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Rivian Will Delay Construction of a $5 Billion Factory in Georgia

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The money-losing electric vehicle company, which makes vans, trucks and S.U.V.s, is trying to preserve cash as it works to produce and sell more affordable vehicles.Rivian, a young electric vehicle company, said on Thursday that it was halting construction of a new factory in Georgia. The company also announced two new models, one of which will now be produced at its plant in Illinois.The company had nearly completed preparing the roughly 2,000-acre site in Georgia that is about 50 miles east of Atlanta, and it was expecting to break ground on the $5 billion plant this year.But the growth of electric vehicle sales has slowed in the past six months, forcing many automakers to reassess their plans for new factories and models.Rivian said delaying the Georgia plant would save it about $2.25 billion, a large sum from a business that has been losing billions of dollars for several years. The company said it was committed to building the plant but did not say when it hoped to restart construction.“Our Georgia site remains really important to us,” Rivian’s chief executive, R.J. Scaringe, said at an event on Thursday where he unveiled two new sport-utility vehicles. “It’s core to scaling across all these vehicles.”One of the S.U.V.s, called the R2, is a five-passenger vehicle that is expected to be available in the first half of 2026. Originally, the R2 was supposed to be the first vehicle produced in Georgia. Shifting production to Normal, Ill., where the company has an operating factory, will allow Rivian to begin delivering the vehicle to customers sooner, Mr. Scaringe said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.A.W. Expands Strike to a Ram Plant in Michigan

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    The United Automobile Workers union called on 6,800 workers to walk off the job at a large factory that makes one of Stellantis’s most profitable vehicles.In a major escalation of its six-week strike at the three large U.S. automakers, the United Automobile Workers union on Monday told 6,800 workers at a large Ram pickup truck plant in Michigan to walk off the job.Union workers at the Sterling Heights plant, which is owned by Stellantis, the parent of Ram, Chrysler and Jeep, joined the strike on Monday morning. Shutting down production at the plant, the largest Stellantis factory in the United States, suggests there are still big gaps in contract negotiations between the automakers and the U.A.W., which is seeking raises of 40 percent over four years, better retirement benefits and other changes.The union’s strategy in this strike is a departure from its past practice of striking all locations of one automaker before beginning negotiations with the next automaker. This time, the union started with a strike at one plant at each of the three carmakers — Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis — and has expanded them to other factories and warehouses to increase the pressure on companies that it said were not doing enough to improve their offers.The new approach has kept the automakers off balance because they don’t know when or where the union will walk out next. It is also a way for the union to play the companies off one another. The union’s president, Shawn Fain, has offered side-by-side comparisons of the three companies’ offers on wages, retirement benefits and other negotiating terms in online videos.On Friday, General Motors put forward a more lucrative contract proposal. By calling for the strike at the Sterling Heights plant, the U.A.W. is trying to pressure Stellantis into at least matching the terms that G.M. offered.“Stellantis has the worst proposal on the table regarding wage progression, temporary worker pay and conversion to full-time, cost-of-living adjustments, and more,” the U.A.W. said in a statement on Monday.In its offer, G.M. proposed raising workers’ wages by 23 percent over four years. That would lift the wage for all full-time workers from $32 an hour to more than $40, giving them a base pay of about $84,000 a year, not including overtime or profit-sharing bonuses.The walkout at the Ram plant is the first escalation in the strike since the U.A.W. called 8,700 workers to leave their jobs at Ford’s largest plant, in Louisville, Ky., on Oct. 11. That plant produces the Super Duty version of the popular F-series pickup trucks and the Ford Expedition, a full-size sport utility vehicle.In a statement, Stellantis said the company was “outraged” by the expansion of the strike, noting that it made a comprehensive new proposal to the union on Thursday morning and was waiting for a counterproposal from the U.A.W.“Our very strong offer would address member demands and provide immediate financial gains for our employees,” the company said. “Instead, the U.A.W. has decided to cause further harm to the entire automotive industry as well as our local, state and national economies.”U.A.W. members were already on strike at one other Stellantis plant, a factory in Toledo, Ohio, that makes the Jeep Wrangler and the Jeep Gladiator. The union has also struck 20 Stellantis spare-parts distribution warehouses around the country.Where Autoworkers Are Walking Out More

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    Ford Says It Won’t Raise Its Contract Offer to U.A.W.

