Time flies when you’re having fun. Now that we’re almost halfway through 2023, a year that began with an extreme amount of electric vehicle hype, I think it’s worth looking at how the Great Gas-Less Revolution, as it’s called by absolutely no one, is actually doing—both in the U.S. and abroad. Let’s kick off this midweek morning news roundup by doing exactly that.
Also on tap today: Tesla’s charging format takeover continues, exactly why pedestrian deaths are such an issue and some not-so-stellar news about the safety of smaller pickup trucks.
The EV Market Is Growing, But Slowly And Also Weirdly
I’ve said this on The Autopian’s pages before, but after months of writing about the future of the auto industry I’ve come to the conclusion that all signs do point to a “transition” to battery EVs, but it’s going to be weirder, rockier and slower than a lot of governments and automakers will admit.
Public and private investments into battery factories (and public charging) are huge. The car companies, even those previously skeptical, have big electric plans now. Many of them also aren’t really going to give up making profitable ICE vehicles anytime soon, if ever. And cost remains a high barrier to ownership basically everywhere.
I’m starting to wonder if the revised EV tax credit scheme is backfiring a bit, too. You know how you get the maximum tax credit only if the car and its batteries are made in North America? On a long enough timeline, that spurs battery development here instead of just China, but in the interim, very few cars qualify. That Hyundai and Polestar buying spree everyone went on in early 2023—when lots of vehicles still qualified before the rules were finalized—seems to have faded a bit. (And I still think writing off hybrids and PHEVs, which save you gas money and cut down on emissions right now, is a mistake the world will collectively regret someday.)
In the U.S., EV demand is still rising each quarter. But more of them are on dealer lots now, reports Automotive News:
Dealers’ average EV supply climbed to 92 days in the second quarter, up from 36 days a year earlier. EV inventory soared to more than 92,000 industrywide, compared with less than 21,000 in the second quarter of 2022. New-vehicle supply industrywide was 51 days. Days’ supply — or the average number of days a vehicle will stay in dealers’ inventory before selling — can include vehicles in progress, in transit and on dealers’ lots, Cox said.
But Americans are still lagging behind other developed countries in EV demand, again for cost reasons:
More than 20 percent of Americans surveyed by EY in March and April said they would consider a battery-electric vehicle for their next car purchase, up 15 percent from a year earlier, the most significant leap in the study. Nearly half said they’d consider an electrified vehicle — which includes plug-ins and hybrids — up 19 percent from a year earlier, also the biggest increase in the category of the 2023 EY Mobility Consumer Index. The index included responses from 15,000 consumers globally. About 1,500 respondents were U.S. consumers.
EV-friendly policies in the U.S., such as the Inflation Reduction Act, have accelerated interest, EY said, but the U.S. still trails much of the world in EV consideration. Car buyers in Norway, China, Singapore, India, Sweden, South Korea and Austria were more likely to consider a BEV than U.S. consumers.
And now even Volkswagen, the original author of the EV transition plan to atone for its diesel-cheating sins, says it’s scaling back production for now. From the UK’s Autocar:
According to the German car maker’s work council, a shift at Volkswagen’s Emden plant in Lower Saxony has been cancelled for the next two weeks in a lead-up to an extended four-week summer holiday period for workers on electric vehicle lines in July and August.
[Manfred Wulff, head of the works council for the Emden plant] said 300 of the current 1500 temporary workers employed at Volkswagen’s Emden plant will not have their contracts renewed in August 2023. Employees were informed about the reduction in electric vehicle production on Monday.
Wulff indicates demand for electric vehicles is up to 30% below originally planned production figures.
“We are experiencing strong customer reluctance in the electric vehicle sector,” he told the North West newspaper.
Granted, this is from VW’s works council, the union group that’s none too happy about the inevitable EV-related job losses, but it’s still notable. It’s also worth noting that like every other car company, VW has had a lot of production problems getting these cars out the door and defect-free—primarily on the software front. The legacy OEMs seem to really struggle there and with battery quality too.
So what does all this mean? I think Toyota’s recently announced plans give you an idea of how this is less about making battery-powered cars and more about revamping how the whole industry works: how cars are made, what the supply lines are like, who is needed to build and engineer them and more. If current trends bear out and prove this is a permanent shift, it’s not going to happen overnight—and I’m not sure it will by the 2030s, either.
Also, the things are still just too damn expensive. Buyers across the world are fed up with sky-high car prices. Something’s gotta give on the affordability front for wider adoption to happen.
