Live by the mandate, die by the mandate.

[In 2021, Ford] announced a joint venture with SK to build a pair of battery factories, one in Kentucky, the other in Tennessee. BlueOvalSK represented an $11.4 billion investment that would create 11,000 jobs, we were told, and an annual output of 60 GWh from both plants.

Four years later, things look very different. EV subsidies are dead, as is any inclination by the current government to hold automakers accountable for selling too many gas guzzlers. EV-heavy product plans have been thrown out, and designs for new combustion-powered cars are being dusted off and spiffed up. Fewer EVs means a lower need for batteries, and today we saw that in evidence when it emerged that Ford and SK On are ending their battery factory joint venture.

China’s EV Market Is Imploding

In China, you can buy a heavily discounted “used” electric car that has never, in fact, been used. Chinese automakers, desperate to meet their sales targets in a bitterly competitive market, sell cars to dealerships, which register them as “sold,” even though no actual customer has bought them. Dealers, stuck with officially sold cars, then offload them as “used,” often at low prices. The practice has become so prevalent that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to stop it. Its main newspaper, The People’s Daily, complained earlier this year that this sales-inflating tactic “disrupts normal market order,” and criticized companies for their “data worship.”

This sign of serious problems in China’s electric-vehicle industry may come as a surprise to many Americans. The Chinese electric car has become a symbol of the country’s seemingly unstoppable rise on the world stage. Many observers point to their growing popularity as evidence that China is winning the race to dominate new technologies. But in China, these electric cars represent something entirely different: the profound threats that Beijing’s meddling in markets poses to both China and the world.

Bloated by excessive investment, distorted by government intervention, and plagued by heavy losses, China’s EV industry appears destined for a crash. EV companies are locked in a cutthroat struggle for survival. Wei Jianjun, the chairman of the Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor, warned in May that China’s car industry could tumble into a financial crisis; it “just hasn’t erupted yet.”

It’s hard to comprehend why consumers would reject a truck with an 80 mile towing range, unless you get your news from Ars Technica, where you won’t find it mentioned at all.

When Ford electrified its bestselling pickup truck, it pulled out all the stops. The F-150 Lightning may look virtually identical to other versions of the pickup, but it’s smoother, faster, and obviously far, far more efficient than the ones that run on gas, diesel, or hybrid power. But the future of the country’s bestselling electric truck may be in doubt.

That’s according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, which claims that Ford’s management is “in active discussions about scrapping” the Lightning. Production had already been suspended a few weeks ago due to an aluminum shortage following a destructive fire at a supplier’s factory in New York, which Ford estimates may result in as much as $2 billion in losses to the company.[…]

Ford was the first of the domestic automakers to bring a full-size pickup EV to market. But like General Motors, it has found that pickup truck customers have not flocked to electric propulsion in anything like the numbers predicted pre-pandemic. As we learned last week, GM has also scaled back its EV production, and last month Stellantis announced that it has ceased development of an all-electric version of its Ram 1500.