One little piece of data in the quarterly sales numbers released this month that’s raising eyebrows is Toyota’s extreme narrowing of GM’s historical dominance in the United States. While El Generalissimo might take the crown in 2026, if this trend continues it might be a different look in 2027. The reason? Hybrids, of course.
The Morning Dump will continue to beat the hybrid drum, and Honda is a good example of an automaker that would be in a much worse place without them. Given how successful its hybrids were, why did Honda invest so much in EVs? Lack of oversight. Honda also lacks a real midsize pickup, so here comes Mitsubishi to the rescue.
EU regulators also sort of missed the importance of hybrids, which is how Chinese automakers have managed to sell so many of them in Europe. Will that stand?
GM Is ‘Not Tone Deaf’ Even If It’s Maybe Going To Land In Second Place
It continues to be an amusing reality that GM’s only hybrid in North America is the Corvette E-Ray. This isn’t to say that the E-Ray is bad (I haven’t driven it, but I assume it’s good). It’s just that if you could hybridize one vehicle in GM’s lineup it would definitely be the Equinox and equivalents. GM, though, got super into EVs and has had a hard time getting past that decision. [Ed Note: Back in 2019, GM — presumably caught up in the hype and regulatory momentum of the time — decided that, because EVs are the future, it would focus on building those instead of cars for the present (hybrids). The result is now years of missed opportunity. Even if the U.S. transitions rapidly BEV tomorrow, this was clearly a misstep. That said, I respect that GM is ready to do a 180, and I respect its EV game. -DT].
Speaking to CNBC, GM’s VP of Propulsion Engineering said something interesting:
“It’s fair to say that [hybrids are] part of the plan,” Anderson, a 35-year GM veteran, told CNBC during an interview. “We’re not tone deaf to our customers. We know what they want and we want to give that to them as quickly as we can.”
This feels very: You’re asking a lot of questions my ‘we are not tone deaf to the extreme popularity of hybrids’ t-shirt has already answered.
GM needs to get on it, as Toyota’s huge outlay of hybrids has allowed it to close within approximately 130,000 cars of the automaker in the United States this year. That’s still enough of a lead that GM will probably be ok this year, but as Automotive News points out, that might not hold in 2027:
“GM’s position at the top of the U.S. market suddenly doesn’t feel quite as automatic as it once did,” Waatti said.
[…]
While many factors are at work for GM in 2026, having only one hybrid — the low-volume Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray — has put the company at a disadvantage, Waatti said.
“We can debate exactly how many sales that’s costing GM,” he said, ”but it’s increasingly difficult to argue that it isn’t costing them some.”
As the article points out, Toyota briefly gained the sales lead in 2021 because of pandemic-related semiconductor shortages, which is a supply problem and not a demand problem. This is a demand problem.
Of course, GM still makes a lot of profitable pickup trucks, and the company has become a lot more disciplined when it comes to margins. While no one wants to lose a sales lead that’s mostly stood since 1931, the fact that the company has managed to invest heavily in EVs and continue to make money is impressive. If Toyota is at the the top next year, but GM makes a lot of money, I’m sure they’ll all be able to live with it.
Honda’s New Board Chair Says The Company Lacked True Oversight
Honda posted its first annual loss ever as a public company, and there’s a lot of blame to go around. While tariffs and crashing sales in China didn’t help, the main culprit is the company’s disastrous EV shift, which overlooked hybrids.
How did a company so well-poised to snag hybrid demand get it so wrong? Fumiya Kokubu, an outside director who became chairperson of the company’s board of directors this year says in this Nikkei Asia report that the governance structure of Honda is to blame:
“It is difficult for the Board to properly assess what kind of discussions led to the investment,” Kokubu, who also serves as executive corporate advisor of trading house Marubeni, said in the company’s annual report published on Friday.
The way the board operates was changed in 2021, in theory to create more oversight, though with the effect of giving more decision-making authority to executive officers in the company.
Kokubu said the structure meant major investment decisions were often presented to the board only after they had been made, leaving directors with limited opportunities to scrutinize the reasoning behind them.
