For much of 2024, you probably couldn't go a single week without reading a headline or seeing some TV news story about how the electric vehicle market is "stalling" or "stumbling." And yet, the ongoing transformation of the automotive industry seems to be upending everything in its path.
The CEO of the world's biggest EV maker—and one of the world's most valuable companies, period—now wields unprecedented power in the United States government. Household-name companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are now wondering how they're going to survive the next few years. New players seem poised to fill whatever vacuum they leave behind. A zero-emission future is being met with more aggressive resistance than we've ever seen, even as our ongoing climate crisis feels more palpable than ever. We're told the future of cars will be defined by over-the-air software updates and autonomous driving, whether we like it or not.
And you can trace nearly all of the above, in some form or fashion, to the rise of electric vehicles. How's all that for a stumble?
As we wrap up 2024, it's more obvious than ever that business as usual is over for the $3.5 trillion global car industry. All of that has profound effects on the way we live, work and get around every day. After all, like it or not, we live in a car-dependent society; when things start to change, expect chaos.
It wasn't easy to round up the year's biggest stories in the EV world; not without making this story into an entire book, anyway. But as we close out 2024 and enter a very uncertain 2025, a few trends and developments defined this chaotic moment more than others. Here are the biggest ones.
It's Elon Musk's World (Or Simulation) And We Just Live In It...
He is perhaps the most controversial person alive on Earth today, and quite possibly even the most powerful. Wealth from his shares in Tesla has translated into tremendous political influence for CEO Elon Musk, especially now that he also controls an entire social media network—not to mention huge parts of the American defense and space travel apparatus.
In just a few months, Musk went from vowing not to donate to any political candidate to literally being in the White House with President-elect Donald Trump, whose campaign he supercharged with his dollars and the reach and influence of X. And in doing so, Musk led much of the Silicon Valley billionaire crowd along with him, paving the way for a remaking of the American government to suit their financial interests. That is, if they can keep their uneasy alliance with Trump's base and other factions intact next year.
None of this would've happened without Tesla and its sky-high stock price, which made Musk the wealthiest man on Earth. Whether the CEO will actually look out for electric cars—you know, the thing that put him in this position to begin with—remains to be seen.
But like it or not (and I'm not sure what's to like about this scenario), 2024 transformed Musk and his ilk into a new class of oligarch that operates without limits or accountability. And there's no telling yet where that ends.
...Even As Tesla Slips In Sales
In spite of all of that, you have to admit that. 2024 hasn't been the best year for Tesla. While it remains the top seller of EVs in the U.S., sales are slipping as traditional car companies and new players alike get into the EV space. Globally, it's been dethroned by China's BYD. The Cybertruck finally came to market but brought endless controversy, constant recalls and uneven sales with it. And if the trucks piling up on used car lots are any indication, owners' early love affairs are fleeting things.
Tesla's stock price is still pumped up by the idea that it can "solve" the challenge of fully self-driving cars, especially now that the U.S. regulatory environment could heavily favor Musk. But its Robotaxi Day event wasn't exactly the reveal of the original iPhone, and it remains highly unclear whether Tesla will make—or is still interested in—new models like more affordable EVs.
Promises about robotaxis will only get Musk so far. And he could lose his invincibility if Tesla's aging lineup keeps losing ground to new players.
General Motors, Hyundai Pick Up The Slack
But Tesla was probably always destined to cede market share to other automakers. Two so-called "traditional" ones had a remarkable year on the EV front: General Motors, which orchestrated a major turnaround after 2023's slate of disasters, and South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group, which has fully transformed from industry also-ran to a world-class technology leader.
In GM's case that meant cleaning up its software issues and launching several new electric models, including the Chevy Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV, upcoming Cadillac Escalade IQ and Vistiq, and the Chevy Equinox EV, which won top honors in our inaugural Breakthrough Awards testing. It also meant a lot of A+ new hires to rethink how GM does batteries and software, though the company still saw unfortunate layoffs this year.
And in Hyundai's case, 2024 brought a repeated insistence on not slowing down in the EV race. More new electric models are coming out all the time from Hyundia, Kia and Genesis, with the NACS-equipped 2025 Ioniq 5 leading the way. In fact, Hyundai will now soon sell more EV models with Tesla's NACS plug than Tesla does.
Both automakers have likely exceeded 100,000 EVs sold in the U.S. this year alone—the first since Tesla to do so—and we'll soon know which one netted the coveted no. 2 spot. But neither player should be underestimated in 2025.
