Why Are Electric Cars Losing Momentum? 

The VW ad shown at 9:34 reminds of back when they has "clean Diesel" in the early 2010's.

When cannot compete, change the rules.😂

hahahaha, if German ev industry is in advance position, you guys will say ev is dying?😅😅😅

cheaper EVs is what is needed, not bloated and expensive vehicles.

Lol this is literally the dumbest title DW used ever.

The premise of this article seems silly. Interesting how competition in this industry is framed as war.

The EU changed the rules and brought this upon their industry (and forced the change on car owners). The EU set the time frame and removed the possibility of combustion engines in the longer term. No point crying now that other countries can make a better product at a cheaper price. It's called a free market! If the EU introduces tariffs, as has been suggested, it will just confirm they are totally protectionist and not free marketeers.

In March 2024, BYD sold 302,459 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 45.6%.

BYD EV cars were sold at double the price in Germany , when compared with the retail price in China . EV cars will become more popular after BYD starts to build their EV cars in Turkey .

Only in German OEMs, not in China or Tesla.

April fools was last week

The reasons that theyre not selling is because they are very expensive, people have range anxiety as well as a fear of how long battery packs will last in the used market. Mercedes cars (I’m a shareholder) made ugly EV cars that didnt look like a real Mercedes. Mercedes FINALLY listened to buyers and dealers and is making the EQS look more like a car and less like a grotesque jellybean. Maybe that will bring people back

Ev are not losing momentum But losing innovation and cheaper pricing Automaker want insanely huge profit by selling gimmick feature. While vehicle itself mostly were used as appliance.

They say ev era is about to end, but Chinese ev manufacturer is pump their ev cars out as much and as fast they could. How on 🌎 was that?

......for the German brands it looks like that. They can't sell and make a profit.Tesla and BYD is the most sold cars (in total) in many markets

german automakers do have technology but are unable to incorporate it on more affordable scale.hence,it remain to be seen how they will come up with new strategy ..

Range is not the problem , its charging every day after day after….. If the succes of EV’s depends on politics…. ? Says a lot about the potential of EV’s

If EV's are so good they shouldn't need Government mandates and subsidies.

As Klaus Schwab said ... Eat ze bugz, stay at home & home charge your EVz.

Where is the electricity infrastructure to support it apart from more coal power stations in China.

EV's are losing momentum because their ridiculous price in general. Don't fool yourselves, these cars ARE the future but not with these current prices, no.

European manufacturers just followed the trend in USA (actually, it's also their market) that FORD & GM has postponed the plan of new EVs' factory (also sales are declining).

Trying to save Germany's legacy auto industry by spreading lies about EVs. Cheap tactic 😂😂😂

It's temporary

I think that electric vehicles are a product that is supposed to compete fairly in a consumer driven free market for personal transportation. The fundamental issue is that vehicle corporations/manufacturers are so economically influential that governments attempt to use them for the governments own goals. In this case, the consumer never really wanted an electric vehicle. Gas vehicles were already giving consumers what they wanted. It's the governments that have decided for the consumer what we will get even if most consumers dont want it. The government has fallen for the climate change/emmisions theory, and they are making laws and regulations and international promises as if all of this will make a noticeable impact on the earth's average temperatures- which it probably wont. The average consumer wants to buy a vehicle with proven technology, rapid refueling, reasonable purchase cost, and low maintenance cost. The average consumer is a working person who needs to travel for work errands and family. They dont really care about some global climate theory, and they dont want to have to pay more for their vehicle to pay for someone elses idea on how to potentially "solve it." Pure Electric vehicles STILL have downsides compared to gas powered. Electric vehicles cost more to make, they use tires 4 times faster, range anxiety will always be an issue on long trips, they take longer to refuel, and ultimately they STILL polluting the environment even WORSE than gas powered vehicles. AND in spite of less moving parts maintenance costs are HIGHER. In a free market, if the majority of consumers are making reasonable purchases, we can expect consumers to become aware of the drawbacks and continue to choose gas or hybrid models OVER pure electric vehicles. This is why there is still a long future ahead for gas vehicles/power trains, possibly for decades. While i dont doubt electric tech is here to stay for some enthusiasts, it's just not a competitive product right now. It's absurd to be that the corporations and the governments have seemingly forgotten the demands and behaviors of the consumer are supposed to be the driving factor in the free market. Rather than acknowledge the consumers power they try to dictate to us what THEY THINK we should buy. Now they cant understand why many of us are refusing to buy pure electric and we are going out of our way to only support brands that meet our needs. That "car expert" you showed is just as out of touch as the politicians. If your product needs subsides to even attempt to complete in the free market then the fact is ITS JUST NOT a GOOD PRODUCT. Its the corporation/business job to create a product at the right price. NOT THE GOVERNMENT laundering tax money. Its not ethical or sustainable in a free market. Its crazy even communist china has enough sense to realize that but supposedly "capitalist" Europeans fail?

