In 2023, 46 percent of all franchise (i.e. not Tesla, Rivian, Vinfast, or Lucid) EV sales were leases, a trend that JD Power says it has seen through the first three quarters of 2024 as well. Once Tesla is included, about 30 percent of new EV sales this year have been leases. By contrast, fewer gasoline-powered cars are being leased each year since the start of the pandemic.
That means there will probably be a shortage of used ICE vehicles in 2025 and 2026. Used EVs might also be a little scarcer next year, JD Power says. It expects a 2 percent drop in the number of used EVs next year, but a 230 percent increase in 2026 as 215,000 cars end their leases.
JD Power also has some good news about new EV prices—they’re getting cheaper. The average price for a new electric compact SUV, once tax credits and manufacturer incentives are included, is $35,900, $12,700 less than the price in 2022 for the same class of vehicle.
As a candidate, Donald Trump had no love for EVs or foreign imports.
Expect bigger and less efficient trucks in the coming years. Credit: Emily Elconin/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Yesterday, Donald Trump won a second presidential term from American voters. His first term was marked, among other things, by attempts to water down environmental laws and regulations aimed at the auto industry. And as a candidate in 2024, Trump has promised plenty of disruption to the sector through both trade policy and an abrogation of the government’s commitment to fight climate change. Here are some of the more significant changes we think are coming.
Electric vehicle adoption
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was one of President Joe Biden’s signature policy achievements, part of a $450 billion climate package. One of its many sections revised the way we incentivize consumers to buy electric vehicles, with an update to the clean vehicle tax credit that requires final assembly in North America, as well as ever-increasing amounts of US-sourced battery components and minerals to be eligible.
But such policies are not loved by the Republican Party. During his first term, Trump repeatedly criticized EVs, saying that “all-electric is not going to work,” and he vociferously attacked EVs during his campaign, telling supporters at his party’s national convention in July that “I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” referring to a current White House goal to reach 50 percent EV adoption by 2030, and calling the most significant climate legislation ever “the new green scam.”
The Project 2025 policy document, developed by the Heritage Foundation in lieu of an official Republican Party manifesto, contains little affection for EVs. It says we should “respect the right of Americans to buy and drive cars of their own choosing rather than trying to force them into electric vehicles and eventually out of the driver’s seat altogether in favor of self-driving robots” and that the waiver given to the California Air Resource Board should only apply to that state and not the other 16 states and the District of Columbia, which currently abide by CARB’s emissions rules.
Indeed, the Trump campaign press secretary told journalists that California’s waiver would be “immediately revoked” if Trump returned to office.
As such, fuel efficiency rules set forth by the US Department of Energy and the US Environmental Protection Agency, which are meant to go into effect in two years, are almost certainly toast at this point. As we know, the previous Trump administration took an unorthodox approach to undermining existing fuel economy standards, sidelining the EPA in the process.
Given these facts, the future for electric vehicle adoption in the US now appears questionable, and it’s likely that OEMs—the American ones in particular—will return to their 2016–2020 playbook, which involved lots of supersized gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks, with less emphasis on the safety of pedestrians. As an example, Ford has been candid that its EV division is losing billions of dollars a year, and a second Trump administration may well empower shareholders to demand a more profitable allocation of those resources from the automakers in which they are invested.
For companies like Toyota and Stellantis, which lag behind European and Korean rivals when it comes to EVs, Trump’s election will no doubt give their product planners a small measure of relief.
The EV industry says it is ready to work with the incoming government “and all groups that want to ensure our nation’s innovation and economic competitiveness remain the best in the world. The next four years are critical to ensuring that these technologies are developed and deployed by American workers in American factories for generations—a goal that unites every state regardless of their electoral college votes,” said the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA).
“We encourage members of both parties to support policies that provide business and trade certainty so that EV manufacturers up and down the supply chain can unleash the next chapter of American automotive dominance. The United States’ global competitiveness depends on it,” ZETA said to Ars in a statement.
Tesla off the hook?
Tesla, however, should be placed to do better under the next Trump administration. Its CEO Elon Musk has taken a hard right turn politically over the past couple of years, funding republican political causes to the tune of tens of millions of dollars before contributing more than $150 million to Trump’s reelection—a far cry from the Musk of the early 2010s who claimed that climate change was the most pressing issue facing humanity.
