by Stephen Rivers
- Mark Fields expects U.S. EV growth to continue at a slower pace.
- Ford and GM are taking billion-dollar charges to realign strategies.
- Experts believe adoption may recover once buyers adapt to prices.
The automotive industry never stays still for long. While electric vehicles are growing in popularity around the globe, they’re facing serious headwinds in the US.
The federal government is no longer subsidizing them, gas cars are no longer facing harsh penalties for missing economy regulations, and their pricing is still higher on average than that of an ICE car. Despite all that, Ford’s former CEO, Mark Fields, believes EV adoption will continue to steadily climb.
Is Growth Still Coming?
Speaking with CNBC on Friday, Fields said he expects “gradual growth” in all-electric vehicle demand after the Trump administration’s September decision to end the $7,500 new and $4,000 used EV tax credits.
The former Ford chief, who led the company from 2014 to 2017, believes long-term adoption remains inevitable as consumers increasingly shift toward renewable energy sources.
Read: Kia’s Coming After The Golf R With Nothing But Electricity
“You’re going to see these grow over time, but it’s not going to be at the pace that the automakers thought,” Fields said. “That’s why you’re seeing these big impairment charges that both Ford and GM and others have taken.”
GM announced that it’s taking a $1.6 billion charge associated with ‘strategic realignment’ of its EV game plan.
Ford’s current CEO, Jim Farley, also said earlier this month that the loss of tax credits could halve US EV sales in the near term. Like Fields, Farley believes adoption rates will continue to climb as more affordable models show up.
The former said that automakers “went full bore” into EVs without fully understanding customer demand. “You’re going to see more [charges] going forward as the industry adjusts to a new demand curve,” he commented.
More: EV Sales Will Collapse 60% In October, J.D. Power Forecasts
That said, not everybody agrees that cutting subsidies will affect adoption as strongly as anticipated.
Former Tesla global sales chief Jon McNeill told CNBC earlier this month that European markets continued to grow despite similar subsidy rollbacks. It’s thus plausible that the US market could pick back up once buyers adjust to the new prices.