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    The company said it had reached the limit of what it could offer to the United Automobile Workers union, which has expanded its strike to Ford’s largest plant.Ford Motor said on Thursday that it could not improve its contract offer to the United Automobile Workers union without hurting its business and its ability to invest in electric vehicles.The automaker also said the union’s decision to expand its strike to Ford’s largest factory, the Kentucky Truck Plant, would probably hurt workers at other factories and lead to layoffs across the auto industry.“We are very clear,” Kumar Galhotra, president of the Ford division that makes combustion engine vehicles, said in a conference call with reporters. “We are at the limit. Any more will stretch our ability to invest in the business.”The U.A.W. is negotiating new labor contracts with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler and Jeep. The union’s members have struck selected plants and parts warehouses owned by the three companies. On Wednesday, its talks with Ford broke down, and the union responded by calling on the 8,700 U.A.W. workers at Kentucky Truck to walk off the job.“If the companies are not going to come to the table and take care of the membership’s needs, then we will react,” the U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain, said in an online video after the strike in Kentucky was announced.Production at the plant, in Louisville, stopped Wednesday evening. The factory makes the Super Duty versions of Ford’s F-Series pickup trucks as well as the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator full-size sport utility vehicles.On its own, the Kentucky Truck plant generates about 16 percent of Ford’s revenue. On a typical day, a new vehicle rolls off its assembly line every 37 seconds.The plant is so large that a prolonged idling will probably cause stoppages and layoffs at up to 13 other Ford plants that make engines, transmission and axles. Factories owned by the 600 suppliers that provide parts for Ford could also have to lay off workers, Mr. Galhotra said.“This goes way beyond just hitting Ford’s profits,” he said.The U.A.W. is seeking a substantial increase in wages as well as a cost-of-living provision, an expanded retirement plan, improved retiree health care benefits and job security as automakers make the transition to producing electric vehicles. It also wants to end a system in which new hires start at a little more than half the top U.A.W. wage of $32 an hour.Ford has offered to increase wages 23 percent over four years, adjust wages in response to inflation and cut the time for new hires to rise to the top wage, to four years from eight.The U.A.W. went into a negotiating session on Wednesday expecting Ford to sweeten its offer, according to the union. Mr. Galhotra said Ford was prepared to discuss adjustments to its existing offer but not to make a completely new proposal.The differences became clear quickly, and Mr. Fain instructed Ford workers at the Kentucky plant to strike, union and company officials said. Mr. Fain and other union negotiators left the meeting minutes after it started.“Unfortunately, we had to escalate our action,” Mr. Fain said in his video. “We came here today to get another offer from Ford, and they gave us the same exact offer as two weeks ago.” More

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    G.M. Reaches Deal With Canadian Union

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    General Motors and the Unifor union reached an agreement hours after more than 4,000 workers went on strike on Tuesday.General Motors and a Canadian union, Unifor, reached a tentative deal on a new contract on Tuesday, ending a short-lived strike by more than 4,000 workers that began earlier in the day.The deal includes the same raises and other terms that Unifor had agreed to last month with Ford Motor, including a 20 percent wage increase for production workers over three years and a 25 percent raise for skilled trades workers.The contract must be ratified by Unifor members before it can take effect. Workers at Ford’s Canadian operation have ratified their contract.Work was expected to restart at the three G.M. plants and distribution centers that were struck on Tuesday afternoon.This agreement “recognizes the many contributions of our represented team members with significant increases in wages, benefits and job security while building on G.M.’s historic investments in Canadian manufacturing,” the company said in a statement.The tentative deal was reached after nearly 4,300 Unifor workers walked off the job at midnight on Tuesday at three locations in Ontario: a vehicle assembly plant and stamping site in Oshawa that makes the company’s popular Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck; a plant in St. Catharines that supplies engines and transmissions to G.M. factories around the world; and a parts distribution center in Woodstock.Unifor had been pushing G.M. to accept the same terms as those in the Ford contract, a practice known as pattern bargaining that the automakers and their unions have long used.“When faced with the shutdown of these key facilities, General Motors had no choice but to get serious at the table and agree to the pattern,” Unifor’s national president, Lana Payne, said in a statement. “The solidarity of our members has led to a comprehensive tentative agreement that follows the pattern set at Ford Motor Company to the letter.”Ford’s agreement with Unifor, in addition to wage increases, provides productivity bonuses, higher entry-level wages, improved pensions, cost-of-living allowances and other improvements. G.M. also agreed to convert all temporary workers into permanent employees over the life of the agreement.Workers at G.M.’s CAMI Assembly Plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, are covered by a separate contract and did not go on strike on Tuesday. Unifor represents 315,000 workers in a variety of industries.In the United States, the United Automobile Workers union is on strike at a G.M. pickup truck plant in Missouri, a sport-utility plant in Michigan and parts warehouses around the country. The U.A.W. has also struck two Ford plants. At Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Jeep and Ram vehicles, union members have struck one factory and 20 parts warehouses.Altogether, about 25,000 of the 150,000 U.A.W. members employed by the three automakers are on strike. Like Unifor, the U.A.W. is seeking a substantial increase in wages, pensions for a greater number of workers, and a shorter time to move up to the top wage level.Talks began in July, and the strike began on Sept. 15, when the current labor contracts with the companies expired. More

