DAILY: GM Edges Back To Hybrids, Tesla Forces FSD To Subscriptions and EVGO at Krogers | 15 Jan 2026

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Welcome back to the podcast.

Today, GM edges back to hybrids.

Tesla forces FSD to subscription.

And if he goes, at Kroger's, plus stay tuned.

Later in the show, I'll tell you why Canada could be about to tear down tariff walls

and rebuild their relationship with China.

And join me later for a bonus show called Battle of the Bulge.

Oversized MPVs from Hyundai and Kia.

Compared, we've got two new people carriers.

They're quite different, actually, from Hyundai Motor Group.

So we'll compare them on the bonus show.

Live tonight for patrons, all Patreon exclusives go into the free feed after seven days.

You haven't got to support me on Patreon, by the way, for five or ten dollars a month.

If you want to, it's how I earn a living these days,

spreading the word about electric vehicles and taking the fight to the fossils.

Plus, you get the show's ad free.

And that saves some time and some hassle fast-forwarding them.

And so you can do that.

Check out patreon.com slash evnewsdaily.

And if not, just wait seven days and they drop into the free feed.

And we all like something for free.

Now, Mary Barra still calls the fully electric lineup at General Motors their end game.

That was her phrase.

Yet as Evie demand calls in America and rivals hedge with hybrids,

GM is now eyeing the tech that it once spurned.

The firm has no hybrid range to speak of beyond a Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray.

And it offers plug-in hybrids only in China.

It's exploring hybrid options for America with more hybrids and plug-in hybrids planned

at least for 2027 onwards.

The Chevy Equinox plus plug-in hybrid, which boasts strong range figures,

will not enter the American market.

GM's delay, they say, is deliberate.

Barra insists the company was right to steer capital towards

pure EVs rather than hybrids and still frames full electrification as the strategic goal,

not a waystation, but she also concedes that a central flaw in today's plug-in hybrids is that

people just don't bother to plug them in.

And that behavior gap is a problem.

Plug-in hybrids have the petrol engine directly connected to the wheels and also quite a large

battery increasingly, but you must charge them to deliver their promised efficiency.

They are a different technology to E-Revs or the old BMW i3 Rex technology,

which seems to have been magically invented with E-Revs and everyone thinks it's new.

Studies now show the drivers of regular plug-in hybrid vehicles skip the cable,

and real-world fuel use is way higher than what labs predict using optimistic algorithms.

Europe offers a clear warning to America, weak charging habits, push plug-in hybrid

emissions above pure combustion because they're heavier and you've got to carry a battery around

that you're not charging on overnight cheap rate.

Now, let's talk Tesla.

American drivers bought around 234,000 electric vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Yes, it was a sharp drop from Q3 as the tax credit ended.

The total was 46% below Q3 and 36% below a year earlier.

Even with the late-year slump, 2025 was still the same total EV sales as 2024.

So look, no growth in the US, but considering for a quarter of the entire year,

American buyers were grappling, I think, with getting the head around the loss of the tax credit,

no incentives, a White House that's very anti-EV carmakers that are doing U-turns,

emission standards that are being slashed, and so that's not bad.

It was pretty much the same.

It was 1.276 million EV sales this year and 1.3 million sales last year, over 2024.

So that's about the same, and I think that's a really interesting stat.

Of course, Tesla remained the main story in America in the fourth quarter.

They delivered around 138,000 vehicles in the US.

That's just below 60% market share.

It's so funny.

You know, I have to tailor this podcast to a global audience, and I do need reminding in the

old noggin sometimes that for many of my American listeners, the market is Tesla.

And over here, they're a player, and we mentioned them, but there's a lot going on.

In the US, it's 60% of the market.

It's so huge.

For the full year, data, unofficial data puts Tesla at 590,000 vehicles in the United States,

down 7% on 2024.

Model Y doing all the heavy lifting, Model 3 behind it.

And then SNX, really bit-part players these days.

Everyone thinks that you should bin off the SNDX Tesla, should stop making them,

focus their resources on the Y. No, I like having the SNDX around.

They are different vehicles than they used to be.

The battery chemistries have been improved.

The vehicles have been improved.

And I like having halo cars in lineups.

Otherwise, the Cybertruck estimated to have sold around 4,000 units in Q4 and 20,000 for the

entire year.

If you're interested, I made a podcast recently.

It's in the bonus free feed and the Patreon feed about why the Cybertruck could be homologated

for European roads.

At least there's a concerted effort being done by enthusiasts over here.

Now, let's move on.