You completely ignored Opel in this video. Even within the Stellantis group they are still a Major German car brand and they are confidently pushing their full electric vision. Their sales are actually rapidly increasing.

German car industry is incompetent so this propaganda 😢

You didn't mention the elephant in the room! Infrastructure to charge all these electric cars and trucks with clean energy! A simple calculation can show the amount of energy needed to replace fossil fuel cars. Europe needs some multiple factor of electricity as the grid now can provide, and the grid right now has only a fraction of clean energy. The thing is that there's no money to do everything that needs to be done!

The transition will follow an S-curve. The steep part of it is in the second half of this decade. By 2030 we will be in the nearly flat last part of the S-curve. The 2030 goal of MB for Europe is still realistic. For the USA it is not so. Part of the public is not buying BEV now because of the prices. Some are buying (plug-in) ICE, others are delaying their purchase. ICE being bought today will just be scraped long before they are worn-out.

Its upto the consumer whether they buy EV or ICE or Hybrid.

Is it my idea or I did not hear the WORD JAPAN. Do not erase Japanese automakers. At the end of the day, they evented the hybrid cars.

Americans don't have time to deal with charging problems. It is a land where fast food was invented to shorten lunch time. Some Americans are forced to eat and drive to save time, and charging problems is a headache, not worth time and money.

Now that the EV is being dominated by the chinese...we see this type of negative publicity on the EV...

EV sales down? Because it has too much gimmick to offer. Just convert a used Corolla for daily commuting is waaayy chraper than buy a whole new EV with all of those gimmicks we have to pay. Then we keep our second car (ICE) for long distance travelling

And the biggest selling car in the world is....

