The electric vehicle fantasy finally crashed into economic reality.
And General Motors faced one painful reality about electric vehicles that left them reeling with massive losses.
But what GM discovered will shock anyone who believed the green energy hype.
The EV bubble bursts without taxpayer handouts
The automaker announced it would record massive losses on its electric vehicle operations as sales crater following the elimination of federal EV subsidies.¹
General Motors admitted it would take a $1.2 billion accounting charge due to adjustments in electric vehicle capacity plus another $400 million cash hit from canceled supplier contracts.²
When the government stopped bribing people to buy electric cars, nobody wanted them.
The company warned shareholders that more losses could be coming as it reassesses its electric vehicle manufacturing capacity and investments.³
GM’s chief financial officer Paul Jacobson confessed the company still can’t make money selling electric vehicles after years of massive investments.
The company warned that more charges could be coming as they reassess their manufacturing and production plans.⁴
That’s corporate speak for "we bet the farm on a product Americans don’t actually want."
Electric vehicle sales surged temporarily in the third quarter as consumers rushed to buy cars while the $7,500 federal tax credit was still available.
But analysts expect sales to crater and stay low through 2026 now that taxpayers aren’t subsidizing wealthy environmentalists’ car purchases.⁵
The green energy house of cards collapses
GM isn’t alone in this disaster.
The company has already slowed electric vehicle production at plants in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and Hamtramck, Michigan.
Earlier this year, GM sold its stake in a battery plant it was building with LG Energy Solution.⁶
Other automakers are scrambling to escape their own EV commitments.
Stellantis dropped plans for an electric pickup truck and is bringing back gas-powered models it had stopped making.
Volkswagen scrapped plans to sell an electric sedan in the United States.
Honda abandoned plans for an electric Acura.⁷
Ford had planned four battery plants but pushed back completion dates for two of them while its electric vehicle business lost $2.2 billion in the first half of 2025 alone.⁸
The real cost of green energy virtue signaling
Look, here’s what this really shows.
For years, activists in Washington, D.C. kept telling us electric vehicles were inevitable.
They got Congress to approve billions in subsidies. They pushed regulations that forced automakers to build cars nobody was asking for. Politicians promised Americans would love driving electric.
But here’s the thing – once government stopped paying people to buy these cars, demand collapsed.
GM just took a $1.6 billion hit because they believed the hype instead of listening to actual customers.
The math is pretty simple. Electric vehicles work great for wealthy folks who have garages and can afford backup cars. For everyone else? Not so much.
Try explaining to a single mom in Ohio why she should buy a car that might leave her stranded if the charging station is broken.
Or tell a contractor in Texas he should haul equipment in a truck that loses half its range when towing a trailer.
GM and Ford bet billions on government mandates instead of what customers actually wanted.
They built factories for cars that only sold when taxpayers subsidized them.
Now these companies are scrambling to figure out what to do with all that expensive equipment that’s sitting idle.
The real losers here aren’t just GM shareholders – it’s the workers at these plants who got caught up in Washington’s green energy fantasy.
At least one good thing came out of this mess: taxpayers finally stopped subsidizing luxury car purchases for people who could afford them anyway.
¹ Staff Report, "GM Takes $1.6B Charge on EVs as Sales Slow," Boston Globe, October 14, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Ibid.