Tesla has put an expiry date on full self-driving if you want to buy it.

Valentine's Day, February 14th this year.

It's becoming increasingly hard to own anything these days.

You don't own your music collection anymore, because it's all on YouTube Music or Spotify.

And you don't own movies anymore, because you've got Netflix and Amazon Prime.

And it's hard to buy something.

You don't own software anymore.

And so, Tesla has followed the trend.

You can no longer buy full self-driving.

You can now only subscribe to it.

A lifetime of yet another subscription.

It was once a one-off add-on, which we were told the price would, after climbing to $15,000,

continue to climb because the car's value would climb.

That was the promise, at least, because they'd be driving themselves.

Many years ago, we were told that.

Now the company's cut the subscription price from $199,000 to $99,000 a month.

And remove the option to own it.

The move comes amid falling uptake of full self-driving,

and broader pressures on Tesla forcing a rethink of economics.

A subscription-only service promises steady cash streams.

At a moment when Tesla faces financial strain.

Got a couple of quid in the bank.

They're doing all right.

But there's lots of subsidies.

There's headwinds in China, and Europe is kind of falling out of love a little with Tesla.

Competition sharpens the mind, somewhat, hopefully, anyway.

And Rivian and Nvidia are pushing into self-driving territory

with cheaper, advanced driver assistance systems.

For Tesla, the change marks a turn from selling future promises

to monetizing what they've got to sell you for now.

With scope to add more price cuts if $99 is still too steep.

Evie Go has begun rolling out a nationwide fast-charging program

at selected Kroger family stores.

With the first site live in Salt Lake City, Utah,

each site will host up to 16 high-powered fast-charging stores

placed near retail and dining areas to catch buyers while they linger.

The move matters less for its novelty than for its scale.

Evie Go already runs over 4,600 fast-charging stalls across the United States.

It wants more than $15,000 by 2029.

A large slice of the growth will now sit in the car parks of Kroger-operated brands,

including Kroger, Foods Co., Fred Mayer, Fries Food Stores, Harris Teeter,

King Supers, and Smith's Food and Drug.

The technical offer aims to match real-world behavior.

The fast charges will be designed to sit out for maybe 15 or 20 minutes.

And so typical grocery trips happen in under an hour,

so that might not be what you're doing.

It leaves plenty of headroom for other activities.

Maybe you want to charge a little bit slower sometimes than dashing into a store,

but that's what they're going to be used for.

The build-out reaches well beyond early adopters.

New sites are planned in places like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Washington,

and by tying charges to everyday activities,

popping into the shop for a quick bite to eat or a takeaway lunch or something.

The firm aims to normalize public fast charging as you're going about your business.

Now, let's talk about a sentiment towards EVs.

This is a great data point, and I love talking about this kind of stuff,

because Republican voters still dislike EVs, which is ridiculous.

It shouldn't be a political thing.

They just dislike them less.

A study by EVs for All America.

So this is Mike Murphy.

He ran Schwarzenegger's campaign for governor, and he's run Republican campaigns.

He is a Republican strategist and consultant, but an EV fan.

And like many of us, it's infuriated that EVs got politicized

and just wants to tell the story of how electric vehicles are better,

how you can disconnect yourself from having to go to gas stations,

you can charge a car yourself, you've got solar panels,

and does the technology is better and that we should kind of move on,

get with the times and use better technology.

So he has a couple of organizations.

One of them is called EVs for All America and did some studies

and found a fall in resistance over the last two years.

In 2023, 59% of Republicans said EVs were for people who see the world differently.

By November last year, that was now 49%.

The group reports a 20-point net improvement in Republican openness to buying an EV

in the last two years, and yet 48% of Republicans say they would never buy an EV.

The gap rests less on technology than on worldviews, on dogma,

and what the person in the White House tells you you have to think.

Some 68% of Republicans think climate change is overhyped,

a belief shared by only 7% of Democrats.

Climate-led pitches fell flat with conservative voters.

Economic arguments work better, which is my whole point,

and it's been my whole point for years, and I bought my first Renault Zoe,

and someone went, oh, buying an EV in 2016?

Saving the planet, are you? Saving the polar bears?

No, it's just we've always had automatic cars for my wife,

because she hated changing gear, and I always had manual cars,

and so for her, an EV made even more sense,

because it was just forwards and backwards, and a non-button, which she loved,

and so it was never about that, and it shouldn't be about that if you don't want it to be

about reducing your carbon footprint and emissions and things like that.

I very rarely talk about that kind of stuff, it's just part of the mix for me.

