March 15, 2026 | Weekend Drive: Automakers pay big to retreat on EVs, but could the market make a comeback?

Are you a dealer creating a workplace culture

your employees are proud to be part of?

Applications are now open for the 2026 Automotive News

best dealerships to work for program.

This isn't just an award,

it's a chance to get real insight

into what's working at your dealership

and where you can improve.

And we've expanded the categories this year,

recognizing everything from technician experience

and leadership development,

to AI enablement and employee retention.

The registration deadline is April 17th,

find out more and apply at autonews.com.

Welcome to this weekend drive edition of Daily Drive

for the second week in March, 2026.

I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.

We're breaking down some of the biggest stories

in the auto industry from the past week

and looking forward to what's in store in the days ahead.

There have been all kinds of developments this week

on the EV front.

We'll talk about Honda's costly retreat

as they cancel three EV models,

the growing tally of automaker write downs,

and the new market forces that might reverse

some of those trends,

like if the war in Iran pushes gas prices up

to six bucks a gallon.

Joining me today to talk about it is Michael Martinez,

automotive news reporter who covers Ford and the UAW for us.

My man, Mike, welcome back.

Kell, when you were out,

Jake was able to do everything in one take,

so, you know, no pressure.

Here you go.

And in for Larry Velikwet this week,

we're joined by Lindsey Van Hulley,

deputy editor at Automotive News,

covering the electric vehicle ecosystem.

Lindsey, welcome to this madness

that we call Weekend Drive.

Long time listener, first time co-host.

Happy to be here.

All right, so Michael,

let's start with probably the biggest story of the week.

Honda's canceled three EVs,

the Zero Series SUV,

the Zero Series Saloon,

and the Acura RSX.

They're expecting losses up to nearly $16 billion.

What's your take on this, Mike?

Well, I don't think it's a stretch to say

a lot of automakers got the whole EV thing wrong,

but I think some automakers got it more wrong than others.

And I think Honda's one of those automakers,

and I don't just mean the demand curve.

Seems like everybody, you know,

is a swing and a miss in terms of how many customers

actually want this type of product.

But I more so mean the type of EVs

and the kind of platform you need to develop them at scale

and to hope to make any money at them.

Honda always seemed to be behind the eight ball.

They tried to catch up by partnering with GM

that led to the prologue,

which is apparently going away after just a couple of years.

Probably, you know, paint that as a disappointment.

After that, they decided to pivot to the zero series.

It looked like probably something they should have done

from the start, a dedicated platform

that could underpin multiple models.

The concepts looked really sleek and cool.

Maybe that would have been something

if they had started five years earlier or 10 years earlier.

But as they said in their announcement,

they needed to stop the bleeding.

They didn't see any way to turn a profit

in these current market conditions.

It seemed like they were always playing catch up

and they ultimately realized it was a race

that was too long for them to ever hope to win.

And Lindsay, this brings the industry's total

EV restructuring bill to what, around $70 billion now.

What does that mean for the industry?

I mean, I think Mike just touched on it, right?

It really reflects the degree

to which automakers really overestimated

how fast this market was going to develop.

And, you know, it's everything from, you know,

write downs of investments, you know, losses,

just basically trying to get out in front of this.

And I think some of them have said, you know,

if we take all of this upfront,

we can sort of get it out of the way

and reset and move forward.

And I think that's what a lot of this really just reflects

that, you know, they don't need as much factory capacity.

They don't need as much battery capacity.

Maybe some of the models that they were planning

may not have as much demand.

And so I think that's what we're seeing here

with, you know, canceled vehicle lines,

converting some planned EV capacity to internal combustion,

investing more in hybrids than in EVs.

It's sort of this reflection that, you know,

they're trying to match where demand is

with the capacity that they have

and the investment that they have.

It's interesting because, you know,

the analysts I've talked to have said, you know,

they don't expect this to be kind of a wholesale retreat

from EV and battery development.

You know, there's still going to be investment.

There's still work on bringing down battery costs.

There's still work on affordable EV platforms.

We don't know, you know,

under a new presidential administration,

do, you know, regulations shift again.

You know, there's still this discussion

about, you know, EVs are expensive.

And so they're trying to find ways

to bring down that price point,

not just the price point,

but the cost that contribute to that price point.

So I think it's a sign really of just this broader reset

that's ongoing and everyone sort of taking this view of,

you know, how much space and how much capacity

do we really need right now?