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    Battle Over Electric Vehicles Is Central to Auto Strike

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    Carmakers are anxious to keep costs down as they ramp up electric vehicle manufacturing, while striking workers want to preserve jobs as the industry shifts to batteries.A battle between Detroit carmakers and the United Auto Workers union, which escalated on Friday with targeted strikes in three locations, is unfolding amid a once-in-a-century technological upheaval that poses huge risks for both the companies and the union.The strike has come as the traditional automakers invest billions to develop electric vehicles while still making most of their money from gasoline-driven cars. The negotiations will determine the balance of power between workers and management, possibly for years to come. That makes the strike as much a struggle for the industry’s future as it is about wages, benefits and working conditions.The established carmakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — are trying to defend their profits and their place in the market in the face of stiff competition from Tesla and foreign automakers. Some executives and analysts have characterized what is happening in the industry as the biggest technological transformation since Henry Ford’s moving assembly line started up at the beginning of the 20th century.Nearly 13,000 U.A.W. workers walked off the job at three plants in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri on Friday after talks between the unions and the companies in three separate negotiations failed to result in agreements before a Thursday deadline. Pay is one of the biggest sticking points: The union is demanding a 40 percent pay increase over four years but the automakers have offered roughly half as much.But the talks are about more than pay. Workers are trying to defend jobs as manufacturing shifts from internal combustion engines to batteries. Because they have fewer parts, electric cars can be made with fewer workers than gasoline vehicles. A favorable outcome for the U.A.W. would also give the union a strong calling card if, as some expect, it then tries to organize employees at Tesla and other nonunion carmakers like Hyundai, which is planning to manufacture electric vehicles at a massive new factory in Georgia.“The transition to E.V.s is dominating every bit of this discussion,” said John Casesa, senior managing director at the investment firm Guggenheim Partners who previously headed strategy at Ford Motor.“It’s unspoken,” Mr. Casesa added. “But really, it’s all about positioning the union to have a central role in the new electric industry.”Under pressure from government officials and changing consumer demand, Ford, G.M. and Stellantis are investing billions to retool their sprawling operations to build electric vehicles, which are critical to addressing climate change. But they are making little if any profit on those vehicles while Tesla, which dominates electric car sales, is profitable and growing fast.Ford said in July that its electric vehicle business would lose $4.5 billion this year. If the union got all the increases in pay, pensions and other benefits it is seeking, the company said, its workers’ total compensation would be twice as much as Tesla’s employees.Union demands would force Ford to scrap its investments in electric vehicles, Jim Farley, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview on Friday. “We want to actually have a conversation about a sustainable future,” he said, “not one that forces us to choose between going out of business and rewarding our workers.”Attendees at the Detroit Auto Show looking at a 2024 Chevy Silverado EV in Detroit this past week. Talk of the autoworkers’ strike loomed over the show.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesFor workers, the biggest concern is that electric vehicles have far fewer parts than gasoline models and will render many jobs obsolete. Plants that make mufflers, catalytic converters, fuel injectors and other components that electric cars don’t need will have to be overhauled or shut down.Many new battery and electric vehicle factories are springing up and could employ workers from the plants that have shut down. But automakers are building most aggressively in the South where labor laws are tilted against union organizers, rather than in the Midwest, where the U.A.W. has more clout. One of the union’s demands is that workers in the new factories be covered by the automakers’ national labor contracts — a demand that the automakers have said they can’t meet because those plants are owned by joint ventures. The union also wants to regain the right to strike to block plant shutdowns.“We are at the dawn of another industrial revolution and the way we’re going is the way we went in the last industrial revolution — a lot of profit for a few and misery and not good jobs for the many,” said Madeline Janis, executive director of Jobs to Move America, an advocacy group that works closely with the U.A.W. and other unions.