THE MORNING RANT: Periodic Roundup of the EV Follies – 10/31/2025

September 30, 2025 was a monumental day for American taxpayers and for freedom-loving Americans, as the $7,500 federal credit toward the purchase of new electric vehicles was terminated. (Along with it, the $4,000 tax credit toward the purchase of used EVs also went away.) This had served as a $7,500 taxpayer transfer of wealth to EV buyers, who tend to already be an affluent demographic.

For anyone still interested in buying an EV, September 30 effectively served as the cutoff date. For manufacturers drowning in a glut of unsold EVs, that date also served as their drop-dead date to make whatever deals possible, because their loss per unit sold was about to get $7,500 higher in October.

While I await the Q4 2025 (October through December) sales results, which should be catastrophic, auto manufacturers are already re-trenching.

This first headline is a story that I’ve been eagerly waiting to report on for several years:

“Ford to End Production of Failed F-150 Lightning” [Yahoo Finance – 10/24/2025]

Ford’s management shows wisdom in shutting down Lightning production. The electric pickup never sold well, suggesting its launch was a terrible mistake. Additionally, the U.S. EV market is dying and will not bounce back soon. The $7,500 EV tax credit expired at the end of the third quarter.

[h/t to Ace of Spades reader “Tad P.” who not only emailed me this headline, but his subject line also properly referred to the F150 Lightning by my preferred moniker, the “F150 Conflagration.” Good job, Tad!]

The F150 Conflagration Lightning was supposed to be Ford’s flagship vehicle as it transitioned its customers from gas pickups to electric pickups. In fact, Ford built an entire new plant (Blue Oval City) near Memphis just to build electric pickups. The plant was originally scheduled to commence production in 2025, but Ford is now saying production has been pushed back to 2028, even though the facility has been built. Ford knows, and I know, that EV production will not happen by then. Donald Trump will still be President, and there will not be a return of federal subsidies for EVs during his administration. Ford owes its Directors and shareholders an update on what it’s going to do with its never-used, mothballed EV plant.

Fortunately, Ford’s customers never abandoned Ford, even when its executives were trying to abandon those loyal customers. The traditional gas-powered, internal combustion (“ICE”) F150 is still selling like crazy. In fact, Ford is re-allocating pretty much all of its workers who had been assembling electric F150s to a nearby plant that produces ICE F150s.

“Ford F-150 Lightning Production Halted Indefinitely After Supplier Fire” [EV.com – 10/24/2025]

Ford plans to boost F-150 output by 45,000 units in 2026 through workforce redistribution and plant upgrades. Roughly 1,200 [Rouge Electric Vehicle Center] employees will transition to the Dearborn Truck Plant, supported by 90 new hires at Dearborn Stamping and 80 at Dearborn Diversified Manufacturing. The Kentucky Truck Plant will also add 100 employees to raise annual production by about 5,000 units.

Regarding the supplier fire in that headline, Novelis supplies aluminum to several manufacturers, and its Oswego plant had a fire that put it out of commission for a while. This is a handy excuse as to why Ford is suspending production of its electric pickup truck. But Ford is not suspending production of the ICE F150, which also uses plenty of aluminum. And coincidentally, the entire Lightning workforce is being repurposed to assemble 50,000 additional gas and diesel F150s per year. The suspension of EV production is not a supplier issue, it’s a lack-of-customers issue.

I’ve noticed over the years that pretty much every time a manufacturer suspends production of an EV, the official reason is that there is a supplier issue or a supply-line problem, when the reality is that there is a glut of unsold inventory.

Ford has lost $3.6 billion on its EV program through the first three quarters of 2025, with the full-year loss expected to exceed $5 billion. This comes on top of losses of $9.8 billon over the previous two years for Ford’s EV unit.

The best time for Ford to pull the plug on its disastrous EV program was several years ago. The next best time is now.

The next end-of-an-era headline I’m waiting for is Rivian to announce its bankruptcy. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting closer….

“Rivian to cut over 600 jobs as EV demand flags after tax credits expire” [Reuters – 10/23/2025]

Rivian Automotive is laying off 4.5% of its workforce, or over 600 employees, an internal email showed on Thursday, as the electric-vehicle maker contends with weakening demand following the expiry of key U.S. tax credits.

Rivian lost over $10 billion in the past two full years, and it’s on track to lose more than $3 billion this year, even thogh this year included nine months with the $7,500 federal tax credit in place.

I am saddened about the laid-off Rivian workers losing their jobs, but it can never be forgotten that Rivian’s business plan was reliant on the government making it illegal to manufacture and sell traditional ICE vehicles, thus causing mass unemployment among legacy auto manufacturing operations and their suppliers.