The company “began to rely too heavily on a monitoring-type Board of Directors,” he said.
Sounds like my local school board.
Honda Will Reportedly Sell A Rebadged Mitsubishi In Asia
Just for fun, there’s an old TMD top from a story I wrote last July, talking about how it’s possible that Nissan’s new shift towards building more body-on-frame trucks in the United States might result in Honda getting a real midsize truck to replace the Ridgeline. It’s also possible that Nissan will build a version of some truck for Mitsubishi in the United States.
And in Asia? It sounds like Mitsubishi might build a version of its truck for Honda, as The Japan News reports:
Honda Motor Co. has finalized its plan to sell Mitsubishi Motors Corp.’s flagship Triton pickup truck under its brand, according to sources.
This marks the first collaboration resulting from partnership negotiations between the two companies. Honda plans to begin selling the rebadged vehicles in Southeast Asia as early as 2028 and is considering expanding to other regions. The two companies intend to broaden their collaboration and strengthen ties of the three-company alliance that includes Nissan Motor Co.
Right now, Honda makes a unibody-based Ridgeline in the United States. Nissan makes the Frontier for North America, which is different from the Navara, which is the global truck. Mitsubishi makes the Triton, which was co-developed with the Navara. You can see how, in the future, it might make sense to just make one truck that everyone sells a version of depending on the market.
How China Slipped Hybrids By EU Regulators
European Union regulators and lawmakers were so concerned about Chinese EVs, they ended up being a little blind to the “threat” of Chinese hybrids. The challenge is that consumers want cheaper cars, but also want jobs. The EU wants to lessen its trade deficit with China, but Chinese automakers need exports.
It’s all a mess, as Bloomberg reports:
France and Germany increased pressure on Beijing even further this week, calling for the EU to significantly expand its retaliatory economic powers — suggesting it should consider severing trade ties with bad actors that launch trade wars. Europe’s two largest economies also want the EU to investigate whether subsidized imports are harming sectors like chemicals and plastics — probes that could produce more tariffs.
Beijing has preemptively warned the EU against adopting what it called protectionist measures.
Europe’s toughening stance reflects its growing awareness that the trade deficit with China, which reached €360 billion last year, is crippling local industry. At the same time, though, China is increasingly relying on those exports to support its own growth.
The good thing is that both sides need one another, to some degree, so maybe they can figure out a way to make everyone happy. Or, at least, everyone sustainably miserable.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I guess I should have played this earlier, but it’s the Galpin Car Show this weekend, which meant I’m ‘Going Back To Cali’ from LL Cool J. Also, peep the young-ish Rick Rubin. Also, the Ric Menello-directed video is great.
The Big Question
If you could bring any car to the Galpin Car Show this Sunday, what would it be?
Top photo: Toyota/GM
This is a big week for LL Cool J. He got featured on TMD and is back on TV. Two equally big honors!
“If you could bring any car to the Galpin Car Show this Sunday, what would it be?”
So you’re essentially just asking me what my dream car is? Today it is a 1992 Mitsubishi Minica Toppo Qt 4WD Canvas Top. Tomorrow it will be a 1955 Fiat 600 Berlina Frua, and on Sunday I think my heart will be with the Bedford Harimau.
I mean GM just said three weeks ago that they have tons of consumer data about how much people love doing the maintenance on post-Dieselgate oil burners; and instead of a V8 with easily attainable ~20 MPG in the city like the Silverado hybrid got in 2009 consumers would love to have the option to spend several thousand dollars extra to get a diesel Siverado 1500 because when you (theoretically but probably almost never actually) tow something it will (possibly) get ~40% better mileage on fuel that costs ~70% more.
CHECKMATE, TOYOTA.
If I hadn’t been busy with other obligations this weekend I would have brought my 1988 Jaguar XJ6. Unfortunately not being able to fix my brakes in time prevented me from attending last year’s show. Have fun!
I’d bring a Weinermobile. They’re the wurst
TBQ: I would want to bring a car that has broad interest to many flavors of enthusiast, but is so uncommon that everyone would enjoy looking at one, perhaps for the first time. So I’d bring a Citroen SM.
