As I write this, there are now fewer than two full weeks left to secure thousands of dollars off a new or used electric vehicle. The EV tax credit, passed under the Biden administration, will end on Sept. 30 after funding for it was removed by President Trump’s agenda-setting One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The EV tax credit was never meant to last forever. But now it ends years before it was supposed to. What happens to the American EV market after that is anyone’s guess. Predictions about the level of EV investments and planned new electric models are all over the map, and we will all see just how much this current moment was propped up by U.S. policy support. In the meantime, several big automakers are seizing their moment.
That kicks off this midweek edition of Critical Materials, our morning roundup of industry and technology news. Also on deck today: Tesla settles some Autopilot-related lawsuits, and officials in Georgia stay optimistic about Rivian’s upcoming factory. Let’s dig in.
30%: EV Registrations In July Show Big Gains For Some, But Not All
Honda Prologue charging at a Tesla Supercharger
Photo by: Honda
The sales numbers reported by the car companies are one data point we use to track who’s up and who’s down. But arguably a more useful metric is actual registration data from each state, and that can take a while to tally up.
S&P Global Mobility has the EV registration numbers for July, and understandably, people are rushing to get a good deal while they can. As Automotive News reports, here are some of the winners and losers from that month:
Tesla missed out on the July surge, with its five models losing ground compared with a year earlier for a 13 percent overall decline, the data showed. Newcomers Rivian and VinFast also saw registrations slip while Lucid posted a small gain.
The Model Y’s nearest direct competitor in July was the Chevrolet Equinox EV with 8,447 registrations, a nearly four-times gain versus a year earlier, S&P Global Mobility said. As a brand, Chevrolet’s registrations doubled to 11,655.
Volkswagen’s ID. 4 compact crossover also surged in July, with registrations of 3,974 vehicles, a 93 percent gain compared with the year-earlier month, the data showed. Across the brand, EV registrations jumped 127 percent to 4,669 vehicles.
In the luxury segment, Cadillac’s EV registrations rose 76 percent in July to 4,687 vehicles and Audi’s more than tripled to 4,406, the data showed. BMW slid 37 percent to 3,432 and Mercedes-Benz fell 29 percent to 1,955 vehicles.
Evidently, brand baggage at Tesla—if we want to give it a charitable name—is dragging things down, and even the updated Model Y can’t save things. The other issue may be Tesla’s increasing lack of options in various segments, like cheaper small crossovers or large, three-row SUVs.
For now, the biggest winners seem to be General Motors’ family of brands, Hyundai, Ford and Honda. But there’s one other notable tidbit here about that last automaker:
Honda’s only fully electric model, the Prologue crossover, carried average incentives of $12,946 per vehicle in July, according to Motor Intelligence. A year earlier, the incentives averaged $7,036 per vehicle.
I have two takeaways here: one, if you’re looking for a great EV deal before Sept. 30, you can probably get a Honda Prologue for a steal. And two, considering how much money Honda must be losing with all those incentives, don’t expect Prologue deals to last forever.
In fact, probably don’t expect most of these deals to last forever. Here’s our list of September EV deals. Godspeed and good luck if you’re car-hunting this week and next.
60%: Tesla Settles Two Autopilot-Related Fatal Crash Lawsuits
Tesla Model Y Juniper Autopilot Screen
Photo by: Tesla
“We will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk boasted in 2022. (There’s always a tweet.) As tough as that sounds, Tesla is hanging its entire future on autonomous driving technology and robotics, and a recent $243 million civil judgment over an Autopilot-related fatal crash in Florida isn’t the kind of headache it needs right now.
That may be why, as Reuters reported today, Tesla is settling two separate California crashes in 2019 involving Autopilot:
The electric-vehicle maker, which has settled several other cases involving its vehicles and self-driving technology, had rejected a $60 million settlement proposal for the Florida lawsuit, a filing showed last month.
The Florida verdict and the two settlements in California are significant as much of Tesla’s $1.4 trillion valuation hangs on CEO Elon Musk’s promise to rapidly expand its robotaxis and the full self-driving (FSD) software that underpins them. FSD is an advanced version of Autopilot.
One lawsuit, the settlement notice for which was filed on Tuesday, relates to the death of a 15-year-old boy who was traveling in Alameda County, California, with his father in a vehicle when it was rear-ended by a Tesla Model 3, which had Autopilot engaged, causing the victim’s vehicle to roll over and crash into the center barrier. The boy succumbed to his injuries from the collision.
The other case relates to the death in December 2019 of two people who were traveling through an intersection in Gardena, California, in a Honda Civic when a Tesla Model S, equipped with Autopilot, failed to stop at a red light at high speed and crashed into the victims’ vehicle.
Neither party disclosed the terms of those settlements, but after the Florida verdict, one can assume they were cheaper than dragging this into a trial.
Tesla is eager to roll out more Full Self-Driving-equipped Robotaxis in various cities. But critics say it has a long way to go to prove the camera-based technology’s viability, and that the string of Autopilot- and FSD-related crashes and deaths should raise questions about its overall safety.
90%: Rivian Bucks An ‘EV Slowdown’ As Georgia Factory Breaks Ground
Photo by: Rivian
Rivian started life in a former Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Ill. But that plant isn’t terribly suited to its long-term needs, particularly ramping up the $45,000 Rivian R2 and the other EVs that will use its platform. Hence, a new factory east of Atlanta to make those cars and hopefully cement the automaker’s future.
The Rivian Georgia plant broke ground on Tuesday and the Wall Street Journal has the story on why both the automaker and state officials are optimistic about its prospects long-term, even without any EV tax credits to help with sales:
[CEO RJ Scaringe] said that there has been an overemphasis on the recent policy changes.
“I didn’t start this company and plan to scale the business because of that credit,” Scaringe said. “So that goes away, we’re still deeply convicted on the products, deeply convicted on the technology we’re building.”
The plant represents the latest addition to the growing automotive-manufacturing presence in Georgia.
Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, also attended the ceremony on Tuesday, saying the project will be an economic boon to the local area.
“This project stretches back many years, and leaders have worked to secure a transformational project like this that will literally have generational benefits,” he told attendees.
Georgia, of course, has had some painful moments with its big EV industrial push. The Hyundai Metaplant outside Savannah was the site of a massive immigration raid that’s complicating relations with South Korea and delaying production at its associated battery plant. That plant, too, could soon produce EVs that are less enticing without the tax credit, and the same may end up being true of the R2.
100%: How Do Automakers Sell EVs In The Post-Tax Credit Era?
2024 Honda Prologue Elite
I don’t have a crystal ball that tells me exactly what will happen to America’s EV market without the tax credits or, perhaps more crucially, any emissions rules that were driving a more electric market. But I am confident that the participation-trophy era of EVs is over, and these cars will have to succeed on their own merits and not be afterthoughts that were only created because they had to be.
That’s also going to mean changes to how automakers market these cars and work with dealers to sell them. “I got a great deal” won’t cut it anymore. And for an industry that really only knows how to sell gas cars, this is going to be a challenge.
If you’re Hyundai, Rivian, GM or any of the others, what strategy do you take now? Share your ideas in the comments.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