Volvo Goes Tesla As SAE Jumps In Too
But as I said, these investments are happening. And plenty of automakers are willing to throw in with the company that already put its money where its mouth is for EV adoption. The latest automaker to commit to Tesla’s charging format is Volvo, joining Ford, General Motors and Rivian. The strategy here is the same too, via Volvo:
Under the agreement future Volvo cars, starting from 2025, will be equipped with the North American Charging Standard (NACS) charging port in the region.
The arrangement gives fully electric Volvo drivers access to 12,000 new fast-charge points, a figure that is expected to grow as Tesla continues to expand its Supercharger network in the region.
Great news for prospective EX30 buyers. I bet Polestar’s next to do this. My earlier criticism of Tesla’s plug (which is great, as is the Supercharger network obviously) it’s that it’s less of a tested, agreed-upon standard and more just one company’s product. Maybe that will change soon, because SAE International is looking to turn it into a real standard now:
This will ensure that any supplier or manufacturer will be able to use, manufacture, or deploy the NACS connector on electric vehicles (EVs) and at charging stations across North America. Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Rivian, and a number of EV charging companies recently announced plans to adopt the NACS connector through adaptors or future product offerings.
The standardization process is the next step to establish a consensus-based approach for maintaining NACS and validating its ability to meet performance and interoperability criteria. The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation was instrumental in fostering the SAE-Tesla partnership and expediting plans to standardize NACS—an important step in building an interoperable national charging network that will work for all EV drivers. This initiative was also announced by The White House today.
Nothing from Tesla on that statement, though NACS is supposedly an “open” standard already. I do hope Tesla’s amenable to this. I think it’s fair to say Elon Musk isn’t a guy who cedes to regulation or outside demands very much.
Small Trucks Fall Short On Rear-Seat Safety
In America, there are basically two safety ratings that matter: the “official” ones from NHTSA, done by the federal government, and then the extra-tough “unofficial” ones rated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The IIHS comes up with some truly confounding tests, and automakers don’t have to rise to the occasion but they try to so they can stay ahead of the competition and keep their customers from dying. (That tends to be bad for repeat business.)
The latest thing to bedevil automakers is the “updated moderate overlap front test,” an incredibly sexy and catchy name for when only 40% of the vehicle’s front hits a barrier at 40 mph. Imagine hitting a barrier on the highway with only part of your car’s front end. This is a pretty brutal type of crash because it lacks the full protection afforded by the entire front end of the vehicle. Last year, the test was updated to rate the safety of rear occupants too.
The results now: Not great! Especially for smaller trucks:
“Our updated moderate overlap front crash test proved to be challenging for small pickups,” said IIHS President David Harkey. “A common problem was that the rear passenger dummy’s head came dangerously close to the front seatback, and in many cases, dummy measurements indicated a risk of neck or chest injuries. All these things tell us that the rear seat belts need improvement.”
None of the five small crew cab pickups IIHS tested earns a good rating. The Nissan Frontier is rated acceptable. The Ford Ranger earns a marginal rating, and the Chevrolet Colorado, Jeep Gladiator and Toyota Tacoma are all rated poor. The ratings only apply to the crew cab versions.
In the Colorado, Frontier, Ranger and Tacoma, the restraints in the back seat allowed the rear dummy’s head to come too close to the front seatback. That was not an issue for the Gladiator. However, its rear restraints do not include a side curtain airbag, increasing the risk of injury from a hard impact with the interior of the vehicle or even something outside it.
Here’s a graphic from the IIHS showing where the trucks are at:
That is really rough. I hope the answer won’t be to just make the trucks even bigger, because…
[Editor’s Note: You’ll note that three vehicles that just last year would have had solid overall crash test ratings now have “poor” ratings. This happens often; someone buys a car with good crash test ratings, then the next year that same vehicle has a poor rating due to new test procedures. -DT]
More On Those Pedestrian, Cyclist Crashes
We’ve covered this here before, but as safe as modern cars are they’re getting less safe for people outside the car. Blame people driving more around the pandemic and cars and trucks getting bigger and heavier. Traffic deaths are thankfully down in 2023 so far, but the other day when we reported that statistic, I wondered about the breakdown of pedestrian and cyclist deaths too.
Now the New York Times has done its homework on the 2022 numbers and folks, it’s not great:
The number of pedestrians who were struck and killed by vehicles in 2022 was the highest it’s been since 1981, according to a report based on state government data.