As it stands, the future looks very bright for Musk and Tesla. In recent years, the Texas-based automaker has been the subject of at least 14 safety defect investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and many Tesla watchers believed that NHTSA has been getting ready to order a costly hardware recall due to the dangerous nature of Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” and “Autopilot” driver assistance systems.
But a position for Musk in Trump’s cabinet is well within the bounds of possibility—as a candidate, Trump more than once has suggested making Musk a key adviser or giving him control of one or more government departments. With the keys to the Department of Transportation (and thereby NHTSA) in his pocket, any meaningful regulation of Tesla would be very unlikely.
Perhaps a Musk cabinet position would safeguard the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, however. This $7.5 billion program is building out fast chargers along highway corridors and in underserved communities, and the disbursement of funds by the state DOTs (which administer it) has been glacial, making it a potentially ripe target for cancellation. But Tesla has been a recipient of NEVI funding and stands to benefit further in the future if the program survives.
But not every Tesla watcher thinks this would be entirely positive for the company. Musk already splits his time as CEO between several companies, and some investors think a cabinet position would mean even more time away from Tesla’s helm. “Musk getting a cabinet seat in a Trump win would be a complicated decision that would take time away from Tesla and is not what shareholders want to see,” said longtime Tesla bull and analyst Dan Ives to Investors Business Daily.
Big import tariffs on imported cars and parts
Under the Biden administration, there has already been broad bipartisan support to protect US auto manufacturing from cheap Chinese imports, supported by both automakers and unions. In addition to tying clean vehicle tax credits to North American manufacturing, the Biden administration recently levied a 100 percent import tariff on Chinese-made EVs.
Many industry watchers think this will only escalate under the new administration after Trump repeatedly suggested abolishing many federal taxes—including income tax—and replacing them with import tariffs that would significantly drive up the cost of imported goods to US consumers. German automakers that depend on the US market are already seeing their stocks slide today, even though companies like Mercedes-Benz and BMW already have US manufacturing sites. “There’s some natural cover-up against possible tariffs,” BMW CEO Oliver Zipse told Automotive News.
Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica’s automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC.
Whenever we write about electric vans, the comments reveal a growing but pent-up demand for a camper version. Well, it seems that those vibes are being felt at Kia. It has created a pair of concepts for the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association (SEMA) automotive trade show, which got underway in Las Vegas today.
One of the two concepts will look more familiar—the EV9 ADVNTR is based on the popular electric three-row SUV. But the other is the PV5 WKNDR, a rugged off-road camper based on a forthcoming Kia electric van platform.
The EV9 ADVNTR makes good use of the existing EV9’s angular design, with new sections filled in with protective cladding. There’s a suspension lift and all-terrain tires, plus a roof rack, to distinguish it from lesser EV9s, but otherwise it’s relatively stock.
The EV9 ADVNTR could be a rival for Rivian, although I’m not sure if there’s any production intent. Credit: Kia
The PV5 WKNDR is the more interesting of the two. Like the SUV, it’s lifted and wears off-road tires and sports the same matte-green-with-yellow-highlights color scheme. Designed to be “the ideal escape pod for extended weekends in nature,” it now features a pop-up camper roof complete with solar panels.
There’s another pop-out section from the side for storing gear while you’re parked and set up (called the gear head), and a reconfigurable interior depending on your mood. A kitchen with an induction stove pops out of the side of the WKNDR, and you can use the gear head as a pantry, Kia says.
The production PV5 is set to go on sale in Korea next year. Kia
Since we’ve only seen renders so far, it’s hard to know how much of the tech on the PV5 WKNDR is real. The press kit says that the solar panels can charge the PV5’s batteries, but so, too, can “unique hydro turbine wheels.” It does not elaborate on what these are, but it sounds like maybe you can stick a wheel in a running stream and it’ll spin the motor, thereby generating electricity? If I were at SEMA, I would be sure to ask.
GMC’s Hummers have always been divisive. After getting hold of the rights to a civilian version of the US military vehicle in 1999, the company set about designing new, smaller vehicles to create an entire range. The ungainly H2 and H3 followed, both SUVs playing to the sensibilities of a country grappling with its warlike nature. By 2010, the Hummer brand was dead and laid dormant until someone had the bright idea to revive it for the electric vehicle generation. We drove the pickup version of that new Hummer in 2022, now it’s time for the $104,650 Hummer EV SUV.
I’ll admit I was worried that the Hummer EV wasn’t going to fit in my parking space. This is an extremely large vehicle, one that’s classified as a class 3 medium-duty truck—hence the yellow lights atop the roof. In fact, at 196.8 inches (5,000 mm) long, it’s actually slightly shorter than the pickup version, although that length doesn’t count the big spare tire hanging off the back.
