Gas prices are slowly increasing and America is focused on building… bigger cars?

The FCA announcement released yesterday shows either strong forecasting strength, or extreme shortsightedness, and only time will tell. Following Ford’s suit to scrub the lineup, FCA will be a brand focused around an adrenaline lifestyle – off road and high speed. Their offerings will be limited to Jeep, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, and Ram trucks while, we can only hope, all teams focus on the “next stage of mobility”. Source

With Ford, VW, Mercedes, and GM boasting their electric and self-driving technologies, their products are phasing out to increase future demand. In the United States, fewer owners are leasing cars, used car sales are the highest in eight years, and the average age of a vehicle is11.6 years. All these changes are priming the pump for electric vehicles. Source

GM just placed an influx of cash, over $2 Billion USD into Cruze Automation this week, to gain 19% ownership and prepare their facilities for mass manufacturing. Most likely this will provide cruise control assistance when highway driving. Ford announced their vehicle lineup will be reduced to crossovers, trucks, and two cars: the Mustang and Focus. Source

To muddy the waters even more, President Trump alluded to the Prime Minister of France he intends to reduce the import of German automotive due to a trade imbalance. This will affect the luxury auto market, giving Tesla, Lincoln, and Cadillac a potential advantage – even though many of their parts and partial production come from outside of America. Source

There is great instability right now, in all channels of the automotive market. Now is the best time for new electric entrants… if Big Oil is unsuccessful in retaining dependencies. It isn’t easy to develop the necessary infrastructure required for battery electric vehicles. However, being an EV owner myself, the barrier to entry isn’t nearly as large as it is perceived.