EV sales have not fallen, cooled, slowed or slumped. Stop lying in headlines.
EV sales continue to rise, but the last year of headlines falsely stating otherwise would leave you thinking they haven’t. After about full year of these lies, it would be nice for journalists to stop pushing this false narrative that they could find the truth behind by simply looking up a single number for once.
Here’s what’s actually happening: Over the course of the last year or so, sales of battery electric vehicles, while continuing to grow, have posted lower year-over-year percentage growth rates than they had in previous years.
This alone is not particularly remarkable – it is inevitable that any growing product or category will show slower percentage growth rates as sales rise, particularly one that has been growing at such a fast rate for so long.
In some recent years, we’ve even seen year-over-year doublings in EV market share (though one of those was 2020->2021, which was anomalous). To expect improvement at that level perpetually would be close to impossible – after 3 years of doubling market share from 2023’s 18% number, EVs would account for more than 100% of the global automotive market, which cannot happen.
Clearly, growth percentages will need to trend downward as a new product category grows. It would be impossible for them not to.
To take an extreme example, it would be odd to say that sales are slumping in Norway, which just set a record at 94% EV market share in August with 10,480 units moved, because BEV sales only went up 5% compared to the previous August’s 9,974 units.
And yet, this mathematical necessity has been reported time and time again in media, and by anti-EV political forces, as if EV sales are down, despite that they continue to rise.
The actual short-term status of EV sales – they’re still up
Instead of the perpetual 50% CAGR that had been optimistically expected, we are seeing growth rates this year of ~10% in advanced economies, and higher in economies with lower EV penetration (+40% in “rest of world” beyond US/EU/China). Notably, this ~10% growth rate is higher than the above Norway example, which nobody would consider a “slump” at 94% market share.
It’s also clear that EV sales growth rates are being held back in the short term by Tesla, which has heretofore been the global leader in EV sales. Tesla actually has seen a year-over-year reduction in sales in recent quarters – likely at least partially due to chaotic leadership at the wayward EV leader – as buyers have been drawn to other brands, while most of which have seen significant increases in EV sales.
There are a number of other shorter-term influences, including a slowdown in Supercharger/NACS progress after the entire charging team was fired which could be leading consumers to wait until the NACS transition is ready, political agitation by an ignorant presidential candidate which may cool after the election is finally over with and his fans’ short attention span moves elsewhere (pretty please), a misguided new tariff that has resulted in some automakers shuffling (and thus delaying) their plans, lack of available models for anyone who wants something other than a gigantic SUV, and limitations on EV tax credits (which are nevertheless bypassable).
Finally, some have suggested that this is a natural part of any technology adoption curve, as a technology transitions from being used by “early adopters” to “early majority.” Most consider the “chasm” between these groups to be somewhere around the 10-20% adoption range.
In terms of hybrid sales, much has been made of customers “shifting from EVs to hybrids,” which is also not the case. Conventional gas-hybrid sales are indeed up (as opposed to plug-in hybrids, which continue to lag behind gas-hybrids/BEVs, though have shown some growth lately), and gas-hybrids are up more than EV sales, after EV sales having had higher growth rates for many years than gas-hybrids have.
But gas-hybrid sales have not come at the cost of EV sales, but at the cost of gas-only car sales. Because EV sales are still up.
In covering these trends, some journalists have at least used the correct phrasing “slower growth,” showing that EV sales are still growing, but at a lower percentage change than previously seen.
But many, or perhaps even most, have taken the lazy – and incorrect – route of using descriptors that make it seem like sales have gone down, despite that they continue to go up.
This often takes the form of words like “cool” “fall” “slow” and “slump.” But none of these are accurate descriptors of still-rising sales.
All of these words would be best applied to a number that is decreasing, not to a number that is rising.
- If an object is thrown up in the air, it would not be described as “falling” until after it reaches the peak of its travel, despite that it is continually showing downward acceleration of 9.81m/s2 from the moment it is released.
- If today is hotter than yesterday, temperatures are not “cooling” even if the degree of temperature rise was lower than it was on the previous day (80º -> 85º -> 88º does not show a “cooling” trend).
- If a car goes 0-30 in 2 seconds, and 30-60 in 3 seconds, that car is not “slowing” from 30-60. It is still accelerating.
- If a graph shows a rising curve, that curve is not “slumping” before it reaches its peak. A “slump” would be better applied to a trough or nadir in the graph, not the zenith of it and certainly not anywhere in the runup to the zenith.