Its 86.5-inch (2,196 mm) width just about fit between the lines, although it was a tight squeeze to try to open a door and climb up into the Hummer if my neighbor was parked as well. And climb up you do—there’s 10.2 inches (259 mm) of ground clearance even in the suspension’s normal setting, and the overall height is a towering 77.8 inches (1,976 mm). There is an entry mode that drops the car on its air springs by a couple of inches, but only if you remember to engage the feature when you park.
The curb weight is equally excessive at 9,063 lbs (4,119 kg)—at more than four metric tons, you’d need a commercial driver’s license to get behind the wheel of a Hummer EV in many other countries. Almost a third of that mass is the ginormous 217.7 kWh battery pack. Such over-provisioning means that despite the high drag coefficient of 0.5 and a frontal area that makes barn doors look skinny, the Hummer EV SUV has an EPA range estimate of 314 miles (503 km) on a single charge. In fact, the actual range indicated by our test car was 358 miles on a full charge, based on GM’s own testing. (As a class 3 truck, the Hummer doesn’t actually fit into the EPA’s tests properly.)
As I followed a friend down a flow-y, undulating single-track trail, I started laughing. Unlike my mountain bike-riding companion, I was on a gravel bike, the new Trek Checkpoint SL 7 AXS Gen 3. You might be wondering why a review of a gravel bike is starting with such a ride. The answer is simple—the Checkpoint had excelled everywhere else I rode it, so I was curious to see how it would fare on a non-technical MTB track. Amazingly well, as it turns out.
Unlike every other bike Ars has reviewed to this point, the Checkpoint SL 7 Gen 3 has no battery and no motor—there’s no e- in this bike. As is the case with our other bike reviews, sometimes we ask for a specific model, but manufacturers tend to contact us when we’ve already got a garage full of bikes we’ve not finished the reviews for (there are currently 12 bikes in my garage, some of which belong to other family members).
Launched in 2018, the Checkpoint is Trek’s gravel-centric bike. For 2025, Trek has split its gravel lineup into the third-generation Checkpoint Trek and the Checkmate SLR 9 AXS. The latter features a lighter-weight frame, a power meter, and SRAM’s new Red XPLR groupset. Selling for $11,999, the Checkmate is a gravel racer. Priced several thousand less at $5,699, the Checkpoint SL 7 AXS is now Trek’s top gravel bike for those looking for a fun day out on the trails.
With the Gen 3 Checkpoint, Trek has added mounts all over the frame, tweaked the geometry to make it more comfortable for long rides, improved ride comfort by reworking the rear IsoSpeed decoupler (which softens the bumpiness from rough trails and pavement), and increased the tire clearance to 50 mm (42 mm with fenders). Trek uses three different types of carbon on its drop handlebar bikes. The top-of-the-line OCLV 900 shows up on the racing-focused Madone road bike, while the OCLV 800 is used in the Domane endurance bike lineup as well as the Checkmate. The SL 7 uses Trek’s 500 Series OCLV carbon, and the bike weighs in at 19.85 lb (9.0 kg)—about 100 g heavier than the Gen 2. The drivetrain comes from SRAM, with a SRAM Force XPLR AXS D2 groupset.
The texting example is particularly good at getting the point across, at least to me—my times averaged about 14 seconds to complete the task. Had I been behind the wheel of an actual car at that speed, I would have traveled more than 1,400 feet (426 m) with my eyes on the phone during that period. Not good!
Of course, the people behind the distracted driving simulator recognize that this is mostly an awareness-raising tool—for academics studying the topic, we have things like the $80 million National Advanced Driving Simulator, which can pitch, yaw, roll, tilt, and move about inside a large hangar-like room in Coralsville, Iowa.
“While this simulator can’t provide a complete picture of the dangers of distracted driving, our hope is to help illustrate how dangerous it is to glance down at your phone—and remind everyone how that time can add up when you’re behind the wheel,” Ryan said.
Thankfully, the solution to distracted driving is rather simple—at least conceptually. Just keep your eyes on the road, and save the phone use for when you’re parked.
Polestar has more than a few issues with the proposed rule, according to its public comment. For one, the definition is too broad and “creates crippling uncertainty for businesses.” A better-defined list would be helpful here, it says.