At least 7,508 people who were out walking were struck and killed in the United States last year, said the report, published on Friday by the Governors Highway Safety Association, a nonprofit that represents states’ safety offices. The report used preliminary data from government agencies in 49 states and Washington, D.C. (Oklahoma had incomplete data because of a technical issue and was the only state to not provide data, the association said.)
The findings for 2022, and an accompanying analysis of federal government data from 2021, showed that pedestrian deaths in the United States have continued to rise over the last decade.
Lots of reasons for this, including the aforementioned increase in car sizes; the rise in suburbs designed for car travel, not so much safe walking or biking; distracted driving; an aging population more potentially prone to crashes; and our garbage infrastructure. (I’ve stopped running on public roads lately; too many close calls. I do it at the gym instead.)
It is wild that cars keep getting safer and more automated, but this group keeps dying at an accelerated rate. And it’s getting tougher to argue this shouldn’t be a greater focus in car design.
Your Turn
In what way do you think new cars should get safer? I’m deeply reluctant to say “more automated driving” on this one. Good on Waymo for making their robo-taxis pretty decent these days, but it’s hard to see any of that tech catching on in the consumer space anytime soon.
Let’s face it. With few exceptions, automakers are on a course to permanently abandon selling the types of vehicles affordable for lower and low/middle class consumers–EV or ICE–because everything has to be aspirational. As we see the market move towards EVs and higher margin vehicles the impacts will vary by region.
While Europeans unable to afford EVs will also be faced with restrictions on ICE ownership, most can at least rely on public transportation. Lower income Americans are less likely to face similar ICE restrictions but also less likely to have access to an adequately reliable, and in some areas safe (from crime/vandals) public charging infrastructure. Therefore expect to see enough low income Americans to do whatever it takes to keep their old ICE cars running until our rural and inner city carscape resemble the streets of Havanna.
It is hilarious to me that those vehicles are considered “small pickups”.
I own a Jeep Gladiator in Australia and it is absolutely one of the biggest vehicles on the road.
I an one of those edge cases where my family frequently takes 700+ mile trips, mostly through the Midwest and Great Plains, with an occasional 2:000+ mile vacation to the left or the right. For me to even consider an EV for a primary vehicle, I need:
And I am old fashioned – I appreciate the rumble of internal combustion, especially a cross plane V8.
Luckily there are literally millions of cars out there that satisfy your needs and millions more will be manufactured in the coming years.
Mandated passive safety measures.
For example:
A windshield that has A pillars that don’t create massive blindspots (Leaf, ID Buzz, etc.
If a car has a rear window you need to be able to see out the rear window enough to safely back up. If it doesn’t have a window then it needs to have a back up camera (get rid of the every car has to have a backup camera requirement).
etc.
Also we should make an American class of Kei cars and Kei Trucks. More small cars means less people driving hulking monstrosities.
I see those pedestrian fatality numbers are not adjusted per capita, the US has gained about 10% in population since 2011 and a full 100 million more since 1981 which means we should expect an increase in deaths if no variables are changed, perhaps our roads are safer than we make it out to be.
I know I’m mixing the data about the crash worthiness of small trucks and the data from the report on pedestrian safety but I don’t care. I drive A LOT of rental cars in the course of my work and they mostly fall into the range of predictable and unexciting. This week I was given my first Tacoma TRD (someone really wasn’t paying attention when that became the abbreviation in North America) and I really, really wanted to like it. I like the idea of a small capable truck. I like the styling. I like the FWD.
I hate the execution!
It’s the most jittery, unpredictable difficult to drive POS I’ve ever been in. Whatever power it has comes on in a great big lump when you mash the pedal and usually several seconds after you wanted it to be there. Similar for the brakes except in reverse. The suspension is a nightmare of skittery and every road imperfection is not only felt, but amplified. And I daily a veloster turbo with no sidewalls and no suspension travel.
It’s a huge seller for Toyota and yet I can’t help think that it’s the most dangerous vehicle I’ve driven since my ‘48 F1
All the people decrying hybrids as “Not good enough” are insane. Hybrids are a great compromise, you get the benefits of an EV without the range anxiety, and you still get the fun of internal combustion. Since the electric motor doesn’t have much character on its own, it isn’t really detracting from the character of the ICE, only adding to it and if anything, reducing the strain on your engine.
