EVs -- Update -- July 12, 2026

Locator: 51149EVS. 

Updates

Later, 9:15 p.m., over at x: -- EVs....that reminds me, I need to check my "energy" portfolio. 

Later, 8: 32 p.m., link here:

Original Post 

You know it's a slow day when I blog about EVs.

Two links:

• ten best -selling EVs in the US so far in 2026, link here: 

247,226 EVs were sold in the US in Q2, up 14.7% from the first quarter.

while EV sales are still recovering after the $7,500 federal tax credit expired last September, the market is stabilizing as new models roll out.

 Why the drop in Cadillac Lyriq?

•  US is falling behind, link here.

Global EV sales topped 2 million in June, but the headline numbers hide a widening split between the world’s biggest markets. 

Europe is on a tear, thanks to government incentives, high gas prices, and a growing lineup of affordable EVs. 

North America, on the other hand, has continued to lose ground since the Trump administration ended the US federal EV tax credit last September. And in China, automakers are increasingly looking overseas as domestic demand cools.

I'm Shocked! Shocked, I Tell You! September 25, 2024

Locator: 48392EVS.

EV charging: the slow roll-out of the Fed EV charging initiative. Link here. 

Link here. 

Podcast here.

For All The Naysayers Out There -- And I Was One Of Them -- This Is Truly Stunning -- October 22, 2021

Written by someone else I might have ignored it, but it comes from Yahoo!Finance' anchor, editor-at-large, "Tesla just did something stunning -- analysts." Link here.

Tesla's first quarterly earnings call on Wednesday night without CEO Elon Musk (by his own design) was as boring as watching a Pinto head down a quarter mile track for time.

But Wall Street pros say that the lack of Musk's presence didn't really matter, the more important thing is that Tesla continues to squeeze out more profits from each vehicle it makes.

"Tesla reported particularly strong 3Q21 operating performance, delivering its highest auto gross margins since Model 3 was introduced, despite minimal S+X volume and higher supply chain costs, and impressive GAAP operating margin of 14.6% (18.4% ex-SBC), surpassing even its long-term company targets. We believe this reflects relentless efforts towards vehicle cost reductions, and operational flexibility in a challenging industry environment," said Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner in a research note to clients.

The EV maker's profits topped expectations for the third quarter, powered by record deliveries. Third-quarter deliveries were driven by the more affordable Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. Together, these models comprised over 232,000 of the overall quarterly deliveries. But, quarterly sales came in short of consensus estimates as the top line was somewhat hindered by the semiconductor shortage.

Despite the revenue shortfall, Tesla widened its operating margin to 14.6% in the third quarter, versus 11.0% in the second quarter and 9.2% in the same period last year.

Tesla bulls on the Street quickly regained the narrative on Thursday after the stock initially came under pressure on the revenue miss. The stock rose 3% in afternoon trading in large part because of the impressive margin showing for the company.

Said Morgan Stanley auto analyst Adam Jonas, "Annualized 3Q EBITDA is approaching $13 billion… getting into GM and Ford territory magnitude, despite a fraction of the revenues. What’s particularly notable is Tesla’s margin performance despite significant cost inflation and a 6% reduction in ASPs [average selling prices] year-over-year." One analyst was so jazzed up by Tesla's margin performance and what it may mean for future profits, they think the stock has the potential to nearly double from current levels around $892.

 

New York Times Updates EV Incentives -- March 11, 2017

The New York Times has an update on how much the public likes EVs.

I think this tells me all most folks need to know about EVs:

General Motors’ Bolt EV has a 238-mile range for less than $30,000, after the $7,500 federal income tax credit. Tesla plans to introduce the Model 3, a 215-mile-range car, for under $30,000 after federal tax credits.

If I owned a home / garage in which I could install a charging unit, and if I had two or three other more utilitarian vehicles (like an F-350; a Chrysler Town and Country; and, a Land Rover), then I would love to have an EV.

By the way, something tells me the electric grid in California could not handle a significant increase in the number of EVs being charged overnight. Especially since there's not a lot of solar energy being generated at night.

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Last night: getting ready for our walk to the park. Tonight we're watching Homer Simpson.

EV Sales -- FWIW -- Only For The Archives -- November 19, 2016

A reader sent me the link to this article asking whether plug-in EVs are still relevant?

