It' really sad to see the US falling further behind in EV development. On a global basis, it's reported that one in 4 new cars are now EVs. The NYT posed the question
“The way I’d put it,” the auto journalist Martin Padgett told me recently, “is that we pulled a U-turn while the rest of the world was pushing forward.”
"According to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based policy group, one of every four vehicles sold globally in 2025 was battery-powered. Analysts with Bloomberg have predicted that in the next decade, that number will more than double, putting gas-powered cars — for the first time ever — in the minority of overall new vehicle sales. Overseas, Asian and European manufacturers have spent years preparing for this eventuality, dumping billions into the development of battery technology. With predictable results: China now makes 75 percent of all E.V.s sold anywhere on earth. (The United States makes around 5 percent.) Many of those vehicles are produced by BYD, a Chinese company that recently became the largest manufacturer of battery-powered cars in the world.
“Already, the technological gap is getting dangerously wide,” says Stephen Ezell, a senior economist with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, or I.T.I.F., a Washington-based nonprofit. “Today, China can get a new E.V. from blueprint to launch about 33 percent faster than a U.S. company, give or take. But that will accelerate, right? The speed of innovation, the speed of the production cycles at these foreign companies, is just going to get faster and faster. And at some point, the gap will get pretty close to fully impossible for American automakers to close.”"
manufacturingatmit.substack.com
“The American EV Has Been Crushed. Will it Take Down the US Auto Industry With it?”
The industry did a very costly about face in the past year and a half. It's questionable whether it will survive. Detroit produces no sedans, the staple of fleet and rental car sales. Locally, over half of the cars I see on the road are not US made. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is moving rapidly to EVs. With high fuel prices, this can't happen soon enough. But US car manufacturers pulled the plug on EVs in early 2025.“The way I’d put it,” the auto journalist Martin Padgett told me recently, “is that we pulled a U-turn while the rest of the world was pushing forward.”
"According to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based policy group, one of every four vehicles sold globally in 2025 was battery-powered. Analysts with Bloomberg have predicted that in the next decade, that number will more than double, putting gas-powered cars — for the first time ever — in the minority of overall new vehicle sales. Overseas, Asian and European manufacturers have spent years preparing for this eventuality, dumping billions into the development of battery technology. With predictable results: China now makes 75 percent of all E.V.s sold anywhere on earth. (The United States makes around 5 percent.) Many of those vehicles are produced by BYD, a Chinese company that recently became the largest manufacturer of battery-powered cars in the world.
“Already, the technological gap is getting dangerously wide,” says Stephen Ezell, a senior economist with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, or I.T.I.F., a Washington-based nonprofit. “Today, China can get a new E.V. from blueprint to launch about 33 percent faster than a U.S. company, give or take. But that will accelerate, right? The speed of innovation, the speed of the production cycles at these foreign companies, is just going to get faster and faster. And at some point, the gap will get pretty close to fully impossible for American automakers to close.”"
Manufacturing Update - 12 August 2026
Insights from articles and reports, excerpted and summarized, of interest on manufacturing technology, management, policy, and economics in the US and abroad.
manufacturingatmit.substack.com
