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Federal electric vehicle subsidies have now ended, and EVs have just had their best quarter, with market share for the quarter approaching 10%. Those battery-electric vehicle (BEV) shoppers who wanted a new EV in 2025 have already purchased one. Starting in October, we will see EV deliveries plummet, and EV share will start to trend down steadily until it reaches an approximate 5% market share, roughly that of 2021 and 2022. This is not just conjecture based on observed buying patterns, though that is definitely part of how this prediction can be made. Rather, it is also an observation of how automakers have pulled back on production and future EV models in the U.S. market. They cannot sell what they do not produce. Let’s start our analysis by looking at the EV models that automakers have outright canceled recently.
Ford EV Cancelation
Ford canceled a three-row electric SUV it had planned to build for the U.S. market and swallowed a massive loss on the failed model to prevent even worse losses if it had continued forward. This announcement came last fall. Ford’s announcement said in part,
Ford plans to leverage hybrid technologies for its next three-row SUVs. As a result of this
decision, the company will take a special non-cash charge of about $400 million for the writedown of certain product-specific manufacturing assets for the previously planned all-electric
three-row SUVs, which Ford will no longer produce.
“We’re committed to creating long-term value by building a competitive and profitable business, said John Lawler, Ford vice chair and chief financial officer. “With pricing and margin compression, we’ve made the decision to adjust our product and technology roadmap and industrial footprint to meet our goal of reaching positive EBIT within the first 12 months of launch for all new models.” Included in that roadmap is a low-cost small pickup truck that will be battery electric. Ford has not given up on EVs, but the company foresaw changes to the market in 2024 that meant big, pricey EVs could not be profitable for Ford.
Nissan EV Cancelation
No automaker has more experience creating affordable EVs for the U.S. market than Nissan. It’s Leaf enters its third generation soon, and Nissan is continuing to price it at the bottom of the market. Unfortunately, its upscale Ariya has now been given the axe. Like almost all EV models sold in America, the Ariya struggled to maintain a 2,000-unit-per-month pace of deliveries. Only the halo car GT-R and the niche sports car Nissan Z were sold in lower volumes in Q2, unless you count the Leaf, which barely sells. We’ve heard conflicting reports as to how many Leafs Nissan plans to produce for the coming year. We’d be surprised if it is more than about 1,000 units per month.
Acura Cancels Its EV
Acura has multiple relatively slow-moving vehicles in its lineup, but they share so much with the Honda line it is easy to see how they make sense as upscale versions of the similar Hondas. The ADX was so much lower in delivery volume than Acura’s other models it stuck out like a sore thumb. The ADX was produced in partnership with GM, and it shared 90% of its parts with GM products. Acura axed the ADX just as the subsidies ended. This one surprised nobody. Acura will continue on without an EV, now that the looming government EV mandates have been set aside for at least three more years.
Ram Cancels Its BEV Truck
Stellantis had been making a strong push toward EVs in its various brands. We tested the Dodge Charger Daytona and found a lot to like. However, it has not done well. Ram was the first brand in the Stellantis group to outright cancel an EV, ditching plans to build a BEV called the Rev. It will instead be hybrid and gas-powered, at least as of the last news we heard. Ram was wise to ditch the battery-only Rev. EV trucks are an abject failure in America, with no manufacturer having any meaningful deliveries.
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Bentley Cancels Its EV Models
Who knew Bentley had an EV? I honestly would not know a Bentley if it ran over my toe, but apparently, the company had an EV program. Bentley is part of the VW group, and the local reporting we’ve read says that VW killed the support for the high-end EV Bentley EV.
EV Models We Suspect Will Fade Away
Despite earning a lot of great reviews, including ones I myself have written, EVs are a failure in the marketplace. This does not mean they are not fast, efficient, satisfying, or even thrilling to drive. Many extremely low-volume EVs, like Rivian’s R1T, for example, earn extremely high owner satisfaction scores. The problem is that there are just not many buyers interested in owning them.
We’d watch for the EV trucks now marketed in America to go away first. Delivery volumes are so low that, short of outright government mandates, there is simply no reason to burn through cash to support vehicles that consumers don’t want to buy. GM, Rivian, and Ford can’t keep selling a handful of EV trucks per month forever. Once the bean counters are given their turn to speak, we suspect that most, if not all, the EV pickup trucks will leave the U.S. market. As it is, they are niche, super-pricey toys being used primarily by wealthy buyers and a handful of municipalities in areas where fleets will pick up EVs to satisfy the local government’s wishes. Neither of these scenarios justifies their existence.
Following the trucks, watch for the car-like EVs to start to drop out. The Model 3 is so darn good that there is little sense in trying to compete with it. The jelly-bean crossovers on long wheelbases will hang on the longest, and manufacturers will start to consolidate their EV budgets of dollars, factory space, and manpower on a single EV model or two.
Companies like GM and the Genesis/Kia/Hyundai group will likely hang in for the long haul, since they can spread out one platform across multiple brands and even multiple body shapes. Toyota and Subaru were reluctant players in the U.S. EV market, and they have just launched their next generation of BEVs together. Those won’t be immediately canceled, but we suspect the combination of both brands’ use of the shared platform will settle in at about 3,000 units per month.
Feel free to tell us we are wrong and that our mothers dress us funny in the comments section below. We welcome an expansion of this topic and would love to hear what our readers think will happen with U.S. EV models in 2026 and beyond.
John Goreham is the Vice President of the New England Motor Press Association and an expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on LinkedIn and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John’s by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.
All images by John Goreham
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Source: torquenews.com