“The U.A.W. is really taking a stand for communities across the country to make sure this transition benefits everybody,” Ms. Janis added.Automakers have been racking up record profits during the last decade, but they cannot afford to lose time from work stoppages in their race to compete with Tesla and foreign automakers.The three companies are already struggling to get their electric vehicle business going. A new G.M. battery factory in Ohio has been slow to produce batteries, delaying electric versions of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup and other vehicles. Ford this year had to suspend production of its electric F-150 Lightning in February after a battery caught fire in one of the pickups that was parked near the factory for a quality check. And Stellantis won’t even begin selling any fully electric vehicles in the United States until next year.Those problems and Tesla’s growing sales could put the union in a strong position to extract a good deal.On Thursday, in a sign that automakers are willing to go much further than they had previously, G.M. offered a 20 percent pay raise over four years. That is half of what the union is seeking but far more than workers received in recent contracts. President Biden on Friday strongly supported the union in remarks at the White House. The administration has been pouring billions into programs to promote electric vehicles and does not want a strike to delay a centerpiece of its climate policy.Despite all the money that automakers have made in recent years, their executives express a profound unease about the growth of electric vehicles, which account for 7 percent of the U.S. new car market so far this year and are on track to surpass sales of one million this year. Managers are acutely aware that traditional companies like theirs have a poor track record of retaining dominance after a big change in technology. Witness the way that Apple sidelined Nokia and Motorola as cellphones became smartphones.Auto company executives and most industry analysts underestimated how quickly electric vehicles would catch on and cannot confidently forecast how sales, which have been bumpy lately, will grow in the future. “I don’t think anyone can perfectly predict what the adoption will be,” Mary T. Barra, the chief executive of General Motors, said in an interview with The New York Times last month.Speaking to “CBS Mornings” on Friday, Ms. Barra said an excessive pay raise would undermine G.M.’s ability to continue producing vehicles with internal combustion engines while also developing electric vehicles. “This is a critical juncture where investing is very important,” she said.Still, unions and their supporters are unlikely to express much sympathy for auto executives. Ms. Barra and the leaders of Ford (Jim Farley) and Stellantis (Carlos Tavares) have gotten tens of millions of dollars in compensation packages in recent years. The companies’ shareholders have been rewarded with dividends and share buybacks.Unions “are not going to have a lot of patience for sob stories,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars.com, an online marketplace.Adjusted for inflation, wages for autoworkers in the United States have fallen 19 percent since 2008, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group.At the same time, union officials are aware of the changes in the industry and have said they do not want to handicap G.M., Ford and Stellantis as the companies try to recover ground they have lost to Tesla, which has aggressively resisted attempts to unionize its factories. The Detroit carmakers also face challengers like Rivian, a start-up that makes electric pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles in Illinois, as well as foreign-owned rivals like Mercedes-Benz and Toyota, whose U.S. factories, mostly in the South, are not unionized.“That’s the biggest challenge here,” Mr. Brauer added, “trying to commit to a long-term contract in an industry that is very uncertain and unpredictable over the next five years.”Union supporters say it would be wrong to blame workers if the traditional carmakers cannot compete with Tesla and other rivals.“If you look at the breakdown at what it costs to build an E.V., labor is a very small part of the equation. Batteries are the most,” Ms. Janis of Jobs to Move America said. “This idea that the U.A.W. is going to price Ford, G.M. and Stellantis out of the market is not true.”But other analysts said that a long work stoppage could help Tesla and foreign automakers gain ground on G.M., Ford and Stellantis.“If something happens to disrupt their business, does that give a leg up to the emerging electric vehicle makers?” said Steve Patton, who overseas the consulting firm EY’s work with auto companies. “Who stands to benefit if there is a protracted strike?” More