The Euro-Pocalypse Looms If Things Don't Change
There's no sugar-coating things in Europe, however. This was a very tough year for the entire continent's auto industry, especially big players like Volkswagen and Stellantis (and the latter has plenty of headaches stateside, too.) Their EVs face uncertain demand and constant delays. They're losing sales to new players from China. The entire European new car market seems to have hit a wall. Labor costs are soaring and car factories are set up to make too many cars that then can't be sold. And Europe's once-promising battery industry is suddenly on life support. It's not quite Great Recession Vibes over in Europe, but it's starting to feel that way.
The World Awaits Ford's Next Move After Canceling EVs, Delaying Others
How things change in a year's time. Twelve months ago, it seemed like Ford was way ahead of the curve: selling two of the most popular EVs on the market (including the first electric pickup truck) and kicking off innovations like the industry-wide pivot to Tesla's NACS plug. Despite all that, Ford got spooked by mounting losses to its EV division and sales not being on par with rosy projections—last year it lost $4.7 billion on sales of 116,000 EVs. So in August, Ford canceled plans for a three-row electric SUV and pushed back its quasi-successor to the Lightning to the second half of 2027.
There's still Ford's "skunkworks" project, of course. But the vehicles on that ground-up platform aren't due out until the latter part of this decade. In the meantime, Ford is gambling on more hybrids and an EV market that won't really heat up in force until almost 2030. That's still a risky gamble that could put it behind many other rivals.
Ford CEO Jim Farley seems to get it; a guy who loves driving his imported Xiaomi SU7 can't possibly see the future as "more gas F-Series variants." But these moves will leave Ford, an EV pioneer, coasting with the Lightning and Mustang Mach-E for several more years. And that may be a move they end up regretting.
While China Rises
BYD. Nio. Xpeng. Xiaomi. Were any of those companies really on your radar a few years ago—or even one year ago? They have to be now. As we've covered extensively this year, China's auto industry has the rest of the world on notice. From class-leading battery tech to some of the best software around, the Chinese carmakers seem poised to disrupt the automotive world in a way that will make Tesla look like just a bit player.
Here in America, we haven't seen the full extent of this yet, as people do in Europe and Latin America and other parts of Asia. But we will soon enough.
Japan Inc. Pays For Its Complacency; A Nissan-Honda Merger Doesn't Guarantee Success
For most of my lifetime, Japan's auto industry represented the standard of the world (sorry, Cadillac) for quality and innovation. It's hard to argue that's still the case in late 2024. The Japanese automakers' famously methodical and meticulous approach is no match for the speed of disruption heralded by Silicon Valley and China alike. And the cracks really started to show this year.
For a multitude of reasons, Japan's automakers were reluctant to be pioneers in the EV space. That let them write off the success of Tesla and others in the U.S. But now, losing ground to China is the ultimate wake-up call. Toyota is doing fine with its hybrids, but it can't afford to postpone an electric future forever. And the recently announced merger plan for Honda and Nissan is the biggest example of how dire the stakes are; if a successful and profitable company like Honda has been called upon to rescue Nissan but can't even say why that move is beneficial, is it worth believing in?
Mergers don't fix everything; ask Stellantis how that's going.
The Autonomy Race Heats Up
Two years ago, Ford- and VW-backed Argo AI closed up shop. This year, it was GM's Cruise division ceasing its robotaxi operations after years of high-profile safety mishaps. You can be forgiven for thinking the autonomous driving sector may never take off, especially after so many undelivered promises in the 2010s. But AVs are like AI, or the internet, or even EVs themselves: after a ton of initial hype, the serious players settle in for the long war that will take generations of investments. And 2024 showed us that race isn't going anywhere.
Tesla has pinned its entire future on robotaxis, something that makes building battery-powered cars look easy in comparison. This is why its stock price is so high. Yet Tesla trails in every metric behind Google's Waymo, and other players like Amazon's Zoox, Aurora for trucking and a number of Chinese firms show tremendous promise too. Plus, the automakers want to keep adding incremental automated driving features to passenger cars—see GM's reasons for ending Cruise's robotaxi service—so they're not giving up here either.
We may one day look back at 2024 as the year everything really started to get serious. One way or another, there's still a lot for all of them to prove—and some more than others.
Fisker Files For Bankruptcy
But 2024 also marked the end of the startup boom in the EV space. The SPAC explosion is over, interest rates are high and capital is harder to come by than it was in the 2010s. Plus, look at all the intensified competition from China and the traditional automakers now; can a brand-new startup really bring something meaningful to the table?
Fisker Inc. unfortunately could not. It's possible that it could have emerged as a true software-driven vehicle powered by unique style, but in the end, the company was allegedly too mismanaged and the product simply wasn't up to par. Fisker's bankruptcy should also be seen as an early warning bell for what does happen when the companies behind these software-powered cars cease operations; do they become bricks on wheels, or do they have a future on the road?
