Ford, Honda, and GM announce rollbacks of electric vehicle production: 'People are finally seeing reality'

Multiple major automakers have announced a scaleback in electric vehicle production after slow sales and an overall reduction in consumer purchases.

General Motors recently announced it would be slowing electric vehicle production after losing nearly $1 billion from the autoworkers' strike, with chief financial officer Paul Jacobson stating that GM would be "moderating the acceleration of EV production" to protect pricing.

GM CEO Mary Barra also said that the company planned on reducing electric vehicle product spending while simultaneously slowing the launch of several models in order to cut costs. GM also said it was abandoning targets to build 100,000 electric vehicles in the second half of 2023 and another 400,000 in the first six months of 2024.

The company said it didn't know when it would hit the benchmarks, Business Insider reported.

At the same time, Honda ditched plans to co-develop electric vehicles with GM. The goal was to produce a brand that could be sold for under $30,000, but Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said the market was too unpredictable, so the plans were canceled.

"After studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business, so at the moment we are ending development of an affordable EV," Mibe told Bloomberg.

Ford also extended its own deadline to produce 600,000 electric vehicles by another year while also abandoning its target to build 2 million electric vehicles by 2026.

While electric vehicles are seeing manufacturer's discounts of up to 10%, Mercedes-Benz has reportedly discounted its versions by several thousand dollars.

"This is a pretty brutal space," CFO Harald Wilhelm reportedly told analysts. "I can hardly imagine the current status quo is fully sustainable for everybody."

The fork in the road was entirely predictable, according to Toyota Motor Corporation Chairman Akio Toyoda. The businessman has argued for years that investing in hybrid (gas-electric) was a better way forward than just electric vehicles.

“People are finally seeing reality,” Toyoda said, according to the Wall Street Journal. "There are many ways to climb the mountain that is achieving carbon neutrality,” he told reporters.

Despite discounts, electric vehicles are allegedly beginning to stack up at dealerships.

While openly calling out the challenges in the market, Toyota has scheduled at least two electric models for a 2026 release date.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!