If we ignore the external world to the vehicle (eg infrastructure issues etc), there are two main issues to me as a consumer: One, all EVs have a very EXPENSIVE and ineffective way of creating heat for my comfort (explained in a moment); Two, price, which has apparently brought the concomitant issue, manufacturers raising their ICE car prices instead of lowering the EV prices, to get parity! The second point, is going to be ignored here, it’s partly a function of desperation and partly battery costs etc, I will leave it at that for now…essentially EVs are expensive and scarce, and evolving constantly at this time, therefore the used car market, which is all I ever buy from, is a desert of up-to-date decent EVs at an affordable used price. Now the first point: heat creation for the cabin. Here’s the scenario I solely judge a car by, because if I want discomfort and cold, I have a motorcycle for that - if I come down from hill-walking, drenched after a winter rainfall, slopping in muddy boots, and need to warm up and even dry my clothes a bit, can an EV accomplish this? We’ll start by ignoring the cost…No, an EV apparently cannot supply enough heat to make the cabin blistering hot, I need a surfeit of heat and EVs cannot supply that, but that they lose so much range as a result, they leave you stranded, or you actually take a risk there’s a winter storm, snow blocks you in a road, and you freeze to death once the depleted battery drains. This can happen, it’s not merely possible, but likely. And children have low resistance to heat loss, they’ll die first. Sorry, this isn;t good enough. I test-drove a £70,000UK EV, and it left my feet freezing cold at the end. Just one hour, and I was dry to start with, so this is not fixable apparently, with throwing money at it. If it isn’t being done in a seventy grand car, it’s not feasible. Ergo, I bought a hybrid, and it heats the cabin just fine, and doesn’t carry an extra 100 kilograms of battery, to be ‘sacrificed’ for the purpose of heat. I did not expect this to be the result of me deciding what car to buy for my retirement. I am not in fact as I thought, sorry I couldn’t afford an EV. I have made the right choice of getting a Toyota hybrid, yet I believe in EVs. Underneath it all, this inability to cost-effectively produce a surplus of heat in the passenger cabin, is what killed the idea of me buying an EV. But as for the future, patently they are what’s needed - because you can create your own energy and deploy it in an EV…but this brings us to the next problem…all the people happy with EVs for daily use, tend to commute suitable distances, and have solar panels and a battery pack on a wall somewhere. But that costs about the same as I had to spend on a hybrid car! I don’t have an ‘extra budget’ for solar panels etc, just so I can have a particular type of vehicle. There it sits. The energy crisis/wars/EVs coming as a combo package with solar etc, just to make them workable, doesn’t compute for most people. I was able to get a hybrid that does what I need completely, in a package. Under ten grand. To buy an EV to equally meet my needs, is impossible presently, but even if you dropped the bar a bit and let the EV be merely adequate in heating the cabin, you still cannot escape the fact, nobody who advocates EVs for your main car, would dream of having one without their house being turned into a power station first. I’m happy to do it - but where’s the necessary extra twenty thousand dollars or so going to come from, and why would I buy all that, when it makes no economic sense? This is the trouble, EVs have run aground as energy suppliers flexed their muscles and profiteered from the ongoing wars. It was a close race before that, and a clear trend, but everyone’s lost confidence because nobody making cars can influence the wars ending anytime soon. If Vladimir Putin disappeared tomorrow, EVs would be back as a real option. Take care all.

Buying an EV now is similar to buying a flat screen TV when they first came out. They where expensive, ran hot and mainly a Veblen item for bragging rights. A few years later OLED and similar technology made them widespread and cheap. We have not reached that stage in EV technology, EVs have some features that made them vastly inferior to ICE. Mainly the charge time, weight and the financial risk in repair. We have not seen what happens when small garages repair them out of warranty. So many future unknown risks. Eventually, perhaps when a new battery chemistry is invented that negates these deficiencies then people will switch over.. All the wealthy people that wanted it have been saturated. EVs will dominate eventually and not go away, no more then we went back to the CRT after seeing flat screen.

Makes me wish water power cars were here already.

6:09 Confucius didn't say that. It is just a common and informal Chinese idiom and it is not used in the right way. Its real meaning is to deprecate a victim because they are not perfect. It does not mean "coming out of the blue". Edit: It is a shame that DW used a Chinese host for this video but he is obviously a German-born Chinese or 1.5th-generation Chinese immigrant (arrived in Germany as a prepubescent child) who has limited knowledge of the Chinese language. And editors and other staff failed to consult a true native Chinese speaker to confirm if their use of language is correct.

Any car company waffling now on EV's DESERVES to be out of business...

Battery replacement cost is over 10k. Once they find out about that after several years of driving they are not going to buy EV’s again, Unless manufacturers can bring it down to under5k

Imagine a world where only EVs exist. And then someone invented the internal combustion engine: half the weight, three times the range, time to fill up the tank (aka battery) in minutes instead of hours, no degradation of the fuel (aka battery), less wear of tires because of less weight, lifetime of tank (aka battery) unlimited, no dependence on cobalt mined by slave labour in the Congo, no dependence on China for polluting rare earths.... it would be a no-brainer.