Stole my reply, Goddammit. I struck up a conversation with the owner of one in the parking lot at Publix a while back. Great guy but he kept trying to low-key sell it to me the entire conversation. I get the feeling that an SM is like a boat… the two best days are the day you buy it and the day you get rid of it.
GM, Honda, and Toyota: This is a bunch of people playing the part of genius, with the benefit of hindsight. Back in 2019 everyone was shitting on Toyota for sticking with hybrids when the Future is EV(tm). I know not everyone here was on that bandwagon, but the industry at large was and I’m pretty skeptical of anyone now retroactively changing their stance. If you’re going to claim you knew GM and Honda were wrong back in 2019 you better bring receipts.
That said, I still don’t know how GM never put the Voltec powertrain in an Equinox. That was such an obvious win. Now I just hope they don’t screw up again and abandon their (actually very good) EV lineup to pivot to hybrids…right as EV infrastructure starts to get good enough to make them a viable option for more people. It would be very on brand for GM to have the perfect lineup for about five years from now and cancel it before we actually get there.
GM had the head start with the EV1. Then the Volt was out and mainstream. How Tesla came up and destroyed GM with EVs is their own undoing. At this point if I were GM I’d look at either licensing Tesla’s propulsion system for use in their cars or try to acquire them and their supercharger network. Tesla wants a truck. A Tesla powered Silverado/Sierra would be better than the dumpster and the brutal EV trucks that GM is making.
Ha! Tesla Market Cap is $1.5 Trillion, with a T. GM is $70 Billion.
Market Cap isn’t everything when it comes to purchasing a company, but at that delta GM can’t afford Tesla’s door mat.
My thoughts were GM were fools for not creating a Voltec powered Equinox (and GMC twin) when the 3rd gen dropped as new in 2018. As both a traditional hybrid(they did it with the Malibu sedan ‘16-‘19) and as a plug in hybrid. Look what happened with the RAV4 hybrids and RAV4 Prime when those came out. Waiting lists, paying over sticker, hell I’m sure there’s probably been a few fist fights. That coulda been GM if they wanted it and were smart enough.
This. Voltec all the things.*
*SUVs, crossovers, pickups.
“If you could bring any car to the Galpin Car Show this Sunday, what would it be?”
My ’90 Celica GTS race car from the old Toyota Pro / Celebrity series in Long Beach CA. #20 driven by Dwight Yoakam in 1990 and in good shape, I replaced the old TRD graphics last year. I hope they do a RAD show in the midwest someday.
that sounds awesome! what’s the backstory on how this came into your hands.
And fully agree about midwest RAD shows. We got the one in Cleveland right after Hagerty bought them out, but since then I think we’ve mostly had Philadelphia and one in Detroit. Would love some more options!
From what I remember of the forum post, it was up on Marketplace, previous owner had bought it from BaT and did some refurb then decided they wanted to move it along.
Should be able to google to find the build thread
What Mr Asa said. I found it on FBM while looking for a cheap rallycross car. He had redone the interior and glass to streetable, got it titled. It was still a bit rough exterior, I got the graphics replaced recently. Paint is still a 5 footer but that’s ok with me.
I don’t know about just bringing a car to the show but i’ve always wanted one of those 90s celica gt4
Does this mean that Honda is ditching the unibody Ridgeline entirely, or adding a body-on-frame truck to its lineup? I know it doesn’t move numbers like the Tacoma, but it really seems like the Ridgeline has its own niche carved out – people that want to look like they’re driving trucks (because North American…) but don’t really want/need a truck. Sorta like the Maverick, but a bit bigger.
I just bought a Ridgeline after years of full sized trucks. I wanted to downsize and wanted something that rode and drove a better. Absolutely love the Ridgeline. Yeah it looks softer than a ‘real’ truck and isn’t a burly off-roader but it is capable in its own right. Bigger inside than any midsized with a flat load floor, wider bed and an absolutely huge trunk. Excellent AWD that is sure footed in the wet and is more than capable for mild off pavement use. With a 5k lb tow capacity it gives up a little capability there but certainly can tow many boats and utility trailers with no issue. It’s proven extremely reliable over the years with great resale values. It gets said all the time but the Ridgeline really is as much or more truck than most with a ‘real’ truck will ever need. If you need to tow big or do serious wheeling look elsewhere but if you want a Swiss Army knife it’s hard to beat. Won’t win a d!ck measuring contest but I could care less.
