Welcome back to the podcast. Welcome to a special bonus edition of the show today. As we ask,

the carrots or the stick, how do you encourage EV adoption? Depending on which headline you read,

the electric vehicle market in America is either entering a long winter, is at a crossroads,

or is taking a short pause before explosive growth?

The federal tax credit expired on the 30th of September 2025, and the consequences arrived with brutal clarity. Fourth quarter EV sales plunged 46% compared with the third

quarter, dropping to levels not seen since late 2022. Ford announced the

$19.5 billion write-down on its EV ambitions and halted production of the F-150 Lightning. General Motors

followed with a $6 billion charge related to unwinding EV investments.

And the Detroit Giants, once racing towards electrification,

now pivot back towards hybrids, traditional power trains,

and China's beloved power train of choice, the EREV, extended range electric vehicle.

America had chosen the carrot approach.

Generous tax incentives to pull consumers into EVs, but when the carrot disappeared,

the market collapsed.

The timing could not be worse.

Parts of Europe have wrestled with its own crisis of confidence,

watering down its 2035 combustion engine ban to a 90% emissions reductions target after intense

industry lobbying. China phases out subsidies, even as it mandates ever stricter efficiency standards.

The global automotive industry faces a fundamental question at the beginning of 2026.

Can consumers be enticed into EVs through incentives alone,

or do markets require the regulatory stick of mandates and bans. The answer, it turns out,

depends less on ideology than on execution, consistency, and time. Welcome back to a special

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