Ford sales slipped 5.5 percent in February as EV sales tumbled 71 percent. Get all the latest auto industry news in the Executive Briefing.
Today’s headlines:
+ BYD unveiled its second generation Blade Battery as the Chinese EV maker seeks to regain momentum in a highly competitive domestic market after a steep sales slump. More at The Detroit News.
+ According to Scott Lawrence, general manager of Subaru Australia, the beloved STI performance brand “is not dead” as the carmaker studies audience feedback on recent concepts. More at Drive.com.
+ A new report by Edmunds found that Americans are deeper underwater on their car loans than ever, as 25 percent of new car buyers bring negative equity into their loans. More at The Drive.
+ The Aston Martin Formula 1 team will run limited laps in the Australian Grand Prix due to a vibration it fears could cause nerve damage to drivers Fernando Alfonso and Lance Stoll. More at Racer.
+ Volkswagen’s new Scout Motors brand has taken more than 160,000 reservations for its first model, with most customers opting for the hybrid version rather than the pure EV. More at World Automotive Forum.
+ BMW remained the largest automotive exporter by value in the USA in 2025, shipping nearly 200,000 X model SUVs according to data from the Department of Commerce. More at Automotive World.
+ Hyundai confirmed that the standard Ioniq 6 EV sedan will not return in 2026 as only the high-performance Ioniq 6 N EV with 641 hp and updated bodywork will be offered in the USA. More at Car and Driver.
+ With its twin-turbo, 1,250 hp hybrid drivetrain and sub-9 second quarter mile times, the Corvette ZR1X is too fast for the NHRA’s drag-racing category for street production cars. More at Autoblog.
+ Ford sales in the U.S. slipped 5.5 percent to 149,962 vehicles in February, driven by a 71 percent decline in EVs and a 22 percent decline in hybrids, while truck sales fell 9.4 percent. More at CBT News.
+ Garrett Mitchell, better known by his YouTube handle Cleetus McFarland, will make his NASCAR O’Reilly Series debut with Richard Childress Racing at Rockingham in April. More at Yahoo! Sports.
Photo courtesy of Ford.
Review the previous MCG Executive Briefing from March 2 here.
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Given the uptick in gas prices over past few days, with no real end in sight, I think EV sales will go back up.
I don’t think ten cents difference is going to convince anyone to go EV. If they were concerned about the cost of gas they wouldn’t have bought a truck too big to fit in the garage. You have to consider that gas was at it’s lowest in four years just three weeks ago. It’s not even three bucks yet.
71% is a big hit, and Ford isn’t the only one seeing EV sales tank. The only people still buying EVs are greenie diehards and leftists. Some normal people were early adopters once the leftist mandates went into place in the USA and EU, deciding that if everyone was going to have their freedom of choice stripped away when it came to buying a new car in 2035, then they might as well take advantage of the incentives and get in early. Now that all of the mandates have been repealed and emissions regulations on ICE vehicle are being eased, those normal early adopters are kicking themselves while realizing that they’ll be getting practically nothing for a trade in. Even if the leftist get back into power and relaunch their assault on American’s freedom of choice, the market for used EVs will still be close to non existent unless they completely outlaw ALL ICE vehicles, not just new ICE vehicles. The majority of manufacturers are dropping plans for future EVs and planning rapid phaseouts on current EVs, while manufacturers who solely produce EVs are sweating. If you own stock in a company that produces nothing but EVs, now would be a good time to sell. When the left chose to shove EVs down citizens throats rather than allowing them to gain sales based on their own merits and word of mouth, they turned EVs into a political issue. The EV mandates, and hope for their repeal, was one of the issues that helped our current President gain office, with people voting for him in hopes of getting out from under the left’s mandates, even though they really didn’t otherwise care for him. Now, the manufacturers are in a precarious position that will require some tap dancing. People are watching them and any manufacturers that are seen as being in support of mandates and loss of citizens freedom of choice by doubling down on EVs and phasing out ICE models are being harshly criticized in the public forum, and this public perception will likely effect the peoples choice of who to buy their next new car from. Nobody wants to give financial support to a manufacturer that supports taking away their freedom of choice.