Polestar also says that “if a large portion of manufacturing or software development is occurring outside of the country of a foreign adversary, mere ownership should not be the determinative factor for applying the various prohibitions within the Proposed Rule.” Polestar is a US-organized company and a subsidiary of a UK publicly limited company that is listed on the NASDAQ exchange in New York. Its HQ is in Sweden, and seven out of 10 board members are from Europe or the USA. It builds Polestar 3 SUVs in South Carolina and will build the Polestar 4 in South Korea from next year. In fact, out of 2,800 employees, only 280 are based in China, Polestar says.
With the company’s “key decision-makers” being in Sweden, there is little reason to believe the national security concerns apply here, the company says, saying that the US Commerce Department should consider whether it has gone too far.
Polestar may be the most affected automaker by the new rule, but it is not the only one. Last month, the Commerce Department told Ford and General Motors that imports of the Lincoln Nautilus and Buick Envision—both of which are made in China—would also have to cease under the new rule.
Pure battery-electric Scouts should have up to 350 miles (563 km), but for those who want to adventure a little farther, there will be range-extended versions that use a gasoline-powered generator to top up the battery pack. Such equipped Scouts should be capable of 500 miles (805 km).
With looks like these, I think the Traveler will be popular. Credit: Scout Motors
Those miles don’t need to be all on paved roads, as off-road performance has been a priority for this new startup. The platform has more than a foot (0.3 m) of ground clearance and can ford water at depths of up to 3 feet (0.9 m). It also has front and rear axles with locking mechanical differentials. The rear axle is a live axle design, and the front anti-roll bar can be disconnected for more wheel travel. It can also fit 35-inch all-terrain tires.
Scout owners should be able to haul stuff, too—the Terra truck boasts up to 10,000 lbs (4,536 kg) of towing capacity, and the Traveler SUV 7,000 lbs (3,175 kg). And both pickup and SUV can carry payloads of up to 2,000 lbs (907 kg).
You could have a bench seat here if you want. Note all the physical controls on the dashboard. Scout Motors
The Scout name isn’t the only comeback, because you’ll be given the option of an actual front bench seat. If my research is correct, the last new vehicle to be offered with a front bench seat was the 2013 Chevrolet Impala.
We can also expect a thoroughly up-to-date electronic architecture inside the car. Scout describes it as a modern zonal architecture (also known as a software-defined vehicle), and it’s likely the Terra and Traveler will benefit from VW’s $5 billion investment in Rivian, which allows the German automaker access to Rivian’s software after repeated stumbles at CARIAD, VW’s in-house software division.
If this sounds enticing, Scout has just opened its order books. After leaving a refundable $100 deposit, you can pick whether you want a Terra or Traveler and whether it should be a BEV or range-extended version.
All of that helped total revenue rise by 8 percent year over year to $25.2 billion. Gross profit jumped by 20 percent to $5 billion, and once generally accepted accounting principles are applied, its net profit grew 17 percent compared to Q3 2023, at $2.2 billion. What’s more, the company is sitting on a healthy treasure chest. Free cash flow increased 223 percent compared to Q3 2023 to reach $2.7 billion, and cash, cash equivalents, and investments grew 29 percent to $33.6 billion over the same time period.
What comes next?
The days of Tesla promising exponential growth in its car sales appear to be at an end, or at least on hiatus until it can deliver a new vehicle platform. The company says that it believes that advances in autonomy will contribute to renewed growth in the future, but these dreams may come crashing down if federal regulators order a costly hardware recall for Tesla’s vision-only system.
An increasingly stale product lineup is slated to grow in the first half of next year, it says. These vehicles will be based on modified versions of Tesla’s existing vehicles built on existing assembly lines, albeit with some features from its “next-generation platform.” Tesla says it has plenty of spare capacity at its factories in California, Texas, Germany, and China, with room to grow “before investing in new production lines.” Meanwhile, the two-seat CyberCab—which Tesla CEO Elon Musk says is due “before 2027“—will use what Tesla calls a “revolutionary “unboxed” manufacturing strategy.
Today, Mercedes-Benz opened its first battery-recycling plant in Germany. The new plant will use an “integrated mechanical-hydrometallurgical” approach to recycling electric vehicle batteries and expects to recover more than 96 percent of the valuable minerals and metals used in EV batteries.