Indeed, the only way to make an argument that EV sales are “slowing” is to rely on the second derivative of sales numbers. Having to do integral calculus in order to suggest that sales are down, when sales are actually up, smacks of a certain level of desperation by a losing industry.
Gas car sales are actually going down
Because that’s just the thing: the number of gas-only vehicles being sold worldwide is a number that actually is falling. That number continues to go down year over year.
Sales of new gas-powered cars are down by about a quarter from their peak in 2017, and show no signs of recovering. It is exceedingly likely that 2017 will be the high-water mark of gas-powered cars ever sold on this planet.
And yet, somehow, virtually every headline you read is about the “EV sales slump,” rather than the “gas-car sales slump.” The latter is real, the former is incorrect.
These numbers are easily verifiable in moments. No matter what region of the world you’re in, EV sales are up in the first half of this year, and gas car sales are down. This has been true for most recent quarters when taking into account year-over-year numbers (the traditional way to measure car sales, since car sales are seasonal), and it’s true for the first half of this year so far – when the majority of these false headlines have been written.
Why does it matter? These lies influence policy – and cause more pollution
All of this matters because the constant incorrect reporting is causing changes in plans for both automakers and governments who are pulling back on EV plans, which dooms humanity to worse health and climate outcomes.
Early on as this pattern of lies started to show itself in the media, David Reichmuth of the Union of Concerned Scientists suggested that one motivation behind the false headlines could be to influence regulations. The idea goes that, by pretending EV sales were “cooling,” despite that they were not, automakers could convince governments to pull back on their future commitments, thus allowing automakers to continue business as usual instead of having to put in effort to make actually good cars that don’t poison everything around them.
But those regulations already passed and timelines were loosened after automaker whining, so congratulations, you got what you wanted, you get to poison people a bit more for a few more years, and you can all stop lying now.
And yet, the headlines have continued, and so many outlets continue to push the same false narrative that they have for around a year now claiming that EV sales are down. But it wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now.
All this said – yes, higher EV sales growth rates would be preferable to the current status quo and are needed to meet climate targets. Or rather, a faster decline in gas car sales is what’s truly needed – and would be beneficial to all living beings on this planet.
The environment cannot wait, and humans can’t spend the next 10-20 years breathing down the poison coming out of the tailpipe of each gas-powered vehicle sold today. This needs to end and it needs to end now. The faster we act, the easier it will be for the world to reach carbon reductions that are objectively necessary to achieve.
So stop lying about EV sales trends
But overall, the point of this article is that media headlines suggesting some slowdown in EV sales are simply incorrect. And it’s hard to imagine that these headlines, which have gone on for around a year now, are not intentional at this point.
Each journalist who has spent the last year perpetuating the myth of an EV sales slowdown could have read any one of our articles, or googled a single number showing year-over-year EV sales in any region or for most countries and most brands, and found that they are still going up. The information is out there and easy to find.
And if misinformation is done knowingly and intentionally despite ready access to truth, which is your job as a journalist to seek and find, it’s a lie. So stop lying.
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![The ticket bot cometh: cities are ticketing drivers that AI says are bad [update]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/06/volvo-bus-nova-cta-copy.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
In a high-tech move that we can all get behind and isn’t dystopian at all, the City of Barcelona is feeding camera data from its city buses into an advanced AI, but they swear they’re not using the footage to to issue tickets to bad drivers. Yet.
UPDATE 06DEC2025: the ticket bot cometh to Chicago.
Last month, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) contracted with Hayden AI to equip six of its transit buses with AI-powered license plate readers intended to target illegally parked vehicles in an area bound by North Avenue, Roosevelt Road, Lake Michigan and Ashland Avenue.
As with similar pilots in Barcelona and NYC, the Hayden AI technology captures information from vehicles illegally blocking bus and bike lanes, then submits its “findings” to a human reviewer for confirmation. If the reviewer agrees with the AI, they can issue a fine of $90 for parking in a bus lane, $250 for bike lane obstruction, $50 for parking in expired meters outside of the central business district, and $140 for personal vehicles parked in commercial loading zones.
Despite those hefty fines, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is quick to point out that the goal of the program isn’t to generate revenue.
“Every Chicagoan deserves a transportation system that is safe, reliable, and efficient,” said Mayor Johnson, in a statement. “By keeping bus and bike lanes clear of illegally parked vehicles, the Smart Streets pilot helps us protect our most vulnerable road users while improving the daily commute for riders across the city.”