I see so many companies popping up offering components for DIY electric conversions, but every time someone asks about DIY hybrid conversions the answer seems to be “nobody caters to that market, you’d have to design and program everything yourself.” Why? I’ve seen a lot of interest in it, I can imagine a lot of potential for it, heck I’d totally consider converting my classic car to a hybrid. As someone pursuing a mechanical engineering degree, this is the kind of stuff I dream about creating. Just because I’m not willing to fully electrify doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like a little bit of it, and isn’t a little bit better than nothing?
It’s very likely that providing a hybrid conversion would run afoul of emissions laws. It counts as a modification, and believe it or not, would likely make the (pollution, not CO2) emissions worse.
I, for one, am really looking forward to the next few years. BEVs are selling in quantities that will allow real analysis of the numbers now, and the supply chain problems will finally recede and show us what people really want, not what they can get. I think we can safely predict that the numbers are going up from where they’re at now, but I think they’re falling far short of 50% of new light duty passenger vehicle sales unless prices or total new vehicle sales come down. A lot. I mean by like half.
It seems like I can’t go 3 weeks without reading a breathless headline about how bad pedestrian fatalities are getting, but no one ever wants to present the data in terms of deaths per billion vehicle miles traveled. Once you do, we’ve been on a downward trend for a long time, only just interrupted in the last couple of years by a slight upward blip – like everything else since COVID. I personally would really like to see data in terms of deaths per mile traveled on pedestrian-heavy roads. Bonus points if you can find quantitative data on pedestrian traffic and weight it that way too. How are the deaths dispersed between rural/urban areas? How do the death rates track against the trend of everyone deciding to move to the city until city rents are more than the take-home pay of 90% of the country? Millennials and Gen Z sure seem to be a whole lot more interested in fitness than boomers and Gen X were – I wonder if they cycle more? I wonder if they’re more likely to live in a city when they decide to cycle more? Occam’s razor whispers in my ear that if cars, bikes, and pedestrians are running into each other more often, it’s probably because they’re sharing the roads more often.
This is not to say that I’m not bothered by needless death and injury – pedestrian safety is a worthy pursuit – but an effective solution has to start with a thorough understanding of the problem, and most of the articles addressing this topic (this article isn’t one of them) seem to boil it down to “CARS ARE BAD”.
I love to drive. I have been a lifelong cyclist and professional mechanic. I do NOT ride on roads anymore. Too many close calls. I’ve been grazed by mirrors, coal rolled, had items thrown at me. My son just got his license today, passed his test. He and I both drive manuals with no distractions. I point out to him the cars going by with people staring at there laps (phones). It’s sometimes over 50% of the traffic while we are stopped at a light. People are less responsible these days and love to point and blame. I struggle to find solutions so I drive and have taught my son to drive as if he’s surrounded by idiots who aren’t paying attention. My vote would be knobs instead of screens and no mobile access inside a vehicle. Not a popular opinion I’m guessing.
New cars can get safer by being easier to see out of. Why isn’t there some standard around outward visibility? Blind spots caused by thick pillars, small windows, and high hoods? We’ve all seen the grassroots tests of “how many pedestrians can hide behind this A pillar?”
Because the thick A pillars, small windows, and high hoods are all mandated by safety regulations. The former two are due to (IMO) absurd rollover/roof crush strength requirements, and the latter is actually because of pedestrian crash safety regs – seriously! Car hoods are required to provide a ‘crumple zone’ for the eventuality of hitting someone, so the more space between the hood and the intake manifold the better they’re scored. That’s one reason all intake manifolds are plastic now, by the way – a metallic intake manifold automatically gets penalized on the pedestrian crash safety test, independent of any other results.
You’d almost think regulators haven’t had the law of unintended consequences explained to them…
I’m always conflicted when it comes to ADAS technology. On the one hand, in a perfect world we should not need them. Drivers should take driving as a serious responsibility, and I’m all for having strict restrictions on licensing like Germany and truly having every driver go through some real training. These systems are also causing some normal driver skills to atrophy. My wife has mentioned that when she has to drive my older car after being used to hers which has all kind of safety nannies, she has to force herself to actually look in mirrors and windows rather than relying on blind spot monitors or rear view cameras.
But the reality is we’re heading into Idiocracy and unless there is a major overhaul to licensing requirements which makes it harder to get one, and more/stricter enforcement when drivers do bad things (neither of which are likely to happen with half of the population taking any kind of legislation for the greater good as an affront to “freedom”), I reluctantly agree that we have to deal with the reality we have and that these safety nannies are probably overall beneficial.
Sure cars can get safer. But so can streets. It’s ridiculous the amount of poorly designed intersections that create unnecessary hazards.