I’d love it if they made a hybrid version getting 30-35 mpg. Can’t swallow the 18/24 or whatever it gets today for my daily.
“This isn’t to say that the E-Ray is bad”
Onay irsay! Hetay E-Ray isyay anyay amazingyay arcay!
“Honda Motor Co. has finalized its plan to sell Mitsubishi Motors Corp.’s flagship Triton pickup truck under its brand, according to sources.”
I hope this results in Honda selling the Triton as it’s larger more capable truck… and then reimagines the Ridgeline as smaller car-based truck similar to the Maverick.
“If you could bring any car to the Galpin Car Show this Sunday, what would it be?”
That’s a tough question as there are so many. I’ll go with something unusual… a Monteverdi High Speed with the manual transmission
Why this?
How many other Swiss cars will be there?
Yes to Monteverdi, but the 375/4 is the coolest one of them all.
This is an incredibly misleading (sub)headline intended to incite a certain position.
You make it sound like they didn’t follow HS guidelines on labelling their exports to China. EU knows what falls into the trade classifications, and if someone was absolutely dumb enough not to understand it when they established the trade rule, then it’s not at all the fault of the importer for making use of the correct classification.
This stinks of a certain someone attempting to blame their northern neighbour importing milk products under the rules that they, themselves, signed up to.
TBQ: I’d bring my 66 C10. Everyone would love it because its presence will immediately degrade property values in the surrounding area, making LA more affordable than it has been in decades
TBQ: Any car? Any any car? Even if I don’t own it?
Hang on, lemme go ask a guy named Bob down in St. Louis if I can borrow his ’74 Ford pickup for the weekend. He calls it “Bigfoot I”
“suggesting it should consider severing. trade ties with bad actors that launch trade wars.”
Are they talking about China, or the US?
Why not both?
Ladies Love Cool James! I just looked up “Mama Said Knock You Out” a few weeks ago.
I don’t know why but this summer I started listening to all the ’80s & ’90s hip-hop and funk I missed out on because I was a white suburban punk, metalhead and outlaw country fan with a small prog-rock habit.
Watch “Krush Groove” if you want to see all the early east coast hip-hop heads in their natural element (and a shit-ton of car spotting in NYC.) Rick Rubin plays ‘Rick Rubin’; Sheila E. plays ‘Sheila E.’; Kurtis Blow plays ‘Kurtis Blow’… basically it was a low-budget film and everybody from the Beastie Boys to Run DMC and New Edition had to portray their own selves.
GM wasn’t wrong to aggressively develop EVs. What they got wrong and continue to get wrong is not offering hybrids for their gas cars. GM did a full 2-motor hybrid Silverado / Tahoe 15 years ago. WHY don’t they have a hybrid Silverado and Tahoe today?
Plus, why did the Volt powertrain never make it beyond the Volt/ELR and Malibu (with slight changes)!
A Volt Trailblazer or Equinox would have printed money especially if it came out shortly after the original Volt debuted
The problem with the PHEV Volt is that it was expensive. In the Malibu they kept the basics of the series / parallel hybrid system, reduced the battery side, and removed the plug. Something like that would have sold well in the Equinox and is basically what every other automaker has done with their compact crossover.
What’s the cost of a PHEV Volt drivetrain vs plugin Toyota offerings? I don’t see why in a fundamental level it would be considerably more expensive if development had continued.
2019 was the last year for the Volt. It started at $34,395 while Prius Prime was $27,350. A lot of that was that the Volt had a 10 kWh larger battery.