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    A Spirited Start to the U.A.W. Strike at a Ford Plant Near Detroit

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    Rodney Cornett got up at 4:30 a.m. on Friday, hopped in his F-150 pickup and reported as usual for a morning shift at the Ford Motor plant in Wayne, a gritty city just west of Detroit.But this morning Mr. Cornett, 56, a veteran union member who has worked at Ford for 28 years, wasn’t heading to the axle assembly area where he’s a team leader. Instead, his work was putting in six hours on the picket line with a dozen co-workers at the plant’s Gate 1 as part of the strike called by the United Auto Workers late Thursday.“We really haven’t had much of a raise in 15 years,” Mr. Cornett said, holding a sign that read, “Fair Pay Now!” while cars and trucks constantly whizzed by, honking in support of the strikers. “We’ve gone through several contracts, and the company keeps saying how they’re hurting, but they’re making record profits. It can’t be the status quo.”The U.A.W. has been negotiating a new labor contract with the three Detroit automakers, but since the sides remain far apart on wages and most other issues, the union called a strike that began when the current bargaining agreement expired at midnight.In a first, the U.A.W. is striking against all three manufacturers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — but has limited the stoppages to one plant at each of the companies. At Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, only the 3,300 workers in the assembly area and paint shop have walked off the line, but that is enough to idle the factory.Dottie Lenard, center, with her sister Gail Spring, left, and daughter Rebeccah Lenard. They were on strike on Friday in Wayne.Shantell Johnson works at the Ford plant.All 5,800 U.A.W. workers at Stellantis’s Jeep complex in Toledo, Ohio, and 3,600 union members at G.M.’s pickup truck factory in Wentzville, Mo., also went on strike.While limited, the strike will have an impact on the automakers. The affected vehicles are among their most popular and profitable. The Ford plant makes the Bronco, a rugged sport utility vehicle, and is preparing to make a new version of the Ranger pickup. Jeep makes its Gladiator and Wrangler models in Toledo. The G.M. plant produces the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups.The U.A.W.’s president, Shawn Fain, said the union could extend the strike to additional plants if the talks failed to produce an agreement. “That will supercharge the leverage we have in negotiations, and will create confusion for the companies,” he said in a video streamed on Facebook on Thursday night.Mr. Fain joined workers outside the Ford plant in Wayne after the strike began at midnight. The union broke off discussions with the companies for a day but said it expected the talks to resume on Saturday.The union has demanded wage increases of 40 percent over the next four years, roughly the same pay gains the chief executives of the three companies have seen over the last four years.A U.A.W. member who isn’t on strike showed support for the walkout at the Wayne plant, which produces the Bronco sport utility vehicle and is preparing to make a new version of the Ranger pickup. Among its other demands, the union wants to end a pay scale where new hires make about a third less than the veteran wage of $32 an hour and have to work eight years before reaching the top of the pay scale. It also wants the companies to pay for health insurance for retirees, offer more paid time off and provide pensions for workers who now have only 401(k) savings accounts for retirement.The companies have offered wage increases of roughly 20 percent but have denied most of the union’s other wishes.At the Ford plant, several strikers said a raise of 30 percent or more was needed to make up for concessions that the union had to make in previous years to help the automakers survive the 2007-8 financial crisis.Jason Vinson, 42, a forklift driver, started as a temporary worker in 2007 making about $17 an hour, then worked his way up to $25 until he was laid off. When he was rehired in 2012, he had to start over at $17 an hour, he said.“I had to get used to it, just pay the necessities,” he said with a shrug. Now he earns $32 an hour, he said, but thinks a substantial raise is warranted because of the profits his plant generates and the sacrifices he made in the past.The strikers, many wearing red T-shirts, waved placards and acknowledged honks of support from passing motorists. The picketing is being conducted in six-hour shifts; the plan is for union members to take on one shift per week.Drawing on a strike fund of $825 million, the union will pay the striking workers $500 a week and cover their health insurance premium. That helps, but still puts some workers in a pinch.The union is demanding 40 percent raises over the next four years.Lisa Bell at the Ford plant in Wayne.“I’m getting rid of my cable TV,” said Diana Osborne, 42, an assembly worker who has worked for Ford for 16 years. And her 18-year old daughter, who just enlisted in the National Guard, has offered to lend her money if things get really tight.Mr. Cornett, the team leader in axle assembly, makes $32 an hour but said he fretted about sending his son to college. If he works 40 hour a week, he will earn about $67,000 a year. “There’s college, plus property taxes are going up, the price of gas is through the roof,” he lamented.Aside from a raise, the thing he wants is an end to the tiered wage system, under which newer workers and veterans are paid on different scales, saying it’s “disheartening” seeing colleagues doing the same work while making $22 or $24 an hour.“We all labor hard,” he said. “You have a precise amount of time to do your job on the line, and our jobs are timed to the second. When the line starts, it doesn’t stop until we go on break. A lot of new hires come in and they have aches and pains, the same aches and pains that I have, so they should get paid the same as me.” More

