- Automakers have scaled back their once-lofty EV goals over the last year.
- According to research from BloombergNEF, the recalibration could result in millions fewer electric cars, trucks and SUVs produced in 2030.
- Car companies that slow down too abruptly run the risk of falling far behind global rivals like China’s BYD, the firm’s analysts said.
It’s been about a year since the big vibe shift in the electric vehicle market began. It started with a couple of automakers making solemn announcements about softening EV demand. Now, several car companies have slow-rolled their EV investments and scaled back grand plans to clean up their acts.
A new report from the clean-energy research firm BloombergNEF explores—in real terms, not just vibes—how the auto industry’s cooling stance on EVs may impact the number of electric cars produced by the end of the decade.
BNEF estimates that the 14 automakers who had made EV goals for 2030 will now produce a combined 23.7 million electric cars that year. That’s down from the 27 million they would’ve sold had they stuck to their targets as of late 2023.
“While each automaker sets targets individually, they can collectively transform the global auto market if successfully implemented,” BNEF analysts said in the report. “Likewise, collective reductions and scaling back spells trouble for the EV market in the years ahead.”
It’s important to note, though, that EV sales globally and in the U.S. are still trending upward, and industry watchers expect long-term growth. Also, a lot of the slowing growth is a Tesla-specific issue. But the trend is leading to more automaker reluctance than many observers expected.
Multiple automaker sources have told InsideEVs—though not often publicly—that they all expected a kind of even, permanent, up-and-to-the-right takeoff point for EVs that coincided with a decline in gas car sales. While purely internal combustion vehicle sales have been sinking since 2018, there still hasn’t been the clear inflection point that car companies wanted. After all, it’s a lot to ask to put so much time and money into multiple powertrains at once when they cannot predict the future.
And this pullback isn’t just frustrating news for anyone who wants EVs to become more mainstream. Automakers who pump the brakes too hard risk losing out over the long term as competition heats up, the analysts warned.
Ford
Ford is pivoting away from a 2030 all-electric goal in Europe and is leaning into hybrids, including the Ford Ranger plug-in hybrid.
In 2024, BNEF says, six major automakers have revised down their targets for EV sales they set for this decade. The 3.3 million-unit shortfall described above comes from three automakers in particular who have retreated from their 2030 goals. (BNEF assumed 2030 sales based on automakers’ 2023 numbers and what percentage of sales each said it would electrify.)
Mercedes-Benz once planned for EVs to make up 100% of its global sales by 2030 but now aims to hit 50% by then. Ford walked back its goal to sell only electric cars in Europe by 2030 (which BNEF also assumes will impact its goal of hitting 40% EV sales globally by that year). Volvo ditched its target to only sell EVs by 2030 and now says at least 90% of its sales will comprise pure EVs and plug-in hybrids by that date.
Besides that trio, Volkswagen and Stellantis are far from hitting their 2030 goals and will likely recalibrate soon, BNEF says. Europe’s two biggest automakers are in a world of hurt this year, as we’ve reported previously.
Mercedes-Benz believes its electric transition, which includes vehicles like the EQS SUV, will take longer than expected.
Goals set for 2030 are just part of the story, though. Nearer-term targets are on the chopping block, too.
General Motors recently walked back its goal of hitting 1 million units of EV-manufacturing capacity in North America by 2025, with CEO Mary Barra saying that the “market just isn’t developing.” Toyota, which has proved reluctant to embrace EVs in favor of its strong position with hybrids, cut its 2026 target from 1.5 million EV sales to 1 million. BNEF analyzed how automakers’ 2025 EV announcements have ebbed and flowed, finding that combined targets peaked at 17.6 million units (from 16 automakers) and now stand at 11.9 million (from 12 automakers).
All those targets sprouted up earlier in the decade when there was a notably more effervescent atmosphere around EVs—and what they meant for market capitalization.
Tesla’s stock was on an epic upward tear. All sorts of EV startups came out of the woodwork and promptly went public (sometimes with zero revenue). Automotive juggernauts like GM and Ford went out of their way to one-up one another with their bold commitments to an electric future. Interest rates were still low. The whole industry felt more of a fire under its ass to go all-out in the fight to keep up with Tesla.
GM CEO Mary Barra recently said the company won’t produce 1 million EVs in North America in 2025 as it previously projected.
Suddenly, things seem to have completely flipped, with automakers now competing to see who can come off more measured and pragmatic about their EV goals. None of this is helped by the fact that China, which was the reason for many of those lofty goals, has largely abandoned most Western and other Asian automakers for homegrown options.
EV sales growth is slowing for a multitude of reasons, and some carmakers may indeed have gotten a little ahead of their skis. In part, that’s because a brand-new market is hard to predict. It’s also due to high EV prices, unforgiving interest rates and consumer concerns around the EV charging and range.
Plus, traditional automakers are still losing money on EVs due to the high upfront investments necessary. So they’re loathe to pump out more and more of them when they’ve lost all pricing power.
But remember that these companies are also heavily incentivized to keep their stock high and shareholders happy in the short term. And when the vibe on Wall Street around EVs shifts from exuberance to doubt, they’re going to react. It’s the same reason every company under the sun is suddenly “leveraging AI.”
Automakers who slow down their EV progress risk falling farther behind industry leaders like China’s BYD, BNEF says.
There are big risks to this strategy, BNEF notes. For one, slowing down only pushes profitability farther out into the future, since the key to making money on EVs is reaching the appropriate economies of scale. And EV market leaders like China’s BYD and Tesla aren’t going to wait around for the laggards to catch up, BNEF adds. That could leave automakers even farther behind over time.
It isn’t all bad news, though. Automakers have collectively announced plans to sell 528 EV models in 2030, and those goals remain intact, BNEF notes. U.S. sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids in the U.S. will shoot up 20% this year, the firm estimates. And that’s in a year with breathless coverage of a “stalling” EV market.
And, as is often the case, if you want some optimistic EV news for a change, look no further than South Korean sister brands Kia and Hyundai. They have launched a steady drumbeat of well-regarded EVs and show no signs of scaling back in a major way. BNEF notes that Hyundai, Kia and BMW “are potential bright spots that have set EV targets with a chance of hitting them.”
Or, look to the Chinese. There’s one automaker that BNEF says has hit its goal to phase out combustion-vehicle sales in favor of full EVs and plug in hybrids—and it’s BYD.
Contact the author: tim.levin@insideevs.com