Messages about domestic manufacturing, job creation,

factories to build the cars and the batteries, are nearly all in Republican states.

Concerns over higher prices, public charging and long-term reliability, are valid concerns.

These are big purchases, it's not like a mobile phone, you're changing every year or two,

this is second only to the house that you live in,

the second biggest purchase you probably make in your life,

and so all valid concerns.

Let's reassure people, for those of us that have been driving EVs for a long time,

Tesla enjoys a 54% favourability amongst potential buyers,

but it's a long way behind the leaders, which a Toyota, 91% of Republicans love Toyota.

Elon Musk himself splits the market, 67% of Republicans still view him very positively.

So there's that little look at where.

Where sentiment is at the moment.

We'll take a break, we'll come back, we'll talk about Kia and Mazda,

and more on the podcast. Stick around, back in a moment.

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Up next, commercials.

Welcome back to the podcast.

Now, ZF Foxconn are going to start making the axles for BMWs in Debrecen in Hungary.

They're going to build the front and rear axles for BMW's no-air-classer models there,

like the new iX3 and the i3, the new three-series electric and more.

The site in eastern Hungary, Titan's BMW's local supply chain and Mark's Foxconn's

first really visible step into the EV production.

This factory follows Foxconn's move into cars in spring 2024,

when the Taiwanese contract manufacturer, better known for making iPhones,

bought half of ZF chassis modules for €500 million, and the boss of ZF said the deal

was a way to widen their markets and reach new customers as Foxconn wants to move into EV making.

Now, Kia could launch a baby EV below the Picanto or maybe around the same size

the little baby Picanto in 2030. Tensitively, it would be the EV1,

because they just launched the EV2, didn't they?

There's a special podcast in your feed about that vehicle,

as we look at the spec sheet of the EV2.

Whereas the EV1 is your cheap city car A-segment €15,000 price tag,

taking on Renault Twingo's and VW ID1's. And the push matters from Kia,

because they want serious growth in Europe and won't get it from crossovers alone.

The firm's president and CEO said the company is deep into research about these

A-segment cheap cars in Europe. And I think European

rule makers could do a lot more to encourage it, because I won't get into it now.

But if it's a small city car that's maybe going to do the occasional motorway trip,

all cars are having to now have these incredibly expensive safety sensor suites

added to them to get good safety ratings. And that's a good idea.

But if you're buying sensors for your small city car, they're the same sensors that often go in your

large family SUVs or performance cars that do have to still work at 150 miles an hour on the

auto barn and still have full functionality and full sensor suites and full ADAS and full safety

and all those kind of things. This is where I think Europe needs to copy the Japanese K-car model,

have a segment of cars limited either by weight, I like weight by the way, forces batteries to get

weight or size and maybe speed. Maybe limit them at 70 miles an hour. And then you don't need

all of the fancy pants, safety sensors and suites. They've just got to be a safe car.

But since 2019 or so, prices of small cars are so expensive for the car makers to make these

little city cars that never go above 40 miles an hour, you know, nine times out of 10. So I won't

maybe I should do a whole separate podcast about what I think about these small cars.

They are so important. They are so important. I think about it stupidly. But my son's seven.

And I think he's 10 years away from learning to drive. So it'll be a second or a third hand

small city car. So what comes out now or next couple of years could be a used EV that he

learns to drive in like it's that for me it's that personal and I think about it and

they just need to be cheap now. And we need to make car makers make money and make cheap cars.

And do they need to have all of these ultrasonics and sensors and all of the bells and whistles

that you'd want on a car that is perhaps going to do more motorway driving and I don't know,

all up for debate. Okay, that's that's that news. Let's get on to Mazda. The MX 30 in Europe is

being killed off. They've dropped it from the lineup. MX 30 was a cracking looking thing,

but a pretty terrible EV. I mean, I know people have got them and love them actually and they

they're very stylish. And as EV chops go didn't really have too many. The pure electric MX 30

has disappeared from the lineup a couple of years ago. Mazda confirmed that there's no direct

replacement Mazda only sold 678 MX 30s because they added a range extender to it little rotary

engine. And so yeah, that's you know, that's just over 500 cars of a vehicle that you've had to

develop an engine inside Mazda limited sales in America to California as a compliance car really

and now it's all gone. WLTP to 124 miles EPA to 100 miles. Yeah, it wasn't very sharp. But yeah,

Tesla hasn't dropped any ideas behind the MX 30. They've definitely learned from their early

adventures in electrification. Production of a new E rev has been paused. But that will start

again at Mazda. In the meantime, there is the CX 6E, which is the electric version of the CX 60

in China. So that's coming to Europe as well. And they're working on their first bespoke EV as well.

