moneyplay The Electric Vehicle Future Is Coming. Just a Little More Slowly.

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The race to electrify America’s cars is looking more like a slog these days. In the past few months, several automakers announced plans to pull back on introducing new electric models or have scaled back some of their decarbonization goals.

This week, Volvo said it was revising its plans to have an all-electric fleet by 2030. In August, Ford announced it was slowing down the pace of its investments in new battery-powered models. Also last month, General Motors said that it would delay plans for a new Buick E.V., an electric truck factory and a new battery plant. And in February, Mercedes-Benz moved its electrification goal back by five years, to 2030.

The list goes on.

So does the latest news threaten U.S. ambitions of cleaning up its transportation sector, which is the single largest driver of the country’s carbon emissions?

Not in the long-term, according to experts. Some of the recent announcements aren’t substantial retreats, for one. Volvo now says that its fleet will be 90 to 100 percent electric by 2030, for example.

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Here is one thing to keep in mind as you think about the latest news on automakers’ plans: “There’s still a consensus among carmakers that everything will go electric,” The Times’s Jack Ewing, who has covered the auto industry for 40 years, told me. “It’s just a question of how long it’s going to take.”

Less pressure

There are a few reasons that help explain these recent announcements of less ambitious E.V. goals, Ewing told me. First, sales aren’t growing as fast as they were last year. In 2023, E.V. sales increased by over 50 percent from the year before. In the first half of this year, according to government data, they are up about 10 percent.

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