The official release makes no mention of the fact that Hayden AI’s system generated nearly $21 million in revenue for the city in just a few months, despite the fact that thousands of those ticketed weren’t doing anything wrong.
We wrote about some of these issues back in Jun. You can read that original article, below, and let us know what you think of Chicago’s “non-revenue” claims in the comments.
Barcelona and its Ring Roads Low Emission Zone have earned lots of fans by limiting ICE traffic in the city’s core. The city’s latest idea to promote mass transit is the deployment of an artificial intelligence system developed by Hayden AI for automatic enforcement of reserved lanes and stops to improve bus circulation – but while it seems to be working as intended, it’s raising entirely different questions.
“Bus lanes are designed to help deliver reliable, fast, and convenient public transport service. But private vehicles illegally using bus lanes make this impossible,” explains Laia Bonet, First Deputy Mayor, Area for Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing at the Ajuntament de Barcelona. “We are excited to partner with Hayden AI to learn where these problems occur and how they are impacting our public transport service.”
Currently operating as a pilot program on the city’s H12 and D20 bus lines, the system uses cameras installed on the city’s electric buses to detect vehicles that commit static violations in the bus lanes and stops (read: stopping or parking where you shouldn’t). The Hayden AI system then analyses that data and provides statistical information on what it captures while the bus is driving along on its daily route.
Hayden AI says that, while it photographs and records video sequences and collects contextual information of the violation, its cameras do not record license plates or people and no penalties are being issued to drivers or owners of the vehicles.
So far so good, right? But it’s what happens once the six mont pilot is over that seems like it should be setting off alarm bells.
Big Brother Bus is watching
The footage is manually reviewed by a Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) officer, who reportedly reviewed some 2,500 violations identified by AI in May alone. But, while the system isn’t being used to issue violations during the pilot program, it easily could.
And, in fact, it already has … and the AI f@#ked up royally.
AI writes thousands of bad tickets
When AI was given the ability to issue citations in New York City earlier this year, it wrote more than 290,000 tickets (that’s right: two-hundred and ninety thousand) in just three months, generating nearly $21 million in revenue for the city. The was just one problem: thousands of those drivers weren’t doing anything wrong.
What’s more, the fines generated by the AI powered cameras were supposed to be approved only after being verified by a human, but either that didn’t happen, or it did happen and the human operator in question wasn’t paying attention, or (maybe the worst possibility) the violations were mistakes or hallucinations, and the human checker couldn’t tell the difference.
In OpenAI’s tests of its newest o3 and o4-mini reasoning models, the company found the o3 model hallucinated 33% of the time during its PersonQA tests, in which the bot is asked questions about public figures. When asked short fact-based questions in the company’s SimpleQA tests, OpenAI said o3 hallucinated 51% of the time. The o4-mini model fared even worse: It hallucinated 41% of the time during the PersonQA test and 79% of the time in the SimpleQA test, though OpenAI said its worse performance was expected as it is a smaller model designed to be faster. OpenAI’s latest update to ChatGPT, GPT-4.5, hallucinates less than its o3 and o4-mini models. The company said when GPT-4.5 was released in February the model has a hallucination rate of 37.1% for its SimpleQA test.
I don’t know about you guys, but if we had a local traffic cop that got it wrong 33% of the time (at best), I’d be surprised if they kept their job for very long. But AI? AI has a multibillion dollar hype train and armies of undereducated believers talking about singularities and building themselves blonde robots with boobs. And once the AI starts issuing tickets to the AI that’s driving your robotaxi, it can just call its buddy AI the bank to send over your money. No human necessary, at any point, and the economy keeps on humming.
But, like – I’m sure that’s fine. Embrace the future and all that … right?
SOURCES: Hayden AI, via Chicago Sun Times, Forbes, Motorpasión.
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The Japanese agriculture equipment experts Kubota are partnering with Norwegian tech startup Kilter to co-develop, pilot, and promote the new Kilter AX-1 ultra high-precision weeding robot across Europe.
The collaboration will initially target Kubota’s vegetable growing customers in Germany and the Netherlands, specifically farmers growing spinach, salad lettuces, herbs, celeriac, and strawberries who hope to benefit of higher yields and crop quality while cutting the use of chemical pesticides to an absolute minimum.
To accomplish those goals, the Kilter AX-1 uses a patented tech package it calls “Single Drop Technology.” Single Drop Technology combines AI weed recognition and ~6 mm placement accuracy to deliver micro-doses directly to weeds, protecting the crop and minimizing the impact to the surrounding soil.