It should also never be forgotten that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R?) threw $1.5 billion of taxpayer money at Rivian in the hopes that it would prosper if/when his climate-alarmist friends in the Biden administration successfully snuffed out legacy auto manufacturing.

Still more bad news for Rivian…

“Rivian agrees to pay $250 million to settle IPO fraud lawsuit” [Reuters – 10/23/2025]

Rivian has agreed to settle a 2022 class-action lawsuit by paying $250 million to some shareholders who had alleged the electric vehicle maker defrauded investors over vehicle prices when it went public, according to a court filing on Thursday.

The lawsuit claimed that Rivian during and after its blockbuster 2021 initial public offering concealed that it had underpriced its EVs, leading to unpopular price hikes later.

Rivian is burning so much cash that another $250 million out the door further accelerates the day that checks start bouncing. But this lawsuit is also kind of preposterous in that anyone investing in a start-up EV manufacturer with no customer base and reliant on government outlawing its competition, is an investor who deserves to lose his investment.

General Motors is also having to recognize massive losses from its EV debacle.

“GM to take $1.6 billion charge related to EV pullback” [CNBC – 10/14/2025]

General Motors will record a negative impact of $1.6 billion in its next quarter after tax incentives for electric vehicles were slashed by the U.S. and rules governing emissions are relaxed.

This CNBC piece also states that GM has an ongoing “reassessment of its EV capacity and manufacturing footprint.” I can help. Whatever the current “EV capacity and manufacturing footprint” is, that is too much. Eliminate it.

An otherwise good quarter for General Motors was ruined by its EV red ink: “GM Profit Down 56% As Revenue Holds Steady During Q3 2025” [GM Authority – 10/22/2025]

GM’s profit in Q3 of 2025 was $1.3 billion. Its profit one year prior was $3.0 billion (or $1.7 billion higher.) Pretty much the entire difference this year was the massive $1.6 billion EV charge off.

With consumer demand for electric vehicles (other than Tesla) transitioning from anemic to negligible, headlines about the suspension of EV production are coming fast:

“Nissan to pause US EV production plans as tax credits dry up” [Nikkei Asia – 10/01/2025]

“The Chevrolet BrightDrop EV Van Is Dead; BrightDrop is going dark as GM shuts down the production line” [Inside EVs – 10/21/2025]

General Motors' BrightDrop electric delivery vans are no more. The automaker made the decision to shutter production of the commercial vehicle at its CAMI Assembly plant in Canada and announced the news on Tuesday alongside its third-quarter earnings.

According to GM, the reason for the shutdown is "much slower than expected" development of the commercial electric delivery van market.

“…slower than expected”?? Frankly, the failure of this awful product is exactly what I expected. Had any of GM’s executives or directors asked me about the prospects for this abomination rather than following the instructions of Klaus Schwab, there would be no surprises about the demand that never developed.

Since it’s hard to keep up with all the failed EVs that are being discontinued, Car and Driver magazine has helpfully put together an article documenting them all: “Here Are All the EVs That Were Canceled or Discontinued; As demand for EVs cools in the United States, several electric models have been killed off after just a brief time in the spotlight” [Car and Driver – 10/26/2025]

Parked EVs continue to spontaneously become engulfed in runaway thermal fires. The header picture is an EV that burst into flames while parked at an IHOP in Syracuse a couple weeks ago.

There are too many spontaneous EV fires to feature them all, but this story is extremely disturbing: “Driver Burns Alive Trapped in Electric Car”

One of the futuristic features of many EVs is that the door requires electrical commands to open rather than opening via the mechanical action of pulling the inside door handle, an action which also overrides the door lock on cars with traditional mechanical handles. Relying on an electrical command to open a door means that when there is a loss of power, the driver can get locked in.

Similar tragedies have struck Tesla models in Germany, Canada and the US, where crashes left victims trapped inside burning cars after power failures disabled the doors.

It’s not just after crashes that people get stuck in their EVs because the door won’t unlock: “Arizona Man Was Trapped in Tesla on a 100-Degree Day” [USA Today – 8/02/2023]

An Arizona man told a Phoenix TV station that he was trapped inside his Tesla Model Y during a 100-degree day with no knowledge of how to get out. "I couldn't open the doors. I couldn't lower the windows," Rick Meggison, a 73-year-old resident of Peoria told ABC-15. "The computer was dead, so I couldn't open the glove box. I couldn't open anything."

Meggison said his lithium-ion battery had plenty of range on it, but a 12-volt battery inside the vehicle that powers the items that weren't running was dead.

Now that the Trump administration has eliminated almost all market-distorting government influences on auto manufacturing, it sure would be nice if someone would start building cars with fewer electronic gimmicks, focusing instead on analog controls, an absence of lithium batteries, and good old-fashioned, manual door handles.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

| Access Comments