Are Parts of the World Retreating on Electric Vehicles?

Canada's Prime Minister "paused an electric-vehicle sales mandate that was set to take effect next year," reports the Wall Street Journal, which argues a kind of retreat from electric-vehicle ambitions "is spreading around the globe." Even the U.K.'s Prime Minister "has allowed for a more flexible timetable to hit the country's EV targets." And demand is expected to drop in the U.S., where global consulting firm AlixPartners now predicts EVs will make up 18% of new-vehicle sales by 2030 - just half of what they'd predicted two years ago:jU.S. automaker GM will take a $1.6 billion charge "because of sinking EV sales," reports the Wall Street Journal, "a shift it blamed on recent moves by the U.S. government to end EV subsidies and regulatory mandates... That might just be the beginning of a financial reckoning from automakers that poured billions into new electric models - from sports cars and sedans to big pickups and sport-utility vehicles - to try to get ready for the government-backed EV mandates. Automakers have been saying that consumers aren't adopting EVs as quickly as expected, and government efforts to proliferate the technology are hammering their bottom lines. GM, in announcing its charge, said it is reassessing EV capacity and warned that more losses are possible...Carmakers argue the EV business model is an unprofitable proposition given still-high battery costs, spotty car-charging networks and dwindling government subsidies. Incentive programs have ended or have been pared back across Europe and in the U.S. and Canada. Volkswagen, burdened with massive electrification costs, helped spur the reckoning in Europe when it said it would cut 35,000 jobs as part of a deal with its union. The move sent shock waves through the region's political establishment. Weeks later, the EU launched a "strategic dialogue" with the automotive industry that led to a more flexible timetable for automakers to meet its emissions rules for 2025.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.