Excerpt from theverge.com
The auto industry is going electric. We know because they’ve been telling us, over and over, in earnings calls, virtual events, podcast interviews, and in many television commercials. (Hi, Malcolm Gladwell!) Gone will be the dirty internal combustion engines of yesteryear, replaced by zero-tailpipe emission electric vehicles. The future is here, and it probably has a light bar.
The spotlight is on the auto industry like never before. President Joe Biden, who is spearheading a plan to spend billions of dollars on EV charging infrastructure and new incentives for car buyers, has test driven not one but two electric pickup trucks this year. Car companies are under enormous pressure to help usher in this electric future. And they know it.
“The transition to EVs is both happening far later than many people had hoped for and far faster than most legacy [automakers] expected two or three years ago,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst for electric mobility at Guidehouse Insights. He argues that car companies have been “downplaying” the prospect of mass adoption of electric vehicles for years, sitting back while Tesla soaked up market share. Now, EV sales are way up, Tesla is one of the most valuable companies in history, and the entire auto industry finally sees there’s profit in plug-in cars.