Volvo EX30 And The Anti-China Tariffs
I was so excited about the compact, affordable Volvo EX30 that I threw down $500 of my own money to buy one. It seemed like a winner in the U.S., as it's been everywhere else in the world. But then the China-built EX30 got nailed by Biden's 100% tariffs on EVs made in that country, leading Volvo to delay its U.S. release over the summer. Deliveries are just now starting again, but perhaps in a limited way until Volvo can get European production up and running.
In that way, the EX30 was the poster child for the uncertainty automakers now face across the world: so much with batteries, software, components from China and trade tensions make this game far more difficult and complex than it's ever been. Biden won't be in the White House much longer, and how Trump will play his hand against China is anyone's guess.
Rivian R3X Breaks The Internet
Meanwhile, I haven't seen any new car debut make waves like the Rivian R3X did since... well, the Cybertruck. But while Tesla's pickup is angular, brutal and post-apocalyptic, the R3X is playful, joyous and evocative of classic rally cars.
Though it was meant to be a side note amid the debut of the Rivian R2, the R3X (and the less-rowdy R3) quickly stole the show at the California startup's March event. Both put Rivian on the map in ways the updated-but-expensive R1 models have not. Now, can they actually hit the road on time and at those promised price tags? We'll see, but they're certainly key to Rivian's long-term survival.
Lucid Begins To Cross The 'Valley Of Death'
Lucid Motors makes the most efficient—and in many ways, all-around best—EV you can buy right now. Its problem is that very few people are buying its lone model, the Lucid Air, as expensive luxury sedans become more passé each year. But Lucid closed out 2024 with the first production run of the new Gravity, its ultra-important SUV model. It needs to be a sales hit to carry the torch until Lucid can achieve its own "Tesla Model Y" moment with the more affordable Project Midsize models. In many ways, 2025 will be a make-or-break year for a startup with he most impressive EV tech in the business.
The Tesla NACS Transition And The Charging Boom
As I write this, I'm on a road trip out to far West Texas in a 2025 Rivian R1T. And I could have done that drive to a remote part of the country without accessing the Tesla Supercharger network using an adapter plug, but it would've been much, much more difficult.
Allowing the rest of the auto industry to access Tesla's chargers—and ultimately, switch to its plug type—will be a game-changer for road trips and easing range anxiety. It won't fix everything, but it will be a big upgrade for today's owners of non-Tesla EVs.
Still, that's on Tesla to keep its network growing and with the same level of reliability and ease of use that it's famous for. Musk's mysterious layoffs of the charging team earlier this year gave us (and the entire industry) pause, although many of those positions were later re-hired. So in 2025, the question is this: does Tesla still want to be the charging powerhouse it was once shaping up to be? Or will Musk's obsession with AI and robotaxis take that plan off the rails?
In the meantime, the charging sector got much better in 2024 than anyone likely anticipated. Electrify America and ChargePoint are stepping up their game, new players like Ionna are making the experience better and we're seeing innovative new approaches to charging from companies like Brooklyn's Itselectric. The entire charging industry is still just getting started, but it showed tremendous progress this past year.
EV Sales Up, Driven By Cheap Lease Deals And Discounts—But Depreciation Is High
Don't let those doom-and-gloom headlines fool you: 2024 was an excellent year for EV sales. They're up to 10% of new car sales in the U.S. now, 25% in California, almost 20% in Europe and 50% in China. This is the fastest growing segment for new cars, whether the critics like it or not.
And in the U.S., a lot of that was driven by ultra-affordable lease deals pushed by both the automakers and a loophole in the Inflation Reduction Act that gives any EV the full $7,500 tax credit when it's leased. This is how I picked up my own Kia EV6, by the way. Almost 80% of new EVs sold this year were leases.
At the same time, we all thought this might be unsustainable long-term, especially when you consider the costs that automakers and dealers were eating to get people to go electric. And depreciation is still a huge problem for EV owners thanks to Tesla's price cuts dragging down the whole market.
What happens in two or three years when all these EVs, with older software and technology and CCS plugs, start to flood the market? That's anyone's guess.
The EV Transition Meets The Trump 2.0 Era
But so much of what you read above, in America at least, was defined by the Biden administration's aggressive climate goals. Now someone with polar-opposite policies is entering the White House, and his alliance with Musk is no guarantee that things like EV tax credits or manufacturing incentives will survive. So will Trump's policies kill EV momentum and give automakers a pass to pivot back to gas-powered cars, leaving them even more vulnerable to China's electric surge?
Nobody knows for sure, but that will be the defining story of 2025. EV advocates had better hope that the politicians in red and purple states seeing copious manufacturing investments to make these cars and batteries can convince the Trump White House not to backtrack on everything.
Even though 2024 was a frenzied and tumultuous year for an industry in transition, it'll be junior-varsity compared to what's coming in 2025. We'll see you there.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
