[00:00] The electric vehicle revolution was supposed to&nbsp; be inevitable. Electric vehicles are cleaner,&nbsp;&nbsp; less noisy, and accelerate faster. And&nbsp; really, what's there not to like? Oh yes,&nbsp;&nbsp; the price. That's why governments all over the&nbsp; world subsidized electric vehicles. But in the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:17] past 6 months, the situation has changed. The&nbsp; smooth, fast, unstoppable transition that car&nbsp;&nbsp; companies promised a few years ago is now looking&nbsp; much less smooth, much less fast, and much less&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:31] unstoppable. Let's have a look. The clearest sign&nbsp; is not the sales numbers. It's what car makers&nbsp;&nbsp; are doing with their own money. They're cancelling&nbsp; models, delaying factories, and switching back to&nbsp;&nbsp; hybrids and petrol cars. I don't know much about&nbsp; business finances really, but I think this is&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:48] not what companies do when a market is booming.&nbsp; Ford is the most dramatic example. In December,&nbsp;&nbsp; Ford admitted that its electric vehicle plans had&nbsp; gone badly wrong and wrote off $19.5 billion as a&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:03] loss. They also scrapped several planned electric&nbsp; models, including a large electric pickup that&nbsp;&nbsp; were supposed to be built at a major factory in&nbsp; Tennessee. That factory is now expected to build&nbsp;&nbsp; petrol powered trucks instead. They also cancelled&nbsp; some planned electric commercial vans and ended&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:20] battery related plans with supplier. In plain&nbsp; English, Ford looked at the market for its next&nbsp;&nbsp; generation of electric vehicles and decided that&nbsp; much of it no longer made financial sense. That's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:33] a $19.5 billion oops. I feel much better now that&nbsp; I forgot to cancel that free trial. General Motors&nbsp;&nbsp; made the same mistake. It had told suppliers&nbsp; to prepare for many more electric cars than&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:47] customers now seem willing to buy. In January,&nbsp; it said that scaling those plants back would&nbsp;&nbsp; lead to about a $6 billion loss. They also slowed&nbsp; work at battery plants and cut production at an&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:00] electric vehicle only factory in Detroit. Same&nbsp; thing with Honda. In March 2026, they cancelled&nbsp;&nbsp; three electric cars they had planned to build in&nbsp; the United States. They also dropped their plans&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:14] of getting 20% of sales from electric vehicles by&nbsp; 2030 and to sell only electric or fuel-cell cars by 2040. They also suspended an $11 billion electric vehicle&nbsp; and battery project in Canada. Same thing for&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:28] Porsche and Stellantis and Nissan. Nissan quietly&nbsp; stopped work on an electric version of the Qashqai,&nbsp;&nbsp; its bestselling model in Europe. The Qashqai&nbsp; was supposed to be built in the UK and part&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:41] of Britain's electric car future. It's gone from&nbsp; the future of transport to never mind in one year.&nbsp;&nbsp; Quite the range indeed. Online shopping is now&nbsp; basically an intelligence test where the answer is&nbsp;&nbsp;
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[04:08] that includes your back to school shopping&nbsp; too. And now back to the science news. These&nbsp;&nbsp; cancellations trickle down into the battery&nbsp; industry. Ford canceled a $6.5 billion deal with&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:21] LG Energy Solutions. Volvo passed its NOVO Energy&nbsp; battery project in Sweden and cut the remaining&nbsp;&nbsp; jobs there. Automotive sales company abandoned&nbsp; planned battery factories in Germany and Italy.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:34] These companies are saying the demand just isn't&nbsp; there anymore. For now, the sales numbers don't&nbsp;&nbsp; reflect this. Globally, electric vehicles,&nbsp; including plug-in hybrids, are going well. In&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:46] September 2025, global sales hit a monthly record&nbsp; of 2.1 million. Though that record was partly&nbsp;&nbsp; caused by buyers rushing to get subsidies before&nbsp; they expired. For the first 5 months of 2026,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:59] the global year-on-year growth was about 1%. Not&nbsp; great, but still growing. So far, the slowdown&nbsp;&nbsp; is regional. In May 2026, registrations of battery&nbsp; electric cars and plug-in hybrids in North America&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:15] were 26% lower than in May 2025, almost certainly&nbsp; because the federal tax credit was discontinued by&nbsp;&nbsp; the Trump administration. China is the world's&nbsp; biggest electric car market, but even there,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:29] the numbers have weakened. In May 2026, sales were&nbsp; down 9% compared to May 2025, again, probably due&nbsp;&nbsp; to tax breaks ending. In Europe, EV sales are&nbsp; still growing, though, probably helped by high&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:46] petrol prices, European emissions rules, and new&nbsp; or expanded support schemes in countries including&nbsp;&nbsp; Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom.&nbsp; Italy had also introduced new subsidies in 2025.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:00] So what is going on? The problem is as so often&nbsp; that market economies don't care what sounds good.&nbsp;&nbsp; They care about costs. Costs for batteries, costs&nbsp; for maintenance, costs for the entire charging&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:14] infrastructure, which is still lagging behind. All&nbsp; these costs haven't been going down as quickly as&nbsp;&nbsp; the optimistic projections had it. It doesn't mean&nbsp; it's not going to happen, but it's why without&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:26] subsidies, growth is difficult. And the problems&nbsp; with the EV infrastructure are only just about&nbsp;&nbsp; beginning to surface because all that energy for&nbsp; charging the vehicles must come from somewhere&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:39] and it must get to the vehicle somehow. You can't&nbsp; have an EV revolution without also having a plan&nbsp;&nbsp; for power generation and grid updates, neither of&nbsp; which is coming along. It's remarkable how often&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:54] consumer preference turns out to mean "there was a&nbsp; discount." Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.