By Issues & Insights Editorial Board | August 12, 2026
Just weeks after announcing that it will lose up to $4.5 billion this year making electric cars, Ford unveiled its next plug-in attempt: the Ford Fathom truck.
So it goes with EVs.
No matter how loudly consumers say they don’t want them, those “in the know” keep telling us that the future is electric and that success is just around the corner.
Last month, for example, the mainstream press was giddy over a slight rebound in EV sales in the second quarter compared with the first. As Business Insider put it, “The U.S. EV market comes back from the dead. Thank high gas prices.”
Yahoo Autos ran a piece declaring that “The EV comeback is already happening in the US — most people just don’t see it yet.”
The New York Times recently claimed that “interest in EVs is surging in the United States.”
Um. Not exactly. The National Automobile Dealers Association reports that EV sales are still down 20% compared with last year, and that their share of all cars sold declined by almost 2 percentage points.
And, despite what the New York Times claims, interest in EVs is hardly “surging.” In fact, Kelley Blue Book reports that just 10% of car buyers said they were considering an EV in the first half of 2026, which is down from 11% the year before.
Instead, people are more drawn to hybrids, which are gas-powered cars that use batteries as range extenders. Hybrids now account for 15.4% of all new-vehicle sales, up 2.9 percentage points from a year ago. KBB found that interest in hybrids climbed to 22% in the first six months of this year compared with 20% in 2025.
But wait, there’s more. Interest in SUVs hit a record high of 71% in the first half of the year.
So, no, interest in EVs is not “surging,” and the EV market isn’t showing signs of a big “comeback.” They continue to be a niche product.
Want more evidence of consumers’ general disinterest in EVs?
Just about every automaker has pulled back from its bold plans to go all-electric after suffering massive losses. (See: “Are EVs The Biggest Boondoggle In Human History?”)
Ford itself has yet to deliver an EV that people want to own, after failing with its F-150 Lightning (discontinued), Mustang Mach-E (which saw sales collapse 50% in the first half of this year while the gas-powered version climbed), and E-Transit van (down 87%). In July, the automaker sold a mere 2,065 EVs. (Naming its latest entry “Fathom” is another potential misstep if consumers start asking, “Who could fathom buying that?”)
Subaru has been spending three times as much to promote its three electric cars as it does its gas-powered cars, but “sales have so far failed to live up to expectations,” reports Inside EVs. “The expenses have contributed to a 44% drop in the company’s operating profit in the first fiscal quarter that ended on June 30, going from $472 million last year to $263.2 million this year.”
So why do automakers keep throwing good money after bad? To appease the environmentalist lobby? For the halo effect? To protect foreign sales?
Our guess is that automakers are hedging their bets. Not because they think consumer demand in the U.S. will suddenly pick up, but because they expect a future Democratic administration to restart massive EV subsidies and reimpose EV mandates.
Congress can step in to protect consumers no matter who is president by doing one simple thing: Repeal the misbegotten and outdated Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, which was enacted during a bogus “energy crisis” and which gave the government the power to mandate EV sales by imposing ever-stricter mileage standards.
Consumers, not lawmakers or bureaucrats, should always be in the driver’s seat when it comes to what kind of cars they can buy.
Issues & Insights was founded by seasoned journalists of the IBD Editorials page. Our mission is to provide timely, fact-based reporting and deeply informed analysis on the news of the day – without fear or favor.
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