Getting that 6 mm droplet application wasn’t easy. “You can’t buy a field-ready droplet applicator off the shelf,” Anders Brevik, CEO of Kilter, told AgTechNavigator. “We had to design one that survives years of dust, vibration, temperature swings, and long operating days, while keeping droplet size, timing, and placement consistent. That takes deep agronomy knowledge, a lot of engineering, and thousands of hours of field testing.”
Kilter says growers can reduce herbicide use by up to 95% by adopting the new AX-1, shifting selectivity from chemistry to smart application.
Kubota Europe’s Smart Farming Solutions Division, launched back in 2024, is working with the company’s European dealer network to train up sales staff and integrate the Kilter robot into Kubota’s broader farm solutions portfolio. There’s no word, yet, on pricing or if/when we’ll get the Kilter in North America.
Electrek’s Take
Kubota has been bringing literal tons of electrified and autonomous ag solutions to shows like CES for the past few years, and they’ve made significant waves there. With partnerships that take the sustainability push beyond decarbonization and into the realms of de-chemicalizing (that’s a word) and pro-pollenatoring (another word), they’re making real steps towards a more sustainable future for agriculture.
SOURCES | IMAGES: Kilter, AgTechNavigator.
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![The future of electric farming is taking shape at John Deere [video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/12/john-deere-electric.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Energy independence and cost control are top of mind for farmers, and more companies are rolling out electric equipment that can be charged by solar, wind, or even on-farm biogas. With the debut of its latest next-generation electric tractor at Agritechnica last month, John Deere is signaling that it intends to lead that revolution.
John Deere says the E-Power electric tractor prototypes that it’s been quietly teasing since 2022 will be as quiet as a car, as easy to drive as a golf cart, and require minimal upkeep – and all while providing the same performance as the company’s beloved diesel tractors.
“Our goal with the E-Power tractor is to ensure it performs the same jobs as its diesel counterparts and works with the same implements, while unlocking incremental value,” explains Derek Muller, business manager for battery electric vehicle systems at John Deere. “Through our electric lineup, we’ll look to reduce operational and maintenance costs, deliver powerful and reliable performance, and intuitive operation.”
The latest electric John Deere tractor prototype, recently unveiled at Agritechnica, is equipped with a 100 hp drive motor and two, additional motors. One 130 continuous hp electric motor for the PTO, and a third for the hydraulic pump. They’ll draw power from up to five KREISEL li-ion battery packs, allowing customers significant pricing flexibility based on their ability to determine how much power and run time they need (and are willing to pay for) to get their jobs done.
Electric John Deere tractor
The customization will go well beyond just battery size. Deere plans to offer customers a number of different tractor and equipment options, and keep costs competitive by basing them on a vehicle common architecture.
“John Deere aims to develop a single electric concept that customers can configure to their own needs,” writes Bob Karsten, at Future Farming. “Buyers will be able to choose the number of batteries (up to five, totalling 195 kWh), the axle type (narrow or wide track), and the cab (either an orchard cab or the familiar 5M cab). In essence, buyers select their preferred battery capacity. With the largest battery (195 kWh), the tractor can operate for eight hours. The target is to enable fast charging up to 80% in 30 minutes.”
Deere revealed one version of that upcoming electric tractor (above) at Agritechnica last week, but despite being an early prototype, it’s a fully functional piece that’s already seen duty with some of John Deere’s most trusted customers.
- Daniel, an orchard customer from California, said his experience with the electric tractor led him to believe it could help ease training new operators, “I do think the tractor is much easier for drivers to understand it and to drive it. It would take less time to teach them [operators] how to use it.”
- Tyler, a vineyard customer in California, believes that a new electric tractor could help his operation meet its sustainability goals, “When we look at our carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, we want to try and reduce those as we run our equipment to farm our vineyards, we want to be conscious of the community at large.”
There’s no official word yet on when the new John Deere electric tractor platform will start reaching customers, but Big Green’s recent purchase of battery manufacturer KREISEL and its continued push into more global markets means that it can’t afford to take things slow.
You can check out a quick, virtual walkaround of John Deere’s E-Power electric tractor concept in this (admittedly older) video released around the ACT Expo, and expect more details and possible configurations at the upcoming CON/AGExpo conference in March.
John Deere E-Power configurations
SOURCE | IMAGES: John Deere.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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