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    G.M.’s Sales Jumped 19% in the Second Quarter

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    General Motors, Toyota and other automakers sold more trucks and sport utility vehicles as supply chain problems eased and demand remained strong despite rising interest rates.Some of the country’s biggest automakers reported big sales increases for the second quarter on Wednesday, the strongest sign yet that the auto industry was bouncing back from parts shortages and overcoming the effects of higher interest rates.General Motors, the largest U.S. automaker, said it sold 691,978 vehicles from April to June, up 19 percent from a year earlier. It was the company’s highest quarterly total in more than two years.Automakers have struggled in the last two years with a shortage of computer chips that forced factory shutdowns and left dealers with few vehicles to sell. More recently, rising interest rates have made auto loans more expensive, causing some consumers to defer purchases or opt for used vehicles.“I’m not saying we are on the cusp of exciting growth here,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive, a research firm. “But we are now at a turning point where the auto market returns to more balance. It’s the beginning of returning to normal.”The easing of chip shortages has allowed automakers to restock dealer lots, making it easier for car buyers to find the models and features they want, Mr. Smoke said. At the end of June, dealers had about 1.8 million vehicles in stock, nearly 800,000 more than at the same point in 2022, according to Cox data.Sales have also been helped by strong job creation and rising wages, Mr. Smoke said.At the same time, however, higher interest rates and higher car prices have put new-car purchases out of reach of many consumers. In the first half of the year, the average price paid for a new vehicle was a near-record $48,564. The average interest rate paid on car loans in the first six months of 2023 was 7.09 percent, up from 4.86 percent a year earlier, according to Cox. The average monthly payment in the first half was $784, up from $691.“Demand will be limited by the level of prices and rates, which are not likely to come down enough to stimulate more demand than the market can bear,” Mr. Smoke said.Cox estimated that total sales of new cars and trucks rose 11.6 percent in the first half of the year, to 7.65 million. The firm now expects full-year sales to top 15 million, which would be a rise of 8 percent.Several automakers reported solid quarterly sales on Wednesday. Toyota said its U.S. sales rose 7 percent, to 568,962 cars and light trucks. Stellantis, the company that owns Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and other brands, reported a 6 percent rise, to 434,648 vehicles.Honda, which had been severely hampered by chip shortages, said its sales rose 45 percent to 347,025 cars and trucks. Hyundai and Kia, the South Korean automakers, each sold more than 210,000 vehicles, posting gains of 14 percent and 15 percent.Electric vehicles remain the fastest-growing segment of the auto industry. Rivian, a maker of electric pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, said on Monday that it delivered 12,640 in the second quarter, a 59 percent jump from a year earlier. And on Sunday, Tesla reported an 83 percent jump in global sales in the second quarter.Cox estimated that more than 500,000 electric vehicles were sold in the United States in the first six months of the year, and that more than one million would be sold in 2023, setting a record for battery-powered cars and trucks in the country.Tesla, which does not break out its sales by country, remains the largest seller of E.V.s in the U.S. market. Cox estimated that the company sold more than 161,000 electric cars in the second quarter in the United States. Ford Motor, which offers three fully electric models., reports its quarterly sales on Thursday.G.M. sold more 15,300 battery-powered cars and trucks, but nearly 14,000 were the Chevrolet Bolt, a smaller vehicle that the company will stop making at the end of the year. The company also sold 1,348 Cadillac Lyriq electric S.U.V.s and 47 GMC Hummer pickup trucks. Chevrolet will soon start delivering a new electric Silverado pickup truck, which uses the same battery technology as the Lyriq and Hummer. More