Why are modern downtowns organized around getting commuters in and out as quickly as possible and not the people that live down there?
I think the general consensus on poor safety is pointing at inattention/distracted driving. So then, how to make cars safer?
Mandate manual transmissions. It will require more focus on the task of driving.
Truthfully, I’m lacking realistic options, at least for the USA. Massive investment in public transport so that its a viable option for most people for most purposes just isn’t going to fly, but getting more people in fewer overall vehicles should be the goal.
Just aggressively enforcing laws around cell phone use while driving would do a lot. I’ve noticed while walking the dog around my neighborhood that probably 25%the drivers are holding up a cell phone in front of their face while driving down the street, it’s wild.
Automatic transmissions shouldn’t go the way of the dodo, they have their merits. But they were originally intended as a luxury, and should’ve stayed that way. I could perhaps get behind an “automatic tax” on new vehicles equipped with automatics, to keep it as a luxury item, with exemptions for people with legitimate disabilities who can’t drive a manual. There would be no need to tax used cars with automatics as the difficulty of sourcing new cars with them would automatically raise the prices of their used counterparts, with the added benefit being that this would further incentivize people to take care of their cars since they’re worth more.
I wonder how many pedestrians were on cell phones when getting hit? At sea the bigger boat has right of way because slower to move it works. On the road 150 pound pedestrians dont pay enough attention because they trust the driver to keep them safe. Yet there are absolutely no requirements for the pedestrian to keep themselves safe. The best safety measure paying attrntion both parties
Agreed, driving home yesterday, 3 people were waiting at a bus stop on a double wide sidewalk. All 3 of them were standing in the middle of the road. So yeah, try again to tell me this is only a car problem..
No joke, there’s a university near me that makes all incoming freshmen take a pedestrian safety class put on by the local police department – covering stuff like look both ways before crossing the street, use crosswalks, follow walk/don’t walk signs, etc, basically the stuff Sesame Street writes songs about
To be fair, there’s a lot of kids raised in rural/suburban America that have genuinely never been pedestrians in their lives.
Pretty concerning, but it’s true. If you grow up marooned in a subdivision of some sort and your carted around by your parents from place to place your entire childhood, you probably don’t know how to exist in public spaces.
A coworker of mine (lives in a classic, closed-off suburban development) gripes all the time about how his kids (high school age) never want to do anything and basically just sit at home playing video games. But then he thinks I’m insane for intending to teach my kids how to be able to cross the street and walk back and forth to school. And he wonders why his oldest in college is having trouble adjusting to campus/city life.
Sounds like he spent too much time at work and not enough time raising functional adults.
There is a street in my town where pedestrians will run across the road at random. I’ve had to slam on the brakes a few times because I didn’t know if they would stop just before entering my lane or continue on and get hit. The crazy part is no cell phones are involved. However, I think meth my be involved… It’s a sketchy party of town.
If you’re a distracted pedestrian you die. If you’re a distracted driver the pedestrian dies.
It’s almost as if operating several tons of fast, powerful machinery on the public roads is a bigger responsibility than walking around and should be treated accordingly.
The only place people drive ev’s is where they are forced too or its cheap enough. Neither are happening here. Until we have way better electrical grid, and creation, its not even sane to recommend most people switch. We literally cant.
Now the prices on these monsters are keeping back anyone curious and not rich. There is not an affordable suv for the average family thats electric and comes even close to making sense.
We are so far from this dream of EV everything people harbor. Meanwhile, ignore the private jets and huge boats doing the real damage in the western world.
Wait are you saying we can’t just invent a market on hype alone?
Can someone explain how this chart makes sense? The Colorado for example has all good ratings except for 3 marginal ratings. Yet, it ends up with a poor overall rating?
https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/Screen-Shot-2023-06-28-at-9.59.36-AM.png
Seems like if you are “marginal” or worse in three or more areas you are rated as “poor.”
So, I will not claim to know the math involved, but IIHS (and NHTSA) use a weighted scoring system. Certain results are worth far more than others. If your headlights are abysmal but your structural is good, then that shouldn’t bring the result down meaningfully.
Similarly, the type of injury is weighted. It really sucks if you sprain your ankle or get a laceration in your leg. But your head going through the window is a whole hell of a lot worse. Forget getting a chunk of trim through your lung. Plus they factor in kinematic injury – like whiplash. And if you look at the chart? All of the injury potential is head, chest, and kinematic.
So two ‘mehs’ add up to a ‘holy shit no.’