Well, Lindsay, that's funny, you bring up reset

because now we saw EV registrations drop 41% in January

with market share tumbling just 5%

and S&Ps Tom Libby called this a reset.

But do you think this is a temporary adjustment

or a fundamental shift?

You know, it's interesting.

I think to some degree we'll see, you know,

when I've talked to analysts about this,

they've talked about at some point,

EV sales are going to pick up again.

EV demand is going to pick up again.

There's going to be growth over time in this segment.

And so I think this is a reflection

of just where we are right now.

There's still price challenges that are out there.

There's still charging challenges, you know,

the network of EV charging nationwide is still expanding.

A lot of these things I think still need to be addressed

before we see a lot of that really big EV development.

I mean, it's hard to say what's going to happen

over the long term.

I think at least for the near term,

this is where it's going to be

and demand is probably going to be a lot smaller

without, you know, that federal tax incentive

that went away into the fall.

But, you know, long term, it seems like there's still going

to be at least, there's the belief out there

that there's still going to be consumers

who are going to want these

and the market will shift there eventually.

Mike, what are your thoughts on that?

Isn't everything in this industry

a temporary adjustment?

It's so cyclical.

We're riding the roller coaster,

things go up and down, things are in vogue,

they're out.

I think that, you know, to Lindsay's point,

everybody's making these adjustments

because of the current market conditions.

But look at what we're going to talk about

in a little bit, the war in Iran.

If those prices last, the oil and gas prices,

we could see a quick pivot back to EVs.

If there's a Democrat in the White House in 2028,

we could see a quick pivot back to EVs.

So temporary, probably, we just don't know

how long that's going to last.

Is it a couple of years, half a decade, what?

So I'm sure the levels will fluctuate,

but to Lindsay's point, at least in the near term,

we may be finding that baseline right now.

All right, coming up, we'll talk about how suppliers

are getting squeezed by soaring diesel prices

for its promise of better transparency

with suppliers and whether new EV models

could actually benefit from rising gas prices.

That's next on Weekend Drive.

The EV transition has been slower than many people expected,

and the financial strain isn't just hitting automakers.

On this week's episode of the Automotive News Shift podcast,

I'm joined by Mohamed Fatouri,

Director of the Engineering and Power Solutions Division at Bosch.

He explains how tier one suppliers are dealing with the pressure

of a software EV ramp, shifting customer demand

and policy uncertainty, and how they're adapting in real time.

From day one, you think about options and flexibility.

If you are planning based on a flexibility or optionality,

then you have the leverage in the future,

if need be, to pivot very quickly.

I'm Molly Boygon.

Join me on Shift, available this Sunday

wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to Weekend Drive.

I'm Kellan Walker with Mike Martinez and Lindsay Van Hully.

So, Mike, let's shift to suppliers.

This week, we reported how diesel prices have jumped 20%

because of the Iran conflict,

and that's really squeezing supplier margins.

There's so much pressure on the supply chain

between these geopolitical tensions

and just normal everyday logistics.

Are we reaching a breaking point?

Yeah, you know, Kell, there's a bunch of jobs I wouldn't want to do,

and when it comes to the auto industry,

I think working as a supplier is top of that list.

You just look at what they're dealing with

between all the abrupt cancellations in EV programs

that they've spent years and billions of dollars tooling up for.

You have the shift of automakers

trying to bring more and more supplier work in-house.

You have, you know, faster product development times,

and then obviously with this current situation

with the Strait of Hormuz,

you're losing a lot of not only oil

that's increasing transportation costs,

but also plastics materials, aluminum, liquid natural gas.

There's a bunch of building blocks to vehicle parts

that they're also probably not getting.

You might as well just add hail and locus to this list

of things suppliers are dealing with.

It's not great.

And what makes it tough is that this is already

a pretty low margin business, auto in general,

but specifically for the suppliers.

So when you talk about something that's going to raise their prices,

especially for these small guys,

even if it's just 1% or 2% of their overall costs,

that's going to have a major impact.

So breaking point, we have to be close,

given everything else that's going on.

So Lindsay, kind of piggybacking off of what Mike just said,

Flavio Volpe of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association

said transportation is typically 5% to 6% of operating costs,

so a 20% fuel increase adds about 1% to total costs.

I know it doesn't sound huge,

but in context, it does sound pretty significant.

What are your thoughts?

Yeah, it is.

And I think our colleague Greg Lason in Canada,

you know, talked about this, you know,

kind of summed it up pretty nicely

and just this idea of the just-in-time industry

that we all work in, right?

That there's very few alternatives to trucking.

