Last Sunday, Mark Cuban — venture capitalist, Dallas Mavericks owner, and Shark Tank “investor” — went on social media to warn Elon Musk that former U.S. president Donald Trump is not a reliable bed-fellow. “Elon, there will come a time when you need something from Donald Trump,” he posted on X-née-Twitter. “You will think you will have earned the right to ask and receive. You have been a loyal, faithful soldier for him. You have supported him politically with 10s of millions of dollars.”
But “then, at the point you need him the most,” he warns, “you will find out what so many before you have learned, his loyalty is only to himself.”
True enough. Lord knows the list of once-loyal Trumpsters that The Donald has tossed aside is long and storied. Just last week, Rudy Giuliani — the most vociferous of the ex-president’s fellow election-deniers — was permanently disbarred in the District of Columbia, his daughter taking to Vanity Fair on Monday to draw a direct line between her father’s legal problems and his association with the ex-president.
As cutting as Cuban’s treatise on Trump’s uni-directional need for fealty was, however, I don’t think he fully captures all the dangers of Musk’s sudden bromance with the former president. More problematic than Trump’s penchant for betrayal would be Elon’s falling into the trap so many Republican operatives did eight way-too-long years ago. The GOP we know today may be full of Trump sycophants and ass-kissers, but in the 2016’s primaries, The Donald’s candidacy was considered a long shot, a joke even.
Until, of course, it wasn’t. Still, the power brokers fretted not. Mr. Trump might be the party’s figurehead, but they would be the power brokers behind the scenes who really ran the show. They would, I remember the analysis at the time, mould him in the Republican party’s image.
Fast-forward eight years, and it is the Grand Old Party that has been recast in his. I’m sure that Musk, like so many before him, thinks he can out-fox the former president, but America’s political landscape is littered with the corpses of those who all thought they were smarter than the former Apprentice-appointer. Musk’s, I suspect, would just be another scalp.
The downside to any conflict with Trump is that, like him or not — and I, as you all know, am firmly in the “not” category — Musk is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost of the EV movement. I may not be sure as to what calamity might suggest itself — though having all his loyal Democrat-leaning customers turn on him without recouping an equal number of right-wing replacements might be a good start — but I can’t see anything good coming out of this…
Unless Elon’s next “master plan” is a run for public office in 2028. With The Donald’s blessing, of course.
Rolls-Royce won’t be going hybrid
The rest of the auto industry may be bailing — OK, slowing down — on electric vehicles, but not Rolls-Royce. It’s looking to stay all-in on full EVs and, according to new CEO Chris Brownridge, it’s because he’s committed to delivering the “waftability” that is the brand’s trademark.
And that, with the sometimes-electric-sometimes-not nature of combined gas and electric propulsion systems, would seem to rule out hybrids. Certainly, it would eliminate the Atkinson-cycle engines — noisy and not particularly “inspiring,” shall we say — typically mated to electric motors. Truth be told, hybrids are many (good) things, but conveying the “effortless power” Brownridge says is key to the Rolls-Royce image is most certainly not one of them.
Waftability is, on the other hand, the very essence of electric vehicles. Their instant torque is the very definition of “effortless,” and their silent pull a better waft than even Rolls’ trademark V12s. Factor in, says Automotive News,that the Spirit of Ecstasy is making boatloads of moolah on the all-electric Spectre – with the average owner spending no less than 30% extra on bespoke customizations – and that most Rollers are city-bound, and devoting itself to battery-electrics makes perfect sense for Rolls-Royce.
What makes this announcement — or reinforcement — interesting is that, for supercars, battery power would seem a dead end. Rimac is having a hard time selling its positively incredible Nevera, despite it being the fastest car in the world; Pagani’s stuck resolutely to its twice-turbo’d Mercedes V12 despite early protestations the Utopia, too, would be electric; and, with the introduction of the Urus SE I just tested, Lamborghini’s entire lineup is now plug-in-hybrid-powered. Word inside the supercar industry is that, while hybridization is acceptable, pure electrics are death.
Same kind of moneyed customers seeking a similarly exclusive motoring experience having diametrically opposed opinions on what should power them? Who knew the rich really are like you and me in one very specific regard: different people need different mobility solutions.
Only in Canada, eh?