The Prius Prime was also not a fast mover. Toyota only sold 27K of them in 2019 even though the federal ev tax credit covered 190% of the cost. (Yes, a Prius Prime was cheaper after the tax credit)
To be fair, that’s 20/20 hindsight. The Saturn Vue hybrid had only sold okayish, mostly to fleet customers with “Buy American” policies while the Prius, a low, slippery liftback, was the new It Car. And the Tahoe Hybrid had been all but salesproof because the Venn diagram between “pre-2010 early adopter hybrid buyer” and “BOF full size SUV buyer” was two separate circles with enough distance between them to look like the headlights of a ’59 Oldsmobile.
The Vue hybrid was a mild hybrid with an electric motor in place of the alternator. 24 mpg city while the Escape hybrid did 34 mpg.
This.
They didn’t have a compelling reason for anyone to want them. Everyone else did it better. So GM went back to being the “bigger for similar money” strategy instead.
So many global automakers have or had the German disease. Obsessed with one thing and ignorant of others. Geely had it when it came to the us. Refusal to go lower then premium. GM has it with hybrids.
Byd now launching small series hybrids in Europe with 600 miles of range. Seems very much like the idea behind yesteryears tdis. The Chinese have midsizes erev with 1250 mile range.
GM could have done something similar many volt fans were begging them to do it. Have the generator as an option on an bev. Just like the Chinese are doing. They had the experience. Just lacked the will.
I don’t think GM was wrong to go so hard on EVs. I still think it’s generally the right move and will pay off for GM in the long run.
What I do question though was developing small displacement boosted ICE engines that weren’t hybridized. They downsized engines on a significant number of models (Equinox/Terrain, Traverse/Acadia, even the Colorado/Canyon, etc) netted no real world gain in fuel economy. It means a big number of models are left in the dust compared to Toyota and Hyundai when it comes to fuel economy. Sure, some of the downsized engines came with a decent amount more performance than their prior powertrain (Colorado or Silverado buyers not opting for the V8), but I’d argue GM didn’t need to improve performance there, they needed better fuel economy.
That may be true, but again, they were developed in a different regulatory environment without an Iran war on the horizon. When they designed those engines, it looked like there would be EV mandates, but gas wouldn’t be terribly expensive.
The future regulatory environment is going to look like this, whether it meshes with your political beliefs or not: Auto makers will be required to continue making both fuel efficiency and lower pollution a priority, whatever it takes. The mission of the EPA, even compromised as it is currently, has not changed. Our current trajectory is based on excessive industry influence and control of government.
Yeah, even if they manage to neuter the EPA for awhile, courts have held that it’s legal for California and other CARB states to have stricter rules than the EPA mandates.
There could be a few niche exceptions, but by and large I expect manufacturers to care about sales in the CARB states. Will Stellantis decide to sell something weird in the random 40 states where it might become legal? Maybe. Will any of the big manufacturers build their volume sellers to anything less than the CARB states’ emissions requirements? No.
CARB won the first round to keep their waiver but it is far from over. The Trump Administration has appealed.
Right now CARB and EPA regulations for local emissions (PM, HC, NOX, etc) are largely the same and EPA has not rolled back EPA Tier 4 yet which goes into effect in 2027.
The big difference is in fuel economy where CARB has aggressively increasing fuel economy requirements and an every increasing ZEV requirement. On the other hand NHTSA just set CAFE standards for 2031 lower than what the average was in 2025.
Fuel economy and local emission are not related.
In any case having VERY different fuel economy standards in CARB and EPA states is a huge hassle for manufacturers. CARB is about 40% of vehicle sales and EPA 60%
Counterpoint: They took a knee to Trump. There was no public statement from any of their leadership that the abandoning the EV market AND going backwards on emissions and fuel efficiency is a bad thing long term. They just quietly pivoted. Make no mistake, they’re now behind. They had one chance and only once chance to be competitive and keep up. They took the other fork in the road. They will pay for that bad decision. Just watch.
You’ve made a lot of assumptions here. Since when have the abandoned the EV market? Since when have they gone backwards on emissions and fuel economy? How are they behind now?
The NHTSA just announce CAFE requirements for 2031 that are lower than the fleet average from 2025. That is a huge step back on fuel economy.
And GM has said they are now targeting that? Or even adjusted ANY of their portfolio because of that?
