Unpopular Opinion: Americans Want Electric Vehicles

They just don’t want to pay through the nose for them.

NADA, US dealers, OEMs and the media got it wrong. Americans want electric cars; they just don’t want to pay current market prices for them. Average consumers want electric vehicles priced under $50K. carscoops.com

The average price of the top ten electric vehicles in the US is around $53,758.

The Nissan Leaf is still the cheapest new electric vehicle you can buy north of the Mexico border. On the top end of that price scale, you’ll find the Rolls-Royce Spectre at over $400K. findmyelectric.com

Just as the White House capitulated to automakers by moving the goalpost on emission standards, BCG research suggests that about 70% of Americans are considering buying an electric vehicle. reuters.com, bcg.com

In their post about the research, BCG states that “only one vehicle available today — the Hyundai Ioniq 6, first sold in the US in March 2023—meets the median consumer thresholds for price, range, and charge time.” bcg.com

This might be why the automotive industry is now afraid of Seagulls. cnbc.com

Honda dealers across North America (Canada got the news first) were surprised to hear that their OEM plans to cut their margins by 44%. autonews.com, canada.autonews.com

Not surprisingly, Canadian dealers weren’t ecstatic about the news. canadianautodealer.ca

The rationale for the change was the need to help fund Honda’s transition to Electric Vehicles. carscoops.com

Also this week, the Canadian federal government met with Honda to discuss the potential expansion of Honda's Canadian manufacturing operations, which could include new EV production and a local battery facility. carscoops.com, theglobeandmail.com

Because it's fun to change everything all at once, Honda Canada announced that it’s selected Media Experts as its new media buying agency partner. mediaincanada.com

Also, “Honda’s hydrogen fuel cell-powered CR-V isn’t as dumb as you think.” techcrunch.com

Leapmotor will build the compact T03 EVs for Stellantis in Poland. carscoops.com

Xpeng announced plans for a new, cheaper EV brand. autonews.com

Chery expects to start selling cars in Italy later this year. reuters.com

More price drops from BYD. reuters.com

Australian consumer comparison site identifies both the BYD Seal and the BYD Dolphin as the two safest vehicles you can buy in that part of the world. comparethemarket.com.au

Nvidia expands partnerships with Chinese OEMs, BYD, Xpeng and others. It supplies them with their next generation of in-vehicle AI chips, DRIVE Thor. finance.yahoo.com

Concerns exist about the dominance of CATL in the EV battery and energy storage sectors. ““Michael Dunne, the founder of Dunne Insights, an EV consultancy, says the US is “years behind when it comes to batteries, battery supply chains, critical minerals. This is where our cupboard is bare.” Dunne says there is now a “sense of urgency” in the US to build up domestic battery capacity.” theguardian.com

SpaceX is building a network of spy satellites for a US intelligence agency. And China isn’t happy about it. reuters.com, reuters.com

Elon says Tesla is no longer compute-constrained in their AI development efforts. teslarati.com

xAI makes their Grok AI model and architecture open source. “No fees, no restrictions, just Grok.” x.ai, theatlantic.com

Tesla cuts back production in China. reuters.com

Neuralink shows brain-chip patient playing online chess. theguardian.com

Elon says his ketamine use is good for investors, saying ‘what matters is execution.’ bloomberg.com

Watch the whole Don Lemon interview with Elon on YouTube. youtube.com

Texas startup Aerolane discovers that towing autonomous gliders behind cargo planes could reduce emissions and the cost of air-based cargo shipping by 65%. newatlas.com, youtube.com

University of Twente in the Netherlands maps out preliminary locations of superhot rock geothermal that has the potential for vast amounts of cheap energy literally under our feet. newsweek.com

“Baseload” power as a concept made sense in the past, but cheaper solar and increasingly cheaper storage make the concept antiquated. cleantechnica.com

Wireless EV charging could become as efficient as plugging in (enough to get the same car around 350 miles (563 km) of charge in an hour). newatlas.com

Shell plans to close 1,000 gas stations as it expands EV charging business. autoblog.com, shell.com

Oil company says oil is the future. cnbc.com

Toyota files a patent for their funky and cubist X-Van Gear concept with no B pillars. carscoops.com

Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo published a 19-page “Letter to Europe” that reads like a manifesto to prepare to go to war with Chinese manufacturers. fortune.com, renaultgroup.com

GM will no longer sell your data. Cool. But maybe it's too late for customers who are paying attention. nytimes.com, arstechnica.com

Isuzu plans to produce an electric pickup truck in Thailand. electrek.co

Stellantis lays off 400 white-collar workers in the US. washingtonpost.com

Stellantis is also still interested in flying cars. theverge.com

Also, a late bloomer, Stellantis and the state of California reached an agreement on emissions. Other automakers struck a similar deal in 2019. reuters.com

VinFast sets out to build its own network of charging stations. electrek.co

Apple might have killed “Project Titan,” but it still wants your vehicle data. bloomberg.com

DoorDash and Google Wing started testing drone delivery of food in the US. techcrunch.com

Part of Ukraine’s drone assault on Russia includes using inexpensive flat-packed cardboard drones (if IKEA made a drone, this is the drone they would make). Repairs can be made with a glue gun and masking tape — before you blow up a Russian fighter jet. youtube.com

Somali pirates are pirating again. reuters.com

Google and Apple are considering putting Gemini AI on iPhones. businessinsider.com, bloomberg.com

The DOJ sued Apple for potentially having too large a share of US smartphone sales. “Apple exercises its monopoly power to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others,” the DOJ wrote. theverge.com, nytimes.com

Mr Beast’s new Amazon Prime reality TV show is expected to give out the largest cash prize in television history. variety.com

Some entirely unnecessary links to music for your listening pleasure. Enjoy.

This was an AMAZING week for new music, including new tracks from Pearl Jam, The Butthole Surfers, Moby, The Black Crows, Bon Jovi, Joywave, Kenny Chesney and Night Club.

Pick your poison.

Also, if you haven’t seen Justin Timberlake’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert, do yourself a favour and watch. It will brighten your day. youtube.com