It’s the price and convenience. To sustain the adoption S-curve, lower-cost options must be available. Basically, the market segment of wealthy adopters is saturated and most options cater to it, so growth is dictated by repurchase rate. Look to how flat screen TVs, smartphones, CD, DVD, Blu-ray players, personal computers etc. markets grew for examples. The growth is stalling only in markets where the players are not offering or restricting access to lower-cost models. Rapid growth is continuing in markets where options across a broad price range are available. Some markets aren’t helping with punitive registration fees that over-compensate for lost fuel taxes. For an annual distance of 15,000 miles, the additions fee should be closer to $75 instead of the $100-200 some states charge. After that, convenience of charging needs to be made equivalent to how ICEV are refueled. Level 1 charging should be available wherever vehicles are parked. Level 2 where vehicles are parked while shopping, dining out, working etc. and where road trippers are staying at overnight. Level 3 along routes where drivers are likely to be making long trips and in dense urban areas when residents don’t have access to charging where they live or work.

Zero emission throughout the entire production is just BS... who's gonna benefit? Carbon trading

Where are they losing momentum?

Ahahaha. 😂😂😂😂 in other news, steam trains are the future.

Confusius never said that sentence cited😂

Manufacturers haven't given up begging for bigger tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

EVs are not selling because people do not want them.

they cannot compete then say it‘s outdated😂

Have you looked at horses for a sporty option and mules as a work"horse" as an alternative? They are very eco pro and both have a semi autonomous driving capability built in.

The car industry is still spending money on FUD? Who knew. ;-)

No matter how much you cry, EV BYD is best and safest

Asking legacy automakers to transition to EVs is like asking a ballerina to now play football. For us to think they can do this efficiently and profitably is ridiculous. Furthermore, legacies are not incentivized in any way as they not only currently lose money on EVs, but there is no ongoing maintenance revenue, one of legacies biggest sources of revenue/ profit. It’s not that hard people. Very few legacies will be around by 2035.

Unable to watch with that background , annoying AF

The "bottom line" may be that no democratic government can force change on its people. EVs posess excessive limitations during colder seasons and when hauling heavy loads. It doesn't matter if an EV can be purchased for the same price if the EV is not as versatile as a hybrid vehicle with a 600+ mile range, such as that of the Toyota Camry. Also, here in the US, the largest auto shows are filled with ICE vehicles because the majority of auto enthusiasts much prefer sports cars with internal combustion engines. Regarding breakthroughs in battery technology, look to Japan, not China. The most reliable vehicles in the world are made by Japanese companies.

Lot of sensationalism for a sale slowdown. Lots of important markets like Germany have seen incentive reduction or complete stop. Price will come down and the sales will pick up again: and without public money! That's good news people.

EVs are remote control toy cars

Tell American politicians that countries should compete in tech and space, not wars. If you go for wars then even North Korea is ready and waiting, you will get 5 or more

The EV experience needs to be improved if the following are in place: 1. Eliminate subsidies and mandates. Subsidies and mandates only creates an artificial demand. Consumer demand should drive inventory. 2. Reduce the overuse of advanced technology to increase the reliability of EVs. 3. Improve cold weather performance of batteries. 4. Increase trained EV professionals (mechanics and sales). 5. Increase the reliability of the EV charging infrastructure. 6. Reduce EV charging times to be on a par with filling gas in an ICE vehicle. 7. Reduce insurance collision costs by improving supply chain issues for parts.

Problem is not about making electric cars it’s about batteries and how you will charge them

Don't forget this: in reality, animosity for EV's in Europe is not as great as the dedicated press claims. Thus, slowing down the so-called transition, giving some slack on the stringent obligation to switch, may as well mean that Chinese EV's will also lose momentum and loose ground. In other words: any given strategy is as good as an other...

Car bussiness is too important in Europe to allow what happened to shipyards in the past. Not easy though.