We don't store parts for very long.

You know, they really get moved

when they're needed in the assembly plant.

And so that makes rail not necessarily an option.

Fuel costs are hard to get around.

And so it may seem small,

but when you're working in that just-in-time,

when, you know, it's so critical

that the part arrives when it's supposed to,

it just, it makes it so that it's a really hard thing

to get around.

Now, Mike, I've been waiting to ask you this all day

because you know how much I just love a good Ford story.

Now, we had news this week

that Ford is promising better transparency to suppliers.

Please explain to us what the story is here.

Yeah, so Liz Dore relatively new chief supply chain officer

at Ford within the past half decade or so.

They have a yearly meeting with their top suppliers

and this year she told them they're gonna be more transparent

and that they're gonna try to give them now three year windows

into their product cycles, which I love to hear

as somebody who needs to report out future product

every year, great job guys.

Bump it up to five while you're at it, that'd be great.

But in all seriousness, this is a ray of hope

for the suppliers after all the stuff

we were just talking about.

They need security, they need to know what the plans are.

So like I referenced, they're not spending a bunch of money

tooling up and preparing for a model

that's just gonna be canceled or shelved anyway.

So Ford's struggled with its supply chain relations

when Liz Dore first came in, she revamped

their whole supplier program from how it used to be

to how they reward contracts now.

They still struggled because obviously Ford's struggling

with a lot of things in terms of recalls,

in terms of what programs it is or isn't working on

moving forward.

So if I'm a supplier, I'm feeling pretty great

coming out of this meeting, obviously that was the intent.

So we'll see if the company can follow through on it.

I imagine if this works, it's the type of perspective

you're gonna wanna see suppliers asking

for from other automakers.

And that was what I was gonna ask you, Lindsay,

exactly what Mike just said,

because you used to cover GM,

do you expect other automakers to take the same route?

We've written a lot over the past couple of years

just about this issue with stranded capital, right?

And it's really difficult if you're a supplier

and you're trying to figure out where to make investments,

do you go all in on EVs?

Do you try and diversify?

How do you make those investments?

And it is difficult.

And I think for suppliers,

there as much of that kind of window

into product plans as possible,

I think is going to be really important.

I think to the points Mike made earlier,

there's a lot of things that throw wrenches and all of that.

It's like the EV demand curve that we've seen

kind of flattening out.

And whether it's tariffs, whether it's unforeseen events,

kind of like that fire at the aluminum plant

that's affected output of some of the pickups.

I do know there's a push for transparency

even deeper than that too, right?

And just trying to really get at,

how do you get visibility far enough down the supply chain

so that you can see when some of these things might happen?

Is there a disruption someplace

that might impact production someplace else?

And so this question of transparency,

I think is really interesting both from the product planning

and trying to figure out where you make that investment

and also how do you get enough visibility into Tier 1, Tier 2,

Tier 3, Tier N, so that if there's a tornado someplace

that you can know early enough and react enough

that you don't have this really costly downtime

which impacts both the automaker and the supplier.

All right, so here's a very interesting angle.

Now, Mike, gas prices have been climbing

because the obvious, the issue and situation in Iran

but we got these new affordable EVs on the way from Rivian

like the R2.

Could rising gas prices actually help revive EV demand?

Sure, if it lasts long enough,

I think customers would definitely take another look

to see if the dollars and cents make sense for them.

You mentioned the R2, it's interesting.

I don't know if that will benefit from this situation,

particularly because it was announced recently

that Rivian is launching with the more expensive model.

I know automakers typically do that,

but R2 is pretty important to Rivian.

You could argue it's a make or break moment for them.

Sales of its other models are not doing well.

It's losing a lot of money and they need this R2 to be a big hit.

They had been promising a lower priced $45,000 model

found out that's not going to come maybe for another year or so,

give or take.

It's going to launch with a $58,000 model.

Would that be the answer if gas prices are high?

Rivian's a lifestyle brand pretty much, right?

It's for outdoorsy type people, pretty high costs

on both the pickup and the SUV these days.

They're larger than I think what a lot of automakers today think

they need their EVs to be.

The R2 could be an answer.

I'm just not sure the early models it's going to come out with

would help save customers that much money.

Maybe a better option might be the Chevy Bolt 2.0, right?

Our colleague John Irwin was just out test driving it.

It seems like it could be a nice option,

although that limited run seems like it's going to be very limited.

So will Chevy be able to produce enough of them?

So a lot of questions,

but there are some interesting new EV offerings coming

if it makes sense for you as a customer.