My reply to the reader:

I really liked this article. About 2/3rds of the way through, I had to check the source of this article. I generally try to read an article before knowing where it was printed -- to try to keep an open mind.

But as I got about 2/3rds of the way through, I knew this was probably not published by Breitbart. LOL.

The one paragraph in that very long article that stood out:

Regardless what the energy picture is in the U.S. therefore, the rest of the global market is pushing ahead on an endeavor that now sees the U.S. in third place globally, though it started as the leader.

The endeavor: electrified car agenda. The leaders, globally: Europe and Asia. In third place: America.

I guess I could write a lot, and I thought about writing a lot at the blog regarding the US EV story, but for me the bottom line is this: before the 2016 election, the plug-in EV story was becoming irrelevant with the glut of gasoline / oil. With the results of the 2016 election, the US plug-in EV story has become irrelevant.

Years ago, at Barnes and Noble, among the computer-oriented periodicals, the breakdown was about 99% PC-related; it was hard to find a magazine devoted to Apple. Almost every one of those PC-related magazines has now disappeared; the PC is pretty much irrelevant as far as "excitement" and "innovation" is concerned. The computer-oriented periodicals at Barnes and Noble are now almost all about Apple, the last time I looked, several months ago, at least here in north Texas.

I assume the same for EVs.

The meme/trope that EVs are environmentally better than conventional gasoline ICE-powered automobiles is simply untrue. 

It will be interesting to see US EV industry in 2018.

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The Literature Page

I've long forgotten how I first stumbled across Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Nigel Nicolson, by their son Nigel, c. 1973.

I had forgotten the year it was published. I graduated from college that year. Two or three years earlier I had met the "love of my life." We talked of marriage but our relationship did not survive the geographic separation. I do not recall if she recommended the book to me or whether it was something she said to me that led me to the book some years later.

I've only read the book once, but it had a great influence on my subsequent reading, and perhaps subconsciously on subsequent relationships.

That period of my "literary life" was brought back to me with an essay in this week's edition of London Review of Books: "A Little Talk in Downing Street," by Bee Wilson, after her reading of the new book by Stefan Buczacki, My Darling Mr Asquith: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Venetia Stanley, 464 pages, released in April, 2016.

The essay was a delight to read. One photograph accompanied the essay, a photo of Margo Asquith and Venetia Stanley at the Scott-Sackville trial, 1913.

It took a bit of work to find details of the Scott-Sackville trial.

The essay begins:

How do you sign off an email? How, when writing to someone who is more than an acquaintance and less than an intimate, do you show that you mean well without being intrusively familiar?

There is no common scale to draw on. You can make someone uncomfortable by sending them ‘xox’ in a work email when all they expected was a ‘cheers’.

A late friend of mine always signed off ‘all good wishes’ – I felt that hit the right convivial-but-distant note. I started borrowing it, then ramped it up to ‘all best wishes’, fearing that ‘good’ might be interpreted as lukewarm, but now I am mildly regretting the inflation.

I rattle out yet another round of doubly superlative ‘all best wishes’ and feel like Tchaikovsky giving the direction pppppp in his Symphony No. 6 when ppp would have done just as well. But it’s also possible to dial things down too far until a sign-off becomes an insult. The Twitter account ‘Very British Problems’ cites the problem of ‘receiving an email ending in “regards” and wondering what you’ve done to cause so much anger’.

In the age of letter-writing, deciding how to start and finish was so much simpler. In 1926, Fowler listed the various ways to end a proper letter:

• Yours faithfully: To unknown person on business.
• Yours truly: To slight acquaintance.
• Yours very truly: Ceremonious but cordial.
• Yours sincerely: In invitations & friendly but not intimate letters.

But that didn’t solve every dilemma. In an age of ritualised courtship and repressed emotions the difficulty was more likely to have to do with intimate letters than those written to business acquaintances.

My Darling Mr Asquith is a deeply sympathetic and scrupulously researched biography of the socialite Venetia Stanley (1887-1948).

One of its main themes is the complex gradation of affection that could be expressed by different salutations at the start of letters between very posh associates ...