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    Ford Follows Tesla in Cutting Electric Vehicle Prices

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    The automaker reduced the price of the Mustang Mach-E by up to $5,900 after Tesla slashed prices of its cars by as much as 20 percent.Ford Motor said on Monday that it was cutting prices on its top-selling battery-powered model, the Mustang Mach-E, and increasing production of the sport utility vehicle. It was the latest sign of intensifying competition in the electric car market.Two weeks ago, Tesla slashed prices of its electric cars by as much as 20 percent in response to softening demand around the world.The price cuts for the two most affordable versions of the Mach-E amounted to less than $1,000 each. Other models, with longer-range batteries and premium options, were reduced $3,680 to $5,900, reductions of 6 percent to 9 percent.“We want to make E.V.s more accessible, so we’re increasing production and reducing prices across the Mach-E lineup,” Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, said on Twitter. He added that “with higher production, we’re reducing costs, which allows us to share these savings with customers.”The lowest-priced Mustang Mach-E — a rear-wheel-drive model with a standard battery — now has a list price of $45,995, a reduction of $900. The high-performance Mach-E GT with an extended-range battery now sells for $63,995, a cut of $5,900.Tesla’s least expensive car is the Model 3, which is smaller than the Mustang Mach-E and starts at $43,990. The all-wheel-drive Model Y, a more direct competitor of the electric Mustang, starts at $53,490. An all-wheel-drive Mustang Mach-E with comparable battery range now lists for $53,995.Electric vehicles priced below $55,000 can qualify for federal tax credits of $7,500 that were made available starting Jan. 1 under the Inflation Reduction Act. Ford’s price cuts will make more versions of the Mach-E eligible for the credit.Ford said the new prices would automatically apply to customers who had placed orders and were waiting for their cars. Ford’s credit division is also offering subsidized interest rates as low as 5.34 percent on Mach E orders placed between Jan. 30 and April 3.Tesla has long dominated the electric car market, which it largely had to itself until the last couple of years, but is increasingly encountering stiff competition. Its rate of growth has slowed in China, where its is now outsold by a local manufacturer, BYD. In addition to Ford, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Kia and other automakers have introduced electric models in the United States that are selling well and are generally cheaper than Tesla’s luxury models.In 2022, Ford sold just under 40,000 Mach-Es, about 45 percent more than in 2021. That made the Mach-E the third-best-selling electric model after Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3.For much of the last two years, Tesla, Ford and other automakers raised prices of electric vehicles because demand for battery-powered cars far outstripped supply. But demand for cars and other big-ticket goods has weakened in recent months as the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates significantly. Fed policymakers are expected to slow their rate increases at their first meeting of the year on Wednesday. More

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    Which Electric Vehicles Qualify for Federal Tax Credits?

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    Here is a partial list of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles that will qualify for federal tax credits in 2023.The Treasury Department on Thursday published a partial list of new electric and plug-in hybrid cars that will qualify for tax credits of up to $7,500. The list is expected to be updated over the coming days and weeks.The credits will apply to sedans that cost no more than $55,000 and sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks that cost up to $80,000. In addition, only buyers who earn less than $150,000 a year as an individual or $300,000 a year as a couple can claim the credits.The list could change in March, when new rules take effect that require automakers to use battery raw materials and components from North America or a trade ally. Those rules are still being formulated, and it’s not clear exactly when they will start to apply.Here are the cars on the list, by automaker:AudiQ5 TFSI e Quattro plug-in hybridFord MotorFord Escape Plug-in HybridFord E-TransitFord F-150 LightningFord Mustang Mach-ELincoln Aviator Grand Touring plug-in hybridLincoln Corsair Grand Touring plug-in hybridNissanLeafRivianR1TR1SStellantisChrysler Pacifica plug-in hybridJeep Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybridJeep Grand Cherokee 4xe plug-in hybridTeslaModel 3Model YVolkswagenID.4VolvoVolvo S60 plug-in hybrid More