U.S. automakers have backed away from electric vehicles, even as global sales are booming. The decision may make them obsolete.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/magazine/electric-cars-american-evs.html?unlocked_article_code=1.x1A.RJew.A0guareFsnv9
126 points · 17 comments · view on lemmy.world
17 Comments
hypeerror@sh.itjust.works · 37 pts · 45d
We'll be back to where we were in 2008. The economy will hit the dumpster and we'll have to bail out these assholes who only make pavement princess pickups.
Major_Tsiom@fedia.io · 7 pts · 45d
That's what they make because that is what sells. Pickups and SUVs are also very profitable because they are sold at huge mark ups. They are relatively simple designs that are comparatively cheap to manufacture. I'd completely understand their position on this if it weren't for one thing... the future. They should be working to develop huge electric trucks for the US market. The big mark ups won't be there anymore, but it's better than going bankrupt. Americans will be driving Rivians I guess.
jumjummy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 45d
The one Rivian I sat in had a distinct “America made” feel with large gap tolerances and somewhat rattly and cheap feeling.
I also hate the giant screens with literally no buttons anywhere.
Major_Tsiom@fedia.io · 3 pts · 45d
Sounds all-shitty to me, and I hate trucks on top of all that. Still, I'd pick one of those over a cybertruck any day.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 45d
Tesla had the highest profit margins in the industry.
Major_Tsiom@fedia.io · 2 pts · 45d
are you sure? I thought the margins weren't very good for them because they were trying to keep prices down. maybe that's only the model 3?
piccolo@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 45d
Because tesla is mostly a software company posing as a car company in order collect data and beta testing.
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 36 pts · 45d
Yep. Trump and his gang of traitors destroyed my job in electric vehicles. It’s time to make maga obsolete
MyOpinion@lemmy.today · 24 pts · 45d
Do not under any conditions bail these pieces of shit out when they fail.
Zomg@piefed.world · 21 pts · 45d
It really bothers me, considering fossil fuels are a finite resource. It doesn't take a scientist to know that electric vehicles/solar are a smarter long term decisions for availability and environmental reasons.
lnsy@slrpnk.net · 19 pts · 45d
Yes, but solar power has the potential to free us. The resource extraction for oil and gas is beside the point. The slavery they impose on everyone around them is the real product they sell.
Every oil executive is a 1000 times worse than any Epstein co-conspirator, I can assure you.
evenglow@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 45d
That's bingo.
entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org · 3 pts · 45d
Yes, that's why the radical right is attempting to force us to increase our oil dependency. They care only about strictly enforcing their preferred hierarchy.
Whostosay@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 45d
I don't know that we should separate those groups
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 45d
Detroit did this in the 1970s. Chrysler refused to stop selling massive cars during the gas crisis and they went bankrupt. We always bail them out.
jaykrown@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 45d
The tariffs are the last thing protecting them. Ford retiring the lightning was their biggest mistake. If they think they're going to stop Americans from moving forward to better solutions and more efficient EVs, they're wrong. US automakers will not hold us back.
aquafunk@lemmy.sdf.org · 6 pts · 45d
This time when one of them fails, let them.
"Too big to fail" breaks our current system where consequences are necessary to check certain behaviour. Take bad risks for profit that dont turn out? Go out of business, and more importantly, hopefully teach a lesson to every customer, investor and employee
Grandpa went from 40 years of GM cars to a toyota when the 00s bailout happened, and they were right. These ancient monolithic companies are horribly run, there's very little if any ownership from the bottom up, and the more we bail them out, the worse their purely short term profit motivated decisions become
decisions that inevitably hurt those of us doing all the actual work, and never the rich who are running this place into the ground to line their pockets giving quarterly-profits-line-go-up presentations
aquafunk@lemmy.sdf.org · 0 pts · 45d