Carmakers don’t need ‘EV divisions,’ the whole company should go electric now
Over the years, we’ve seen several car companies tout their decision to create an “EV division” within the company, a group tasked specifically with looking into EV technology and how to implement that within the product line.
But many times, this can still be counterproductive. With the EV shift happening now, companies need to stop thinking about “EV divisions” and go all-in on EV development today.
Last week, we heard news of Toyota establishing a new “EV role” in North America. Many took this as a positive, given Toyota’s long history of anti-EV advocacy.
It certainly could signal a change since Toyota has somewhat softened that anti-EV stance in recent years, notably with the resignation of its former CEO and replacement with a purportedly more pro-EV successor.
But sometimes these EV divisions turn into an attempt to silo EV thinking into a part of the company that can be easily ignored.
For example, BMW had an early lead on EVs with the original MINI E and ActiveE projects, leading to the BMW i3, one of the first ground-up EVs developed by any company. The i3 and the i8 were part of BMW’s “Project i” division, a separate unit meant to focus on electric mobility.
The division languished under CEO Harald Kruger, who came into the company with a mission to improve BMW’s EV projects but met resistance from company executives and was unable to make much progress on that front, leading to his resignation in 2019. In this case, having a separate division made it easier for the company to continue its old ways of thinking without integrating electrification fully into the product line.
It doesn’t have to be like this. Ford did a similar thing when it split off a separate “Team Edison” to focus on EV programs, and it worked quite well. Ford shipped the Mustang Mach-E only about four years after Team Edison was established – impressively quick in terms of vehicle development timelines, which are generally around seven years long.
But even Ford’s effort needs to be stronger given where we are in the timeline of industry electrification and where companies need to be by the next decade.
60% EV by 2030 means companies must plan majority EV now
The EPA recently announced rules targeting 60% EV sales by 2030. Given the aforementioned seven-year development timeline, this means that 60% of cars going into development today, mid-2023, with less than seven years left until 2030, need to be electric. This doesn’t just apply to light-duty vehicle sales, either, as US and California governments are implementing strong truck regulations as well.
If a majority of vehicles going into development today need to be electric, then a separate “EV division” isn’t going to cut it. The whole company needs to put its main focus on electric. There is still room for potential side projects to salvage whatever small niches gas engines might continue to fill come next decade, but more effort needs to go into EVs than into gas at this point, rather than the other way around.
We did some similar math two years ago when we declared that it would be easy for any company to end gas car sales by 2035. In 2021, all a company would need to do to end gas car sales by 2035 is just stop greenlighting new gas car projects – even if they changed none of their development plans and continued developing and selling the models they were already working on at the time.
This is not just a necessity due to individual government regulations, but given where we are in the climate crisis, urgent action is needed. Continuing to sell fossil-powered vehicles well into the next decade, which will continue polluting for a decade or more after they’re put on the road, is not what the world needs right now.
And so establishing a separate EV division is simply not enough. What Toyota and everyone else need to do is put the company’s primary focus on electrification, starting now, if they want to have any chance of making it through the next decade.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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Environment
Podcast: Trump/GOP go after EV/solar, Tesla, Ford, GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
Today’s episode is brought to you by Bosch Mobility Aftermarket—A global leader and trusted provider of automotive aftermarket parts. To celebrate Amazon Prime Day July 8th through 11th, Bosch Mobility is offering exclusive savings on must-have auto parts and tools. Learn more here.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.
Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
- Electrek FSGP 2025: New teams, new cars, same solar spirit
- Congress votes to send 2 million US jobs to China, increase deficit, energy costs
- Tesla (TSLA) confirms 384,000 deliveries in Q2 2025, right on expectations
- Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller
- Tesla launches Oasis Supercharger with solar farm and off-grid batteries
- Tesla unveils its LFP battery factory, claims it’s almost ready
- Here’s why Ford’s electric vehicle sales crashed by nearly a third in Q2
- The Chevy Equinox EV is GM’s breakout star, but that’s not the only surprise
- Xpeng launches G7, a new Tesla Model Y competitor for just $27,000
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:
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