Legacy Automakers’ History of Slow-Walking, Their “Me Too” Moment, & What Next?

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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 following comment below 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 2023backed by press releases, which is something that many readers on this site give her and gm a pass on.”

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

• Electrical automobiles 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 automobiles are too costly and the batteries aren’t ok for the mass market. We’ll want a breakthrough in solid-state batteries for EVs to turn out to be widespread.
• EV charging isn’t enough, so individuals can’t depend on EVs. (Tesla, after all, constructed out the Supercharging community, fixing this situation for the small share of journeys which are lengthy distance and for patrons who don’t have dwelling or office charging.)
• EVs are getting longer vary and extra widespread, however they’re nonetheless too costly.
• Oh, Tesla’s gross sales soared and its inventory priced shot by way of the higher environment? Oh, yeah, we’re 100% going to cleared the path on EVs, too!
• We’re so going to destroy Norway relating to EVs. (Facet be aware: Nonetheless don’t perceive what that was alleged to imply.)
• (Oh, crap, our inventory worth didn’t jack up from these bulletins.)
• (Tesla’s gross sales surge is lastly dying off and so they’re stagnating or dropping?! Sure, now’s our second!)
• Properly, sadly, individuals simply don’t need EVs as a lot as we thought and we’re going to cut back our electrical automobile plans (and advertising).

And don’t even get me began concerning the hydrogen hype.

The purpose is that there are various within the auto trade, the oil trade, and the laggard trade who’ve by no means wished a fast transition to electrical autos (or any transition to electrical autos), who felt dragged alongside by the passion for EVs and progress in EV gross sales for some time, and who now need to sluggish us down and drag us again once more.

I feel that Tesla continues to be vital to driving the trade ahead and pushing different automakers to impress 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 aspect 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 supply and promote extra EVs. Perhaps.

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