producing cheap electric models using the Ultium EV platform. That partnership has since evaporated, with Honda suggesting it might be able to do a lineup of exclusively battery-electric and fuel cell vehicles by 2040.

The Automotive News rundown doesn’t exactly go into excruciating detail as to why things haven’t worked out for every single brand. But it does provide plenty of examples where companies have been forced to revise their plans relating to EVs in recent years. That said, the why of things isn’t a great mystery at this point.

It’s your author’s opinion that automakers are realizing that they’re having genuine trouble making all-electric vehicles work for their bottom line — at least not at the originally envisioned scales. Meanwhile, automotive connectivity has proven to be quite lucrative and has indeed opened up the door to entirely new revenue streams via data harvesting and in-car marketing opportunities. While we often bash the concept as unethical, it has become a bigger priority for the industry in recent years. It’s definitely the priority now, especially if there’s a shift in politics that means electric cars won’t see government subsidies.

[Images: General Motors; Tesla; Mercedes-Benz]

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