Today’s going to be a big electric car day around these parts, though we’ll make sure to temper that with some good ol’ gas-powered weirdness. We’ve just posted a review of the Mustang Mach-E Rally and have the Equinox EV review coming out at noon. There’s a lot of news as well.

Right off the tip, there’s some interesting data out there about where electric cars are distributed. You won’t be surprised to find out that California is the key EV market, but maybe you wouldn’t expect Florida and Texas to be increasing their EV and hybrid fleets.

This switch towards electrification isn’t going to be evenly distributed geographically or over time, and that’s going to screw with some suppliers according to site favorite Carlos Tavares. This uneven market is having a huge impact on Fisker, which just unloaded another huge chunk of its staff in a mass layoff.

The delayed rollout of the Volkswagen ID.7 in the United States doesn’t seem to bother most dealers, who didn’t seem to think it was going to be a success in the first place. Aight, let’s Dump.

All EVs Are Belong To California (And Florida And Texas)

I’m going to link to The Detroit News version of this Bloomberg story because there’s no subscription required to read it, but shoutout Kyle Stock for his hard work pulling out some fun numbers:

Almost one-third of new electric vehicles are going to one of three states: California, Florida or Texas, according to CarGurus data. To some degree, that makes sense — they are the most populous states. If a third of drivers are interested in buying an EV, that third represents more potential buyers in California than Montana.

But the byproduct is a dearth of options for drivers elsewhere. At the end of the first quarter, some 23 states had fewer than 1,000 electric vehicles on offer, excluding automakers like Tesla Inc. that do an end-run around traditional dealerships. Nine states had fewer than 400.

Did you catch that?

• Nearly 1/3rd of new EVs are going to CA/FL/TX
• About half of states have fewer than 1,000 new EVs listed
• Nine have fewer than 400

The big caveat in this data is that it excludes automakers who sell directly to customers, so no Rivian, Polestar, and, more importantly, no Tesla in here. But on a relative basis, it shows that EVs are not a universal phenomenon everywhere in the United States.

If you look at CarGurus’ quarterly report you can also see that this gap is growing as California, Texas, and Florida continue to grab more and more inventory relative to other states.

This means that if you want an EV in some of the states with few EVs for sale (Wyoming, The Dakotas, Maine, et cetera) you’re likely to lack a lot of options. From the same Bloomberg article:

[I]f you want an ID.4 in South Dakota, you better act fast — only three in the state are unspoken for. The same is true in Arkansas and Mississippi, according to the latest data from CarGurus Inc., a listing platform that captures most US new car inventory.

If you live in South Dakota and drive an ID.4 please reach out!

Guy Being Sued By Suppliers Is Suddenly Worried About Suppliers

As CEO of Stellantis, Carlos Taveras (pictured above), has found himself in frequent conflict with his own suppliers, resulting in multiple lawsuits.

And, yet, Tavares sort of sounds worried about suppliers in a conversation with the Bernstein Strategic Decisions conference, via Reuters:

Tavares said the challenge for automakers was to sell EVs, whose production costs are 40% to 50% higher, at the same price as equivalent petrol models. This forces them to cut costs at every level of their operations, including supply chains and logistics.

“You are going to see a huge shift of the supplier base. The sourcing will move from the Western world to the best cost countries,” he said during the Bernstein Strategic Decisions conference.

“The EV race has become a cost cutting race,” he added.

Lol, ok, maybe it’s not so much a concern for his suppliers but a warning. The other way to read this is Tavares saying to governments and suppliers: Hey, we’re going to have to ship your jobs to Malaysia if you don’t help us out on costs.

Bloodbath At Fisker

Fisker, the automaker, is in trouble. Its founder/CEO is selling his house, reporters and investigators are looking into the company, and the company’s one car is not selling well.

The company owes a lot of money to an unnamed investor and is possibly headed for bankruptcy. According to this report from TechCrunch, that investor insisted on more layoffs than the hundreds that occurred:

Founder and CEO Henrik Fisker told employees that the large investor his company owes money to — and the chief restructuring officer working on the investor’s behalf — wanted to let more people go, according to employees who attended. Fisker has never disclosed who is ultimately behind the convertible debt investment in question, though Henrik Fisker did reference Heights Capital Management during Wednesday’s meeting when discussing the layoffs, according to the two employees. Heights Capital Management is an affiliate of financial services giant Susquehanna International Group.

Not good.

Dealers Don’t Seem To Care About Losing The ID.7

Here’s a quote from Automotive News that could literally be about almost any new expensive electric car:

“We brought up a little bit of caution behind it,” Luciano said. “Are we sure this is a good idea? We didn’t know an exact pricing, but [it’s] definitely a $50,000 to $60,000 car, without incentives. Is there any chance of it being competitive? And we felt like [it’s] not.”

That’s John Luciano, owner of Street Volkswagen in Amarillo, Texas, who said that most dealers are cool with VW’s decision to delay the Volkswagen ID.7 sedan, a car we apparently drove. Thomas has a good take on this you should read, but it’s nice to see automakers starting to accept that there’s not a huge demand for $60,000 EVs from mainstream, nonluxury brands.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

Since we’re talking about Florida I had to do it. I don’t know that I love this album, though I’ve been required to listen to it a bunch. I do love Florence + The Machine and it’s a fun song.

The Big Question

How many people do you know who own an EV?