History shows us that when CAFE drops fleet average drops. With lower requirements automakers delay fuel economy improvements and prioritize other things.
Beyond the drop in targets CAFE fines are also zero so at the moment CAFE is just busy work. There is no penalty for not meeting even the lowered targets.
We will see over the next few years how each manufacturer responds. The quickest moving was Stellaris who dropped their PHEVs, their eTorque mild hybrids, and 12V stop/start.
Not true. A whole bunch of auto CEO told Trump he should keep the EV tax credits and battery production credits. On regulations they publicly use code words like the need for “stability” when it comes to CAFE and emissions.
When it comes to manufacturing announcements they loudly trumpet things that he will like like a new factory or model in the USA even if they were planning to do it already. Things he doesn’t like they just quietly do anyways. This is a waiting game – survive until he is gone.
If you expect CEOs to publicly say he is an idiot then you are dreaming. Trump has demonstrated that he will target specific companies and people even if it is illegal. The illegally doesn’t really matter since it takes years for a case to wind through the courts.
TBQ: I’m going with the Batmobile.
I always love the “what I’m listening to” segment. Have fun in Cali!
Which Batmobile?
The one that Beau has in the collection.
OOOOH! Yes, big yes.
“Look, hybrids are a dead technology. We tried selling a whole bunch of mild hybrids that offered very little improvement in mileage and, for some reason, no one bought them. Then, we created a really great hybrid drivetrain and put it in a mediocre vehicle in a dying segment and for reasons beyond human comprehension, no one bought them. Clearly the problem is with hybrid technology as a whole and not because of our product planning. Nope. Not that. Now, stop asking stupid questions. We have a lot of replacement V8 engines to build.”
GM didn’t just have mild hybrids. They had 21 mpg Silverado and Tahoe full hybrids from 2009 to 2013 and a 46 mpg Malibu full hybrid from 2016 to 2019.
They should have put the truck hybrid system in the Express van. Multi stop urban delivery would’ve been the killer app for it just like taxi work was for car hybrids in the 2010s.
I would love to have that 6.0L V8 hybrid in my Express 4500 instead of the Duramax.
Here’s my historical/political take on hybrids. How many people here know the history of this country’s petroleum companies pressuring various politicians to direct the CIA to overthrow a democratically elected president (Iran, 1950s) and replace him with a dictator? Look at all of the wars started, very likely on behalf of industry pressure. I would even throw in an assassination or two. Then we have the outright lies by the industry on the subject of pollution and climate change. Tell me, should we be rewarding that industry, with the further purchasing of gas, even if it’s limited by the use of a hybrid automobile? I’d rather not personally reward them for all of their misdeeds. My wallet is closed to them.
You’re not wrong and I respect your opinion to not participate in the internal combustion lifestyle. A lot of this is well documented (In fact, I’m currently reading this book: https://www.citylitbooks.com/item/mgXnLR7gCg9aT8eogJ-krQ).
I just like to pick on poor ol’ GM for their tendency to do one of two things:
A.) Half-ass an existing technology and then complain when no one buys their crap.
B.) Whole-ass a new technology and then give up if it’s not an immediate success.
This. GM reminds me of guys who meet a girl, gets married asap, then loses all his money in a year when he gets divorced.
Then does it again a year later.
This is the one…
Perfect summary of GM
Also:
C) half-ass, then whole-ass, then abandon it when you actually get it to work.
It was time for me to buy a car. A short-term car! So it didn’t need to be anything terribly responsible, but it had to baby. Something cheap-ish and used. I’m a slow car fast kinda guy, so a Taurus SHO wasn’t doing it for me. Chevy Volt? Chevy Volt!
Yeah, so, that baby thing. I’m a busy family man now. I gotta keep up on chores, take care of a tiny human, etc. Turns out I don’t have the time for an unreliable project car, and the Volt is an unreliable project car. From what I can find online, a used Volt is a ticking time bomb. When it goes off, the problem will be difficult to diagnose and will likely require proprietary GM-specific parts that they don’t bother to keep in stock. The general consensus online is that a cheap used Volt is a car you run until the day it refuses to start, then sell to the junkyard.