Now, BYD is going to put the C line five on UK roads, February 7th, starting at 29,995 pounds

plug in hybrid BYD C line five is the ninth model in the UK. And the fourth plug in hybrid

drivers can have a 13 or an 18 kilowatt hour pack, the big battery 53 miles of range, not the most.

But okay, I suppose trim levels are simple. There's the comfort spec, which is 29,995 big

touchscreen, Apple CarPlay, all that kind of stuff, rear view cameras, good spec design trim is three

grand more. And then you get some more toys like electric boot opening, front parking sensors,

360 camera, and some heated front seats as well. BYD sold 26,000 hybrids and electric vehicles in

Europe last month in December. That's more than triple the same month a year ago, the Chinese

group now sells in 18 European countries. The surge comes as Europe prepares to tax BYD more

heavily. 17% tariff on top of the existing 10% Brussels and Beijing are just working out a

new deal on price flaws and pricing and things like that. In the meantime, BYD is not hanging on

for the regulators to get their acting gear, which is why they're building factories on European

soil in Hungary and Turkey using local supply chains is not semi knockdown kits being just

reassembled and weighing a third plant in Spain as well. DAF trucks pushing its longest range

electric trucks into the battery age. The Dutch maker has unveiled their new electric XG and XG

Plus. These are long haul models with 525 kilowatt hour battery packs, DC charging at 325 kilowatts,

AC at 22. And it's a nice place to drive a truck, one pedal driving, lots of technology,

digital cockpit with all your energy use being tracked. DAF will offer these tractors as four

by two and six by two trucks with enlarged cabs, better aero than the old diesel versions. This

is really important because you won't get any vegetables in your supermarket if the trucks

don't deliver them. And driving trucks is not a very sexy job for young people coming out of

education. If we can make it a bit more high tech, a bit more electric and gadgety, it could be an

industry that attracts people because all of a sudden it's kind of brought bang up to date.

Right, let's finish off with Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada in Beijing with a simple

brief. And that is to stop a tariff fight from choking trade between China and Canada. Canada

clearly has a lot more to lose than China. China is now Canada's second largest trading partner,

yet Canadian exports to China fell by 10% last year. There was a 100% Chinese tariff on Canadian

imports in retaliation for Canada following America. I wonder if they regret doing that now. So Canada

followed the US on 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs, effectively ruling them out. But then China hit

back. Now, Carney meeting with President Xi Jinping and other senior officials to work things out.

The trip matters beyond bilateral flows. Ottawa has paused its EV availability standard for 2026,

rethinking how to push EV adoption in Canada. At the same time, Chinese car makers are expanding

into North America. They're building in Brazil and they're building in Mexico. Washington adds a

complication. Carney has improved ties with the US compared with his predecessor. But tariffs on

Canadian steel, aluminium and vehicles remain in place. The American review of the US MCA,

United States, Mexico, Canada agreement is in doubt. Changes in tariffs already raising duties and

Carney's talks in China will not by themselves tear down all the tariffs and fix the frictions.

But we'll see what he comes back with. If it's halved, if it's lowered, if the tariffs go completely,

Canada would be a fascinating market for the Chinese like we are here. So we didn't follow the EU

on tariffs. And now we've got loads of choice. Wonder if in a year's time, Canadian listeners

to this podcast will be having access to a lot of the cars that I get access to. It'll be interesting

to see what deal is done. That's your podcast for today. Thanks to our premium partners,

national car charging on the US mainland and the low hard charge in Hawaii and test EV,

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good and soon or remember there's no such thing as a self charging hybrid. Let's do the 60 second

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DAILY: GM Edges Back To Hybrids, Tesla Forces FSD To Subscriptions and EVGO at Krogers | 15 Jan 2026

About this episode

Chevrolet Corvette

plug-in hybrid

Bmw I3

electric vehicles

Tesla Model Y

Tesla Model 3

Tesla Cybertruck

full self-driving

Nvidia

Rivian

EV

Renault Zoe

electric vehicle (EV)

EVs

ZF Foxconn

BMW iX3

BMW 3 Series

Kia Picanto

General Motors Ev1

Kia EV1

Kia EV2

Volkswagen ID.1

Renault Twingos

A-segment cars

safety sensor suites

ADAS

small city cars

Mazda MX-30

Mazda CX-60

BYD C line five

kilowatt hour

hybrids

360 camera

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