Automakers seem to be responding to the global slowdown in adoption of EVs.
https://www.wired.com/story/ford-steps-back-from-evs-and-says-hybrids-are-the-future/
An article in Wired reports on Ford’s recent change of strategy in regard to electric vehicles. The company announced that it was delaying plans for an all-electric large SUV, and a next generation all-electric pickup truck.
The Wired article quotes chief financial officer John Lawler: “What we’ve learned is that customers want choice, and so we’re providing that choice, with a full lineup of EVs, hybrid, electric, gas and diesel products.”
An article in Inc. reports that GM will delay the opening of a planned EV factory in Indiana. This comes after GM had already announced it was postponing the development of a line of Buick EVs and a factory making new pickup trucks.
The reasons cited for these changes of strategy is that the appetite among the car-buying public for all-electric vehicles is lessening. Concerns mentioned are range anxiety, lack of charging infrastructure and the higher cost of EVs compared to ICE vehicles.
There’s also a safety issue that is quite concerning, when occasionally EV batteries catch fire unexpectedly. These fires can be very difficult to extinguish. On August 1st in Seoul, South Korea, a Mercedes-Benz EV caught on fire in a parking lot beneath an apartment building, which spread, and destroyed 140 parked vehicles, and caused some apartment residents to evacuate. This has led to a government investigation into the risks of EV battery fires.
It’s an interesting situation and it causes me to ponder on what the effect might be of Andrea Rossi’s upcoming demonstration of an E-Cat powered EV in Italy. Rossi’s claim is that an electric vehicle will begin a journey around a race track, and run for six hours continously, and at the end the battery will still be fully charged. If this actually happens as he describes, and is well documented by reliable witnesses and video capture, surely it will get the attention of some in the auto industry. It won’t have any bearing on the risk of battery fires, but it could have very important implication for the issue of range anxiety.