Much of the news out of the EV industry these days is gloomy. Retrenchments by legacy automakers, troubles for Tesla, and reports of general sales declines have dominated the headlines. Some of it has been, as so much media reporting is these days, a little overwrought. Reports of sales declines when the reality was simply a story of slowing sales growth has been the most common of headline manipulations.
That said, the reports of malaise in the EV business is not all the myth and disinformation claimed by EV advocates. Sales growth in many areas has indeed slowed. In the U.S., sales growth has, in fact, slowed dramatically enough that J.D. Power recently downgraded its expected EV market penetration for 2025 from the 12% anticipated just a year ago; to a more modest 9%. Tesla sales have weakened in its former home state of California, and the most EV-ambitious of automakers — General Motors, Ford, and Volvo, amongst many— have delayed their previous plans for an all-EV future. Furthermore, American start-ups Lucid and Rivian seem to be at a final make-or-break point.
In Europe, the other must-win arena in the transition to electrics, the news is worse. The E.U. has seen actual declines in both sales and market share. In August, overall car sales were down 18%, but EVs plummeted an even deeper 37%, which means that, for the first time in a very long while, EV market share in Europe dropped from 15% to 14%. Germany, the engine for much of the previous growth in zero-emissions vehicles, was hit hardest, sales down a whopping 69%. And these numbers just cap what has been a hard four months for electric advocates, with sales on the continent not just slowing down but actually dropping.
The reports of malaise in the EV business is not all the myth and disinformation claimed by EV advocates
But, as Daniel Breton, CEO and president of Electric Mobility Canada, points out, Canada has remained (uniquely) EV-positive. Where sales in other jurisdictions remain sluggish, growth in Canada remains resolute. ZEV sales, says Breton, increased from 30,555 units in the first quarter of 2023; to 46,744 for the same period in 2024, a 53% increase year-over-year.
That said, a significant part of that increase includes a rapid rise in PHEV sales, and the ZEV market share for pure battery-electrics this last Q1 is still just 9.1%. Other than in Quebec, British Columbia, and Ontario, sales are, shall we say, a little slow.
It’s also worth mentioning that Quebec’s outrageous success — the market share for BEVs and PHEVs combined in La Belle Province is currently 26.2% — is at least partly a surge caused by consumers looking to get their ZEV before the provincial government starts cutting back its generous subsidies starting January 1, 2025. That makes Breton’s assertion that “Canada is easily on its way to 20% ZEV sales before the end of 2026” — the target set by the federal EV mandate — at least a little suspect, but he’s right in saying we’re not suffering the same malaise as the U.S. and Europe.
Besides, just as we went to press, General Motors was reporting its best EV sales quarter ever, with more than 5,500 Chevy Equinox EVs sold in the last three months; and GM Hummer EV sales up some 1,500%, albeit from barely more than a handful. Compared with an otherwise bleak automotive news cycle — decreased overall cars sales, tepid EV registrations in other markets, and worrying economic predictions for the future — the Great White Frozen North is looking pretty good. Only in Canada, eh!
Sending a message
Italian Tesla drivers are, well, a little different. Driving through suburban Lecce in Lamborghini’s latest Urus, a new, 789-horsepower plug-in monster of a sport brute, I stumbled upon a rare Tesla Model Y just outside the famed Nardo Technical Centre, home, by the way, of the world’s largest high-speed oval test track.
This Tesla was rarer still for having a most provocative bumper sticker. Right there on the rear bumper — in big, black, bold letters, no less — were the immortal words “F**k you, Greta,” only, you know, without the asterisks.
Now, it could have been a language problem, the owner not understanding the statement they were making. But, having spent a fair amount of time In Italy, I’m fairly confident all the locals understand this one Anglo-Saxon pejorative. Or maybe there was another local Greta that raised his ire, though the permanence and visibility of a bumper sticker does seem like overkill.
Instead, I’ll credit the optimist in me — which I almost never let loose in this column — for hoping that it’s a sign that Italian Tesla owners have a sense of humour that is completely absent in fans of the brand in North America. Or maybe it’s there to screw with the minds of visiting progressives from, say, California or Quebec, where, the miscreant knows, Teslas are as common as Fiats are in the Italia meridionale. Either way, Ms. Thunberg, you’ve been told!
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