Yes, I’ve noticed this for several months and considered writing such an article. I’ve been covering electric vehicles for 14 years — sometimes that gives me a lot of useful perspective, and sometimes I forget details of how things have changed. I remember a time when there were almost never EV press releases. In fact, that was the situation for years even after the Nissan LEAF, the Chevy Volt, and the Tesla Model S were introduced to the market. Then, at some point, almost every automaker was putting out EV press releases, frequently. I don’t remember now exactly when that picked up. However, I believe a lot of it was kickstarted when Tesla became profitable and its stock price skyrocketed. And then it continued quite consistently for years. It seemed like we had turned a real corner. Automakers were trying, they were investing in EVs, and they were singing their praises in press releases, events, and other places. Several months ago, I noticed announcements really drying up. Then we had automakers cancelling billions of dollars in EV investments. This wasn’t exactly unpredictable. With a president who is openly hostile to electric vehicles, and cleantech broadly, and who is so petty, such a bully, and so unconventional, it definitely could have been predicted that automakers would zip up and get quiet about EVs. With incentives being ended, it was expected that automakers would sell fewer EVs and limit their development. Nonetheless, it’s still been a little shocking just how much their promotion of EVs has dropped off the map in the United States. But I have to say that it even goes beyond legacy automakers. Tesla hasn’t had nearly the number of announcements or notable updates in recent months as it used to have. There used to be interesting Tesla news almost every day, and certainly every week, but the company has gotten quite boring. The biggest news lately is the company cancelling the Tesla Model S and Tesla Model X and having a very limited run of final units that buyers aren’t allowed to flip. Wow, big story. Product launches are long delayed, and the company can’t engage in hype around new products when several are sitting in limbo or not even close to being ready for market. The company seems distracted with side quests and has dropped the ball on vehicle sales growth, declining year after year after year instead. There are hardly any notable product updates, new features being added to the vehicles, or positive stories about how well things are going. And a company isn’t going to blast out negative stories. Why am I writing about all of this? Well, it just sucks. It’s a horrible time in the US EV market — the “Trump Slump” as one commenter put it — and there aren’t signs of things turning around. No one is hyping up a bright new EV future at the moment. Only a few brands have any momentum in the sector. Though, things will turn around. We know that electric vehicles have fundamental advantages, technology is improving fast, and other markets are much further along than ours. This is basically a marker, a memo regarding the era we are in. Perhaps things will change fast, with rising oil and gas prices pushing many more people toward EVs again. Or perhaps it will be a slow build. We will see. But, without a doubt, EVs will take over the auto market eventually. I do look forward to another phase of rapid expansion and widespread enthusiasm. Hopefully we’ll be covering that before long.
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