Yeah, the richer people and societies are in general, the more they can afford to be “wasteful” in their personal decisions.  I’m not just talking about vehicles, but everything from setting thermostats too cold or hot, overeating, not saving leftovers, owning houses so large they don’t fully use them, etc.  However, IMO Americans are gradually shifting from what they want to what they need no thanks in large part to a global economy.  All the talk about needing more affordable cars makes sense now more than ever.

The bitter cold event in Chicago in January that made the news all over the world because EVs could not charge fast enough, or at all, probably didn’t help either.  That’s a correctable problem but exposed a weakness many don’t think about or anticipate on their own.   As mentioned above by Texasota, most of the growth is associated with China.  ROW data seems relatively flat.  Also, data includes PHEVs which are not quite as effective at reducing GHGs, so we really need to break out BEVs from PHEVs to see what is really going on as it affects Ford, their capital investments, and future plant utilization.   Obviously none of this matters much compared to what can change in 2025.

What a consumer can do and what they think they can do are two totally different things. It all depends on your level of wanting to give up something to do something else. The vast majority of auto buyers (if they can afford it) will overbuy a vehicle that they might use 5% of its Abilities...that includes Mustangs, Broncos and other things. I'll most likely never take my Bronco out to do serious off roading, but it works great for me as a commuter car and as a convertible that also is a lot more practical to get stuff in from Home Depot and the like then a sedan. 

In the grand scheme of things, I doubt Trump is going to be able to do 25% of the things he has talked about. 

I think the “big shots” have come to understand that they committed billions of dollars too much to the model e division which probably keeps the division operating in the red the rest of this decade. 

Looking at that chart it looks like nearly all the growth is coming from China. US and Canada looks like very little growth.

Yea, I hope the big shots at Ford understand that as well as you do

EV demand is not collapsing. Monthly EV sales are setting new record again every month. There was a brief dip in January and February this year and that's where this meme of EV collapsing came from. There were a couple of reason for this but it boils down to people pulling ahead of planned purchases in 2023 due to uncertainty of tax benefits in 2024 in US and China. But most of that was temporary.   EV sales has resumed on the same pace as before and the brief dip in early 2024 will barely register in the long run.  Don't fall for the trap of basing your view on limited (and aged) data. If you zoom out, EV sales are rising in an incontrovertible direction. Sure... a bit slower than some predicted but the big picture didn't change. Don't be fooled by monthly variations... that's just noise in the data.     

How many Ram or F-150 are sold in Australia a year? I'm really curious if factory RHD can really work.  

Blobs are lovable.