Perhaps if “normal” people had limited their reproductive rate years ago, each seemingly clutching a firearm dearly at birth, the decline of air quality and fossil fuel supplies, among an innumerable number of detrimental effects attributed to over-population, greed and personal freedom paranoia, would not have reached the level of concern that it has, and the EV would not be seen as an attempt to preserve some semblance of breathable air. Your twelve children will appreciate the foresight that we leftist greenie abnormal people had as they take a breath of air in the future.
“Checks to see if any left leaning talking points were missed”
Nope, hit them all. You should expand your reading list beyond Mother Jones.
To be fair, you hit all the right-wing talking points. As an EV owner I’ve read and heard every last one of them. But really, it’s an engineering issue, not a tribal partisan political issue.
Hi, this is your Uncle Bill and I know more about cars than nearly anyone ever will. (That’s not a flex. In my case it’s more of an affliction.) I drove a Tesla for five years, and I gave my year one report about it here in June 2021.
https://macsmotorcitygarage.com/the-truth-about-owning-a-tesla/
From my experience, it’s clear to me that the #1 objection to electric vehicles among U.S. consumers is psychological, by far. EVs are great. They work. They are far more convenient to own and operate than a gasoline vehicle, quieter, smoother, and they last longer with less maintenance. Yet many Americans cling to beliefs that were disproven five years ago.
In Europe and Asia, EV sales continue to grow. Only in the USA are they in decline. This is under the leadership of a president who is not technically knowledgeable, it’s fair to say. He believes magnets stop working when they get wet. This whole deal reminds me of Americans’ stubborn refusal to embrace the metric system. That mule-like attitude certainly costs U.S. industry, commerce, and taxpayers billions of dollars a year, but our country is so fabulously wealthy we think we can afford it.
MCG, Mac’s Motor City Garage.com
Many less wealthy people live in apartments where no charging is available. Landlords that install them will consider them a profit center and it costs more to use public chargers. Conversion to electric vehicles presents another instance of the haves over the have-nots that hampers their ability to move up economically, and confines them to one area. It will drive them to a public transportation system that is poorly supported in most areas and whose networks are limited. Europe and Asia have advanced and plentiful public transport networks and stronger support programs for residents.
The electrical grid in most areas is insufficient to handle widespread adoption of at-home EV charging and will require upgrades from one end to the other. This in addition to the purported needs of massive data centers.
Electric vehicles will cost the public a lot more money than they think and these issues need to be addressed while their percentage remains small. I fear that the government’s ultimate plan is to put us in subscriber-based autonomous taxis and restrict private car ownership to the wealthy. There are other areas that have yet to be mined for pollution control such as cattle farming and aeronautics and we need to look at those. We also need to adjust regulations to make huge gas-guzzling trucks less attractive to manufacturers and consumers.
However, by withholding support for electrics, our nation will fall behind in development. When we finally do adopt them, Detroit will be crushed by foreign marques once again, and it’s unlikely that they’ll survive. A successful country needs a large-scale native manufacturing base. It’s a dilemma.
I’ve raced RC cars long enough to know am not a fan of thermal excursions, exothermic reactions and non-redundant cooling systems (that could potentially bee controlled remotely by some bad actor’s key stroke). Must admit tho that I would enjoy wringing out somebody’s Tesla Plaid on TRC’s VDA and 7.5 mile high speed oval. Had a blast there for almost a decade in more ways than one ;)…
NHRA now allows 2008+ factory production cars that retain all OEM safety systems to run as quick as 9.00 seconds and up to 150 mph without a roll cage. This applies to cars like the C8 Corvette Z06 and E‑Ray. Key requirements for these factory 9‑second cars include:
Must be 2008 or newer (2014+ allowed down to 9.00 seconds)
Must retain all factory safety equipment (airbags, ABS, stability control)
Must run DOT‑approved tires (no slicks)
Must meet state highway safety requirements (lights, registration, etc.)
Driver must wear a helmet and normal street‑legal safety gear (long pants, closed shoes, etc.)
If the car is not stock, or if it loses factory safety systems, the NHRA rulebook applies the traditional 9‑second requirements. These are much stricter and include:
Roll cage required for anything quicker than 9.99 seconds
NHRA competition license for the driver
SFI‑rated fire jacket (and possibly pants depending on power‑adders)
Driveshaft loop
SFI flywheel/clutch components for manual cars
Arm restraints for open‑top cars
Steel valve stems and other tech items for 11.99 and quicker cars
SFI parachute for trap speeds over 150MPH
Once the car is modified, it no longer qualifies for the “factory 9‑second exemption.”