Car dealers concerned over weak EV demand
- More than one million EVs were sold nationwide in 2023: Report
- Dealer concern: EV sales are slowing while supply is rising
- Expert: Manufacturers can build them, doesn't mean people will buy them
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PLANO, Texas (NewsNation) — Some car dealers across the country are expressing concern about what they are calling a weak demand for electric vehicles.
Despite reaching a milestone of more than one million EVs sold nationwide in all of 2023, some dealers say they can’t get them off their lots.
There may be more EVs on the road than any time before, but sales are slowing and supply is rising based on pressure from the government. Now, dealers are getting squeezed.
Ray Huffines, the owner of Huffines Auto Dealership in Texas, has been selling cars his whole life, following his father’s footsteps who opened the shop nearly a century ago.
If there’s one thing he knows, it’s the ins and outs of consumer demand. He said that while they don’t want cars to sit on the lot for too long, it’s possible.
“It’s a supply and demand issue,” Huffines said.
More than one million EVs were sold nationwide in 2023, according to a recent BloombergNEF report — the highest recorded so far.
But it’s a demand that Huffines just isn’t seeing.
“It’s the government that’s really pushing this. They have this corporate average fuel economy and they keep raising that to the level where the manufacturers must sell EVs in order to meet that,” Huffines said.
He continued, “If they don’t meet it, then they have to pay fines. Yet, the demand is not there. The manufacturers can build them, but that doesn’t mean the people will buy them.”
Huffines and other dealers then end up in the middle of that.
The Biden administration has set a goal that half of all new car sales be electric by 2030.
As time goes on, those in the auto industry believe improvements in features and prices will help supply and demand differences eventually even out.
“There isn’t zero demand, there’s plenty of demand. But automakers overdid it when it came to predicting the take rate for these cars. So now they have too many. And we’re already seeing electric vehicle prices come down,” Auto Trader executive editor Brian Moody said.
Another element of this is the tax credits, which can be complicated and can change.
Just this week, some models are no longer eligible for a $7,500 tax credit under the Inflation Reduction Act.