Great range if you go from full charge to zero charge and hope that you end up at a charging station that works.

The industry was never enthusiastic about EVs. This was a polititians’ hallucination. Now they have woken up.

You can't lose something you've never had.

"Why Are Electric Cars Losing Momentum?" Because of battery range limits?

In Australia we have a temporary tax measure where EV's are Fringe Benefits Tax exempt (under FBT tax rules an employer provided benefit is taxed at the max tax rate) and the change has been huge on demand for EV's. But the real brake on adoption is the availability of chargers. I went through the economics with my colleague today, he has an old WV Golf and a new Polestar. He has solar panels and charges at home - but if he relied on 150Kw chargers the savings would be about $1/100Km. Based on the cost/value difference it would be something like 500,000Km payback excluding the tax advantage - which may bring it down to 200,000Km. Add range anxiety, broken chargers, SUV's in charge parking slots, slow charge rates and high charging $ rates. Charging infrastructure is a market failure, Governments used to intervene to correct such failures - not leave it to "The Market".

From recent ratings BYD cars are exceeding the European made EVs even on quality now, and it grows each year. Part of why we view Chinese products as low quality is because of selection process - when manufacture-shopping we are really cheap on price and go for the most ridiculously low unit cost, then view what we receive as representative of what China. When paying more we are starting to find that the China as low quality is just our own myth, born out of cheap selection and our own arrogance.

Actually the end of Mercedes and BMW and the rise of Chinese EVs. This is the real verdict!

EV manufacturers have done their math better than those behind this report. The timing in this report comes into question given the big picture of the EU investingating subsidies given to chinese manufacturers. Did they investigate Tesla? The german cars are now losing out to makes like BYD.

A remarkable change Germany is always in the process of defeat while China is process by always towards victory 😄😄

EV growth is fine in China. It's a problem only in countries with ICE legacy who can't build eV's competitively. They want to stay in the ICE Age.

Trade with China should be very limited.

EVs makers can't relay always on subsidies. They need to manage to improve the technology, especially battery life, which will significantly reduce the prices. That's the way to compete with ICE cars.

The German brands and legacy brands are having to change their ambitions toward electric and even revert back to combustion production in certain areas in order to remain profitable. They are not geared up for electric production the way EV only companies like Tesla are and they lose money on every EV they make. Tesla,,on the other hand, has moved to a position of profitability and don't have to worry about making too many products with EV and ICE versions of cars. Legacy makes have been too short term in their business plans, they profited hugely with ICE cars in China and left it too long to transition to EV underestimating Tesla's progress. Now they are paying for this and playing catch-up. I foresee collaboration with Chinese companies from now on if they want to survive as their software knowledge and production methods are outdated now.

The problem isn’t specific to EV market, but rather our European de-industrialisation neoliberal policies. We moved our manufacturing away, decided education isn’t that important anymore, and China has the opposite policies - educating and industrialising. We need to change our broad policies to state investment, but we are so far from that in our brainwashing that I think it is too late.

Let's be honest here. China is no.1 EV producer in the world. Their prices are very reasonable & affordable. But your governments in the West don't like this. They discredit China in almost everthing. In addition, they put high tariffs & import tax for EVs such as BYDs. That is why the price of EVs in the West are expensive. Your own governments themselves intentionally do that. China & the rest of Asia will move forward with the new techmology, and the West will remain in cave 😢😢😢

Governments should NOT support car buyers with purchase premiums. As there are still only mid-priced and generally high-priced e-cars, only high earners and the rich are subsidized with everyone's taxes and the car industry is promoted. A redistribution of wealth from the low-income earners to the rich and the industry via taxes and subsidies. Instead, car manufacturers must also develop good and affordable e-cars with acceptable ranges, also for long distances. And the government must provide better support for the charging infrastructure and ensure that the jungle of tariffs is better standardized for consumers.

It would take centuries to manufacture and deliver EVs to achieve 30% EU driving population, same for the US.

