EV makers can’t charge up enough supply

Future. The EV industry is running out of gas, so to speak, unable to keep up with order demand. Blame both supply chain issues like chip shortages, as well as a surge of new interest as gas prices go sky-high. But as automakers do eventually get around to putting everyone in an EV that wants to be, the infrastructure for building components in America may have finally taken off to make sure the issue doesn’t happen again.

Electric jam
Insider reports that supply chain woes and increasing demand are keeping the EV industry from running at full capacity.

• Volkswagen Group — Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, and others — is “basically sold out” of EVs in the U.S. and Europe for the rest of the year.
• Same with Mercedes-Benz, even though it just rolled out a new electric sedan.
• Ford has been sold out of both its Mustang and F-150 EV models “for a couple of years now” and is now “completely oversubscribed” at over 200,000 pre-orders.
• Tesla is opening new facilities to ramp up production, but you probably can’t get a Model 3 until December.

While there have been new entrants into the EV race, such as Rivian and Lucid, they’re still relatively small operations… and new buyers will have to get on a deep waitlist before they can hit the road in one.

PR pit stop
But some analysts think automakers are just blowing smoke to juice up their specific EV-success narrative. Sam Fiorani, VP of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, noted that “the announcements are a combination of parts shortages and PR hype.”

Preaching popularity and scarcity is always a great way to throttle demand.