GM, why do you have to do this? I loved the idea of a Volt. I hate the long-term reliability, poor parts availability, and poor documentation of failure modes.
I bought a Kia hybrid. It is not fun. It is an appliance. It’s slightly more engaging than my wife’s RAV4 hybrid, I guess. But at least it’s reliable. That’s right. I chose a used Kia over a used Chevy because I believe it’s more reliable. WTF GM?
Remember when 48v “mild” hybrids were all the rage? Did any US manufacturer actually go through with that?
Yes, Ram had (has?) them in their trucks called “E Torque”
Also Audi had (has?) some mild hybrids at least on the Q5 and Allroad. I’m sure other models as well since VAG loves reusing the same powertrain everywhere.
pretty sure RAM still sells eTorque
Depend on if you think Stellantis is a US manufacturer.
48V hybrids are quite popular in Europe and BMW, Mercedes, VW, and Volvo sell them here.
GM did a few in addition to the ones Stella has offered.
I called it years ago that going whole hog into EV would backfire and the companies that went heavy hybrid would thrive. The market just wasn’t ready to make the EV switch like that. The benefit of hybrid is that you are still investing in electrification so you are building up your manufacturing and knowledge base on how to build an EV so you could rapidly pivot, but also hedge your bets against market resistance or regulatory environments.
Toyota has done pretty well doing both.
What company are you referring to that is suffering a backfire? Is GM missing a segment in the market by not having hybrids? Yeah, but that seems like a relatively small misstep given how good they are actually doing,
Pretty much any company that was betting the industry was going to move hard into EV. GM as an example https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/gm-swallowed-10-9-billion-161256372.html
A few other highlights
Stellantis: $26.2 billion write-downFord: $19.5 billion write-down (with plans to shift focus toward gas and hybrid vehicles and cancel projects like the electric F-150 Lightning)Honda: Over $9 billion in asset write-downs and restructuring charges, leading to a historic annual net lossVolkswagen Group: $6 billion write-down tied to Porsche and brand EV strategy cutbacks [1, 2, 3]
Their TTM expenses are like $183B. Assigning $11B of that towards EVs isn’t a big deal. The whole article is a nothing burger.
GM is doing just fine. Still the second biggest EV seller in the US. Most of the EV decline, as referenced in the article, is due to the end of the rebate. EV sales seem to be doing just fine again now.
Just as a reminder, GM no longer sells a Corvette called “E-Ray”, it’s the Grand Sport X now.
What the hell? I get we live in an era where corporate marketing monkeys can’t come up with decent names for cars (or other products, frankly). But to have a pretty good (I mean, it’s decent) name in the E-Ray and change it to that?
That sounds like a trim level for a Jeep Wrangler.
I would guess the thinking is to align with the ZR1X, and make “X” the hybrid signifier, but that just takes us back to the inescapable fact that ZR1X is also a stupid name.
The hybrids should have been exclusively for the Cadillac halo version of the C8, and the ZR1 the top of the line Vette. At least if I ran GM.
I think the X is the AWD signifier.
It amounts to the same since the electric motors are for the front wheels in either case.
Not sure if it is true or not but read somewhere that many weren’t considering the E-Ray because they interpreted the name as it being a fully electric Corvette. Other than the electric assist it is pretty similar to the Grand Sport which in previous generations has been one of the best selling trims(maybe the best, not sure) . Making this the Grand Sport X probably made good sense.
Usually GM has to give their hybrid/electric cars a goofy electric type name, color any letter “e” blue, add lighting bolts all over the car, and put 12 “hybrid” logos on the body… just in case you weren’t sure it was one.
Grand Sport X sounds like a Buick SUV.
Wasn’t the car in Robocop the “SUX”. ha
If it weren’t a thousand miles away, I’d love to roll up to Galpin in a 1983 Rosso Corsa…eh, you know the rest. I hope all the Indigenous People have a great time!
PS Everything about the What I’m Listening To is wonderful. Well done, thanks for that.
And so completes GM’s ultimate goal of making themselves small enough to fail, should that come up again