“Mercedes-Benz has set itself the goal of building the most desirable cars in a sustainable way. As a pioneer in automotive engineering, Europe’s first integrated mechanical-hydrometallurgical battery recycling factory marks a key milestone toward enhancing raw-materials sustainability,” said Ola Källenius, chairman of the board of management Mercedes-Benz Group. “Together with our partners from industry and science, we are sending a strong signal of innovative strength for sustainable electric mobility and value creation in Germany and Europe.”
The plant, which is located in Kuppenheim, Germany, shreds the battery modules then uses a mechanical process to separate plastics, copper, aluminum, and iron. The resulting “black mass” is then subjected to a hydrometallurgical process that extracts the cobalt, nickel, and lithium. The plant runs entirely on electricity generated by solar panels and has an annual capacity of 2,756 tons (2,500 tonnes). While this is not especially high, Mercedes says it will use the knowledge it gains to scale up volumes over time.
Automakers are increasingly interested in closing the loop on EV batteries, particularly given concerns about ethical sourcing of some of the minerals (like cobalt) and a desire for more resilient regional supply chains versus global chains that have turned out to be highly susceptible to disruption through events like invasions or even a ship getting stuck in a canal.
Perched in the driver’s seat, I’m not sure why you would need to be, anyway. Nothing about the Buzz’s driving style demands you rag it through the corners, although the car coped very well on the very twisty sections of our route up the shore of the Tomales Bay.
Like last week’s Porsche Macan, the single-motor model is the one I’d pick—again, it’s the version that’s cheaper, lighter, and has a longer range, albeit only just. And this might be the biggest stumbling block for some Buzz fans who were waiting to push the button. With 86 kWh useable (91 kWh gross), the RWD Buzz has an EPA range estimate of 234 miles (377 km). Blame the frontal area, which remains barn door-sized, even if the drag coefficient is a much more svelte 0.29.
Fast-charging should be relatively fast, though, peaking at up to 200 kW and with a 26-minute charge time to go from 10 to 80 percent state of charge. And while VW EVs will gain access to the Tesla supercharger network with an adapter, expect 2025 Buzzes to come with CCS1 ports, not native NACS for now.
I expect most customers to opt for all-wheel drive, but again, American car buyer tastes are what they are. This adds an asynchronous motor to the front axle and boosts combined power to 335 hp (250 kW). VW hasn’t given a combined torque figure, but the front motor can generate up to 99 lb-ft (134 Nm) together with the 413 lb-ft from the rear. The curb weight for this version is 6,197 lbs (2,811 kg), and its EPA range is 231 miles (376 km).
It’s a bit of a step up in price, however, as you need to move up to the Pro S Plus trim if you want power for both axles. This adds more standard equipment to what is already a well-specced base model, but it starts at $67,995 (or $63,495 for the RWD Pro S Plus).
I was driving the lead Buzz on the day we drove, but this photo is from the day before, when it wasn’t gray and rainy in San Francisco. Credit: Volkswagen
While I found the single-motor Buzz to be a more supple car to drive down a curvy road, both powertrain variants have an agility that belies their bulk, particularly at low speed. To begin our day, VW had all the assembled journalists re-create a photo of the vans driving down Lombard St. Despite a very slippery and wet surface that day, the Buzz was a cinch to place on the road and drive slowly.
Today, federal safety investigators opened a new investigation aimed at Tesla’s electric vehicles. This is now the 14th investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and one of several currently open. This time, it’s the automaker’s highly controversial “full self-driving” feature that’s in the crosshairs—NHTSA says it now has four reports of Teslas using FSD and then crashing after the camera-only system encountered fog, sun glare, or airborne dust.
Of the four crashes that sparked this investigation, one caused the death of a pedestrian when a Model Y crashed into them in Rimrock, Arizona, in November 2023.
NHTSA has a standing general order that requires it to be told if a car crashes while operating under partial or full automation. Fully automated or autonomous means cars might be termed “actually self-driving,” such as the Waymos and Zooxes that clutter up the streets of San Francisco. Festooned with dozens of exterior sensors, these four-wheel testbeds drive around—mostly empty of passengers—gathering data to train themselves with later, with no human supervision. (This is also known as SAE level 4 automation.)
But the systems that come in cars that you or I could buy are far less sophisticated. Sometimes called “level 2+,” these systems (which include Tesla Autopilot, Tesla FSD, GM’s Super Cruise, BMW Highway Assistant, and Ford BlueCruise, among others) are partially automated, not autonomous. They will steer, accelerate, and brake for the driver, and they may even change lanes without explicit instruction, but the human behind the wheel is always meant to be in charge, even if the car is operating in a hands-free mode.