Well, that's all I was going to ask you, Lindsay.

You are our former GM expert.

Is everyone going to be buying bolts?

Does everyone want bolts?

Chevy will tell you that there is a very loyal bolt ownership base

and that there's this customer base that have been in these older bolts

that may want to trade up for the new one.

It's at a price point and when I've talked to dealers,

they've said we're excited about it even being an EV,

even in this market because of its price point.

Whether demand is high enough that makes that case that this is the place that EVs need to be

to really spur that demand, I think we'll need to see.

It just went on sale earlier this year.

So they're just now beginning to really get out there.

But when we start to get sales numbers from GM every quarter,

it's going to be interesting to see what happens there.

But when I've talked to dealers about it, they've pointed to that,

the Equinox EV really to another degree just for those price points

because right now without the tax credit, you might get some automaker and dealer incentives,

but you still have to have the price point at a place where people can actually get into it.

Do you think with American consumers how we have our love for big vehicles and SUVs,

that the bolt, I'm not going to say would fall on its face,

but not do as well because of the size?

I don't know. I think it did really well when it was out originally.

And so I think the question is going to be just,

does it continue to resonate with those previous bolt owners?

And does it help bring people in from other brands?

I've been looking for an EV at that price point.

So I think it's going to be really interesting to see how 2.0 does.

Gotcha. Now, Lindsay, we talked to plug CEO Jimmy Douglas this week on Daily Drive.

He made the argument that predictions of a used EV price collapse are flat wrong.

He says interest and prices for used EVs have only gotten stronger so far this year.

What do you make of that?

I think it's going to be very interesting as more of these

least EVs return to the market.

And we know the projection is going to be this is going to be increasing over the months and years

ahead as more of these leases are expiring.

And so I think we'll get a better read on what actually happens in that market

when more of these are out there.

It is interesting when I have talked with analysts, with some dealers recently,

just reporting on the potential impact from higher gas prices and what that might do,

the used EV argument has come up a lot.

And the idea that there are a lot of incentives right now to try and move new EVs

and they're competing against one, two, maybe three-year-old versions of the same model

at potentially a lower price point.

And so if you're coming into it and you're looking for an EV, maybe you're a first-time EV buyer,

maybe a used EV at that price point is a good way to get into it.

Maybe a lease might make more sense.

But I think the used EV question is going to be very interesting to see what happens.

The dealers I've talked to, one actually recently said he's already looking for used EVs at auctions

to try and get ahead of potentially demand shift there.

Analysts have said it's a way to potentially educate consumers, give them a more affordable

way to get into an EV and try it out.

So I don't know, I think a lot of it I think is going to be determined once more of these

return to the market and we begin to see what that actually looks like.

But at least the people I talked to say there's an opportunity with used EVs

that we're going to begin to see this year that maybe we just haven't yet because of numbers.

Perfect. All right. Mike, Lindsay, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks, Bill.

Thanks.

That's all for this weekend drive edition of Daily Drive.

I'm Kellyn Walker.

Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Nier for his help on today's podcast.

You can get the latest news on Honda's EV retreat,

supplier cost pressures and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com.

Come back on Monday for a conversation with Mohammed Faturi,

director of the Engineering and Power Solutions division at Bosch.

He talks about how tier one suppliers are dealing with financial strain

from a slower than expected EV transition.

The take rate of the battery electric vehicles in the market were not as expected by the industry,

but this was also a trend that we had in our scenario planning.

So we had other plans based on the approaches that we had

to be able to shift our product portfolio,

as well as our investments commensurate to the needs that we have from the market.

We'd love to hear from you.

Let us know to think of the show and the topics we cover today.

Send us an email at dailydrive at autonews.com

or leave us a voicemail at 313-444-2774.

If you enjoy the podcast, remember to like,

leave a review, and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

March 15, 2026 | Weekend Drive: Automakers pay big to retreat on EVs, but could the market make a comeback?

About this episode

EV

automaker write downs

Acura Rsx

Honda

EV platform

Automaker partnership

internal combustion

hybrids

battery costs

price point

reset

EV registrations

market share

EV charging network

EVs

EV transition

tier one suppliers

software EV ramp

supply chain pressure

bringing supplier work in-house

Strait of Hormuz

transportation costs

aluminum

auto suppliers

operating costs

fuel increase

transparency in supply chain

Tier 1, Tier 2 suppliers

automaker incentives

lease

Bosch

battery electric vehicles

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Automotive News Daily Drive