Legacy Automakers’ Historical past of Sluggish-Strolling, Their “Me Too” Second, & What Subsequent? – CleanTechnica – Uplaza

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We have now numerous nice feedback on articles right here on CleanTechnica every single day. Nonetheless, generally a remark jumps out to me as one which must be an article itself. The next remark beneath an article I wrote on Friday is a kind of:

“For years, legacy automakers actively attempted to put the kibosh on EVs, and they nearly succeeded. Instead of embracing EVs, they did everything they could to ensure that ICE cars remained the dominant form of transportation. It’s not a coincidence that in August of 2018, the short balance on TSLA was just over $13bn, one of the largest short positions in history. By the end of 2018, TSLA was on a skyward trajectory and gaining steam. It took a full year for automakers like gm to realize that they had squandered opportunities to be leaders in the EV market, so they did the only thing they could at the time… jump on the ‘Me Too’ wagon. The image of Arnold Horshack franticly waving his hand in Mr. Kotter’s class comes to mind. In 2020, gm had promised 20 new electric vehicles by 2023, backed by press releases, which is something that many readers on this site give her and gm a pass on.”

Certainly — there are some superb factors right here. That is principally the sequence of key factors we heard from legacy automakers within the US over the previous 15 years:

• Electrical vehicles are impractical and can by no means be greater than a sliver of the auto market. (In the meantime, visionaries — a few of our readers included — and early EV leaders like Tesla lengthy predicted EVs would take over the market.)
• Electrical vehicles are too costly and the batteries will not be adequate for the mass market. We are going to want a breakthrough in solid-state batteries for EVs to develop into common.
• EV charging isn’t sufficient, so individuals can’t depend on EVs. (Tesla, after all, constructed out the Supercharging community, fixing this concern for the small proportion of journeys which might be lengthy distance and for consumers who don’t have house or office charging.)
• EVs are getting longer vary and extra common, however they’re nonetheless too costly.
• Oh, Tesla’s gross sales soared and its inventory priced shot by way of the higher ambiance? Oh, yeah, we’re 100% going to paved the way on EVs, too!
• We’re so going to destroy Norway in terms of EVs. [Side note: Still don’t understand what that was supposed to mean.]
• (Oh, crap, our inventory value didn’t jack up from these bulletins.)
• (Tesla’s gross sales surge is lastly dying off they usually’re stagnating or dropping?! Sure, now’s our second!)
• Nicely, sadly, individuals simply don’t need EVs as a lot as we thought and we’re going to cut back our electrical car plans (and advertising and marketing).

And don’t even get me began in regards to the hydrogen hype.

The purpose is that there are lots of within the auto business, the oil business, and the laggard business who’ve by no means wished a fast transition to electrical automobiles (or any transition to electrical automobiles), who felt dragged alongside by the keenness for EVs and development in EV gross sales for some time, and who now wish to sluggish us down and drag us again once more.

I feel that Tesla remains to be vital to driving the business ahead and pushing different automakers to affect sooner, particularly so long as Chinese language EVs are all however banned within the US. It’s due to this fact all of the extra annoying and distressing that Elon Musk has been throwing the Tesla model within the mud as a lot as he has, whereas additionally spreading nonsensical misinformation about local weather change. The one plus facet I see right here is that if lots of people who would have purchased Teslas as a substitute select to purchase different manufacturers’ EVs, that might encourage them to provide and promote extra EVs. Possibly.

Returning to that bullet listing, what’s subsequent? What are legacy automakers’ subsequent strikes going to be? I, by some means, haven’t really thought of this an excessive amount of, and I don’t know. Will they revive a “we’re EV leaders!” perspective and advertising and marketing marketing campaign once more? Will they principally ignore EVs and produce and promote comparatively few fashions for the subsequent a number of months or years? Will any of them attempt to stand nicely above the gang and go 100% electrical by the subsequent Olympics? Will they watch their general gross sales shrink increasingly as they develop into much less aggressive in additional markets all over the world (as has been taking place in China)? What are your ideas on this?