When Asquith wrote to his second wife, Margot (his first wife died of typhoid in 1891), she was ‘my own darling’. But when, as a man in his sixties, he wrote to the Hon. Venetia Stanley, the twentysomething woman with whom he was besotted from 1912 to 1915, he employed fifty shades of ‘darlings’ and ‘beloveds’, ranging from ‘my very own darling’ to ‘most loved’ to ‘my darling of darlings’.

These darlings multiplied across nearly six hundred love letters written by Asquith to Venetia, totalling nearly 300,000 words. 

On another note, from the essay, it took a bit of work, but I also figured out what "combies" are. It will be interesting if any reader from England is able to confirm the definition of "combies."

How Will We Fuel All Those EVs? -- Sunday, March 6, 2016

Locator: 10001EVCHRG.

   

Updates

October 3, 2024: EVGO jumps 64% on news of $1-billion guaranteed loan from US government. This is the charging company, not the EV auto company, Canoo (GOEV).

October 1, 2024: Tesla superchargers can now accommodate GM EVs.

December 19, 2023: last major holdout will go with Tesla's super-charging plugs.

December 10, 2023: update. Great update.

October 21, 2023: add Toyota and BMW to the list of auto manufacturers choosing Elon Musk / NACS.

June 29, 2023: Polestar adopts Tesla's supercharging plug. 

June 28, 2023: Volvo adopts Tesla's supercharging plug.

June 12, 2023: one step closer to the "holy grail." Ford and GM partner wtih Tesla for access to Tesla's superchargers. If Stellantis follows suit, game over. 

Crashed and burned: Blink Charging, EVgo, and ChargePoint;

• Motley Fool notes Tesla partnership with F, GM; says Stellantis could be next;
• closer and closer to the "holy grail": a universal supercharger.
• see this post.

March 30, 2022: fast charging will not be more profitable than pumping gas; it's still in the convenience store where the money is made -- soda and candy. 

August 6, 2017: who will be charge all those EVs? -- WSJ. 

July 16, 2017: America's next energy crisis -- the electric grid, Forbes, July 10, 2017.

July 16, 2017: where we stand today with charging EVs -- 20 minutes of fast charging ("watching paint dry" will get you an additional 60 miles). And, with your conventional gasoline automobile you can stop at any branded gasoline station (Shell, Chevron, XOM, etc) but if you have a Tesla you have to use a Tesla charging station. No saying how the other EVs will "operate" their recharging system.

Source for the graphic:

Original Post

The "next big story": how will the growing number of EVs affect US economy? I doubt we will see many stories on this in the near future, but it will be interesting to see how this story develops. It will be filed on "the big stories" page, but not exactly sure where.

Some issues:

• the source for electricity (coal, natural gas, nuclear)
• amount of electricity required; regional differences
• impact on the grid; transmission lines
• nationwide corridors
• charging units: compatibility; fees; locations
• neighborhood transformers

From a contributor over at Seeking Alpha: how will we fuel all those EVs? 

Using a very conservative 3 miles/kWh, just the electricity used at refineries - 47,224 million kWh would be enough to propel EVs 142 billion miles.

According to EIA 1,000 cu ft of natural gas produces 99 kWh. So if the natural gas used at refineries was used to produce power, we would have 88.5 billion kWh, which represent another 265 billion miles.

In a year, US drivers drive 3.1 trillion miles. So just the purchased electricity and natural gas are enough to cover 13% of driving needs. If all the fuels used at refineries were used to propel EVs, it would be a lot more.

In fact, if petroleum is used to produce power, we get 13.6 kWh per gallon. The average US fleet economy is 25mpg.

But a pessimistic EV average is 3 miles/kWh.

So a gallon of petroleum can move the average gas vehicle 25 miles but it can move the largest EV 40 miles. If you compare the best gas vehicle - the Prius, a gallon can move it 50 miles which is roughly about as far as a gallon worth of electricity can propel the BMW i3.

So as we transition to EVs, the drop in refining oil can power at least 13% of the driving and the worst case is the oil being used to produce power to drive the EV with much better emissions controls at one central location as opposed to distributed uncontrolled emissions. But with the growth of renewables (See my 4 part series on renewable energy growth), EVs are only becoming cleaner by the day.

This seemed to be a very poorly written article. Folks pointed out that the contributor incorrectly stated the data he used was from 2015, but in fact was from 2014.

I am only posting/linking the article to get a start page on EVs impact on the US economy.