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The Alleged Electric Car Sales Slowdown Is A Fiction — The EV Revolution Is Alive & Well

The EV revolution is over! We must run and tell the king!! So sayeth the anti-electric car nabobs over and over (and over) again. Tesla is slashing employees, and doing it in the most unkind way possible by simply deleting their security credentials overnight so when they arrive for work in the morning, they find they can no longer get in. Mercedes is backing away from its “we’re going all in on EVs” plan and extending production of internal combustion engines until 2121 or until hell freezes over, whichever comes first.

GM and Ford are running around with their hair on fire trying to get hybrids and plug-in hybrids into production. GM’s approach is comical. It had a pretty good electric car called the Chevy Bolt whose owners loved it, so of course GM stopped making it before a replacement was ready. It introduced the Chevy Blazer EV, only to find the software was so flawed it had to issue a stop sale order on them until it could fix the glitches. And they wonder why their electric car sales are so low? We wonder how Mary Barra still has a job.

Hogwash, Bloomberg says in market analysis published on May 28, 2024. For every suggestion of an EV slowdown, another point of view sees an adolescent industry on the verge of its next growth spurt. In fact, for most automakers, the first quarter was a blockbuster for electric car sales. Six of the 10 biggest EV makers in the US saw sales grow at a scorching pace compared to a year ago. Electric car sales were up 56% at Hyundai and Kia and 86% at Ford. A sampling of April sales also show strong gains.

A Tale Of Two Electric Car Markets

Consumers are flocking to some brands in record numbers, while turning their backs on those with inferior battery range, slower charging, and high prices, Stephanie Valdez-Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, told Bloomberg. Delays of new vehicles, though temporary, added to the perception of a market running out of steam. “We’re still seeing growth in demand, just not at the same pace for every brand. Right now Tesla doesn’t have new models, Ford doesn’t have a lot in the pipeline. But Hyundai, BMW, Kia, Cadillac — they’re really moving the needle forward.”

The two companies with the worst start to the year were General Motors and Tesla. Both are victims of their own product cycles, Bloomberg says. This year, GM discontinued the Chevy Bolt, and Tesla interrupted production of the Model 3 for updates to that car. Nevertheless, sales of electric cars in the US grew 23% in the first quarter of 2024.

Despite repeatedly shooting itself in the foot with its electric car strategy — cars that were supposed to start at $35,000 being introduced with prices $20,000 higher, for instance — Bloomberg suggests GM appears to be on the brink of becoming the biggest driver of EV growth in the US. It has committed to electrifying some of its biggest brands, which are finally reaching production after years of delays. That includes a $35,000 Equinox SUV and its sibling Blazer EV, as well as Silverado and GMC Sierra electric pickups with up to 450 miles of range.

These vehicles all rely on the new Ultium batteries coming from the GM joint venture with LG Chem. Problems with those batteries, and with GM’s new EV software, tapped the brakes on GM’s EV plans last year. Had Ultium arrived on time, in the numbers GM had predicted, the mood around the US EV market might have been exuberant going into 2024.