You mean that you can't predict what voters will do.

The future might be solar-powered EVs, not EVs. Current EVs are too heavy, not enough charging stations, not enough range for all the charging that you have to do, would require too much electricity for the masses to own (especially while competing against growing AI for electricity demands), and too much destruction to mine the battery materials. Solar-powered EVs would significantly reduce a lot of that stuff. The price wouldn't be right at first, but eventually would go down to where people could afford it....if governments don't interfere.

EV's don't meet my use case currently, so until they do, I will use ICE, I know many others feel as I do.

EV is here to stay and in the future for a long time. Aside from battery advancements, the more important reason is due to the simple and easy and cheap way of eneregy transfers. With power lines (and in the future maybe wireless), electricity can be made easily available from various green sources and across national and transcontinental lines. No other power sources can be so easily and cheaply transferred. China is going in the right direction. Sahara and Saudi Arabia will be major sources of supply and will power the rejuvination and development of Africa. My view.

In Europe, the infrastructure is underdeveloped, and prices for electricity are way too high. So are the prices for EV vehicles. Zero emission is a fairy tale. Most electricity is produced, burning coal and oil. Only a very low percentage is real green energy. That's why ev. sales stagnate and conventional engines are still a popular choice.

battery weight to ratio is not good ,, also soon as you charge for the first time the battery is already degrading ,, batteries fall fast from 90 percent too 70 percent but the algorithm covers up the truth ,, I fly racing drones and have been through 1000s of batteries they are not exactly the same each battery ,, I have had some lose charge quick and some last alittle longer ,, but all batteries lose that initial power fast .. the tesla type cell is like an 18650 batteries in series ,, these batteries lose storage capacity fast ,, thats why EV companies will not let you see the actually voltage drain while operating because you can actually watch the degradation of the battery every charge takes longer and longer to reach full charge from the very first charge .. the best way to fight c02 is too stop manufacturing non sense

Tesla news: about 10% of the staff will be fired due to disappointing sales...

If you can't compete, change the narrative 😂

As Nov 2023, 0.86% of the registered vehicles in USA are EVs according to the AFDC (Alternative Fuels Data Center) which under US DOE (Dept of Energy). That equates to 2.44M registered EV’s in the USA out of a total of 283M. According to Diffusion of Innovation, this means that the USA EV industry is still in the Innovator phase (

Imagine with Surplus EV cars you have to reacharge the battery and with limited charging stations you have to be in 4-5 hrs queue.

Where are all the rare earth metals coming from?

i would much rather have a plug in hybrid. Electric vehicle for the city and a hybrid vehicle for road trips. Perfection.

EV concept that it is green is fundamentally flawed. EV battery is an environment risk when it comes to waste.

Germany losing market shares already.

What cannot happen if finding higher energy densities. Only economic, and that is unlikely for total electrification. There just is not enough exotic minerals easily minable for total battery transportation.

Deutschepost ran electric mercedes vans in '94-'95 without lithium. A hybrid zinc air/ lead acid with charge controller would work now. Zinc lasts 20-30 years with regeneration and lead acid can last longer due to constant charge activity.

Car companies, just reduce the price for electric car costs of all your models by 30-40% and see how they will fly off the stock. Just do like start ups, be at a loss for 10-20 years and then to the 🌝

First the high coast of buying, next the high cost of replacing the batteries, then the cost of disposing said batteries, they are a environmental hazard. Then get over to powering them. Not enough charging station. the most important is that the infrastructure isn't there and even if it was there is not enough power produced to support even just 50% of drivers has them. Now on to making the batteries. the amount of land dug up and water that has to used and wasted to mine the components and they are rare and will go up very fast the more that they are used. This is a few reasons why and still plenty more!

Mercedes "set interim target of UP TO" so 1% is still within target "UP TO", not AT LEAST 50% lol!

Tariffs will level the playing field.