Weekend Drive: The EV Reset Is Real, and It's Worse Than Anyone Expected
As automakers collectively book nearly $70 billion in EV-related charges, the dream of a rapid EV transition is giving way to something more complicated.
The numbers are in, and they’re stark. Across the global auto industry, manufacturers have now booked nearly $70 billion in charges, write-downs, and restructuring costs related to electric vehicle programs — and that’s before Honda’s latest $15.8 billion disclosure. The EV dream, as automakers pitched it three years ago, is undergoing a serious correction.
This weekend’s drive isn’t about a single car or announcement. It’s about a pattern.
The Retreat Is Broad-Based
This isn’t one company making a bad bet. Stellantis took $26 billion. GM is north of $7 billion. Ford has written down billions on its EV ambitions. Honda just added another $5–16 billion depending on final accounting. The list goes on.
Each company has its own reasons — tariffs, supply chain missteps, software delays, overly optimistic adoption curves — but the shared diagnosis is the same: building affordable EVs at scale is harder and more expensive than anyone projected.
The federal EV tax credit’s expiry at the beginning of October 2025 removed one incentive that was helping pull some buyers into the market. Without it, the economics got harder still.
What the Industry Thought Would Happen
A few years back, the major OEMs were projecting EV adoption curves that looked a lot like smartphone adoption — rapid, self-reinforcing, inevitable. The logic went: EVs would get cheaper as batteries scaled, charging infrastructure would follow, and consumers would naturally migrate away from combustion.
What actually happened: batteries didn’t get cheap fast enough, charging infrastructure remained uneven outside of coastal markets, and a significant chunk of buyers — particularly in the truck and SUV heartland of the American market — weren’t ready to make the switch even if the vehicles were compelling.
The Hybrid Exception
The one bright spot in the electrification story is hybrids — and it’s not even close. Every manufacturer that has hybrids in its lineup is watching them sell strongly. Toyota continues to be the most vocal proponent, but Honda, Ford, and others are now accelerating hybrid programs as a direct result.
PHEVs — plug-in hybrids — occupy a trickier space. Stellantis recently announced it’s walking away from PHEVs entirely, which tells you something about the margins on those vehicles. But traditional hybrids, with their seamless blend of electric efficiency and combustion backup, continue to outperform expectations.
Is There a Bright Side?
For EV enthusiasts, the picture isn’t entirely bleak. A reset isn’t a reversal. Every major manufacturer is still investing in EVs — just at a more measured pace and with more realistic timelines. The vehicles being developed now are better considered, with better battery chemistry, more practical ranges, and architectures designed for cost efficiency rather than headline-grabbing specs.
BMW, Volvo, and a handful of others are still seeing strong demand for their EVs and are scrambling to increase production, not decrease it. China’s EV market continues to grow at a rapid clip. The technology is improving.
The question is whether the Western auto industry can find its way to affordable EVs without the regulatory push that was originally supposed to fund the transition.
For now, the answer appears to be: slower than planned, more expensive than projected, and requiring a lot more patience than anyone in Detroit or Stuttgart or Tokyo originally budgeted for.
Make the most of the current EV infrastructure:
Related reading:
- Ford’s $19.5 Billion EV Write-Down — one of the earliest signals of the broader retreat
- Toyota and Kia Drive Hybrid Sales — the beneficiary of the EV hesitation
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