Just some brief years in the past, Basic Motors and Ford had been all in on electrical autos, spending billions of {dollars} on these efforts. Now the 2 greatest American automakers are hardly speaking about EVs with their buyers.
TechCrunch teamed up with Hudson Labs, a New York-based monetary analysis agency, to research the final seven years of GM and Ford quarterly earnings calls and located that each firms are speaking about EVs at a decrease fee than they did earlier than the pandemic.
This shouldn’t shock anybody who’s adopted the information during the last two years. Each firms have altered, delayed, or outright deserted plans for brand spanking new EV fashions, prompting layoffs and scaled-back manufacturing facility plans. And whereas GM and Ford nonetheless promote EVs and have new fashions of their product pipelines, their collective focus has shifted, and it reveals within the information.
Jim Cain, a spokesperson for GM, mentioned that “high quality counts greater than amount.”
“We’ve been very clear and constant in speaking our view that EVs are the tip recreation, the energy of our portfolio at present, the loyalty of EV clients to the expertise, awards we’ve received, our rising EV market share, and our dedication to proceed investing in applied sciences like LMR (lithium manganese-rich) to enhance profitability,” he mentioned in an emailed assertion.
However, he added, “we dedicate time on the calls to debate progress alternatives like software program and providers and autonomous expertise, and handle advanced subjects of analyst/investor curiosity like commerce and regulatory coverage impacts, working efficiency, capital allocation, regional efficiency, headwinds and tailwinds — all whereas ensuring at the very least half the decision is dedicated to Q&A.”
Ford spokesperson David Tovar, in the meantime, pointed to the corporate’s deliberate launch of its new “Common Electrical Automobile” platform subsequent yr. “[W]e assume the primary product rolling off the road, a midsize pickup truck, will hit the candy spot of the EV marketplace for value, worth, and expertise,” he mentioned.
For this evaluation, TechCrunch excluded the ostensible third of the Detroit Huge Three, Stellantis, for just a few causes. The automaker, which emerged in 2021 from the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA Group, historically lagged behind its U.S. counterparts in EV adoption. Stellantis additionally, till the primary quarter of this yr, held complete earnings calls solely twice a yr, as an alternative of 4 instances yearly, like most public firms.
Hudson Labs sourced earnings name transcripts from S&P Market Intelligence courting again to 2019 and used its Co-Analyst — an AI analysis software purpose-built for high-precision monetary analysis — to assign matter tags to every sentence. It then counted the frequency of these subjects, in addition to every matter’s share of the dialogue, to supply the charts under.
Basic Motors
GM wager on mass-market EVs earlier than most different main automakers. It debuted the Bolt EV on the Client Electronics Present in January 2016 and put the automobile on sale by the tip of that yr — a wholesome six months or so forward of Tesla’s first deliveries of the Mannequin 3.
EVs actually grew to become a spotlight of GM’s earnings calls as its funding ramped up in 2019 and into 2020. At that time, the corporate was teasing new made-in-the-U.S. fashions and speaking about remodeling Cadillac into an all-electric brand. GM spent an growing period of time speaking about its EV plans via early 2021, with greater than 100 references to electrical autos on every of its final two earnings calls in 2020. That meant EVs accounted for roughly a 3rd of the general dialogue on these calls.
Except for a dip within the first quarter of 2021, when firms world wide had been coping with a significant chip scarcity, GM spent practically the subsequent 4 years — notably whereas President Biden was in workplace — dedicating round 1 / 4 of every earnings name to discussing EVs. (One other notable dip that got here within the first quarter of 2025 was attributable to President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, which dominated that earnings name.)
After Trump regained workplace, he slashed environmental rules that incentivized zero-emissions autos, and his get together tore up the $7,500 federal tax credit score for brand spanking new EVs. On the similar time, GM’s discuss of EVs dropped considerably, from 82 mentions on the second-quarter name in 2025, to only 21 on its most up-to-date name protecting Q2 2026.
Whereas GM stays the second-largest vendor of EVs within the U.S., the corporate that once made the lofty promise to go all-electric by 2035 is now speaking extra about the way it has “align[ed] our EV capability and manufacturing footprint with the adjustments in regulatory coverage” — when it talks about EVs in any respect.
Ford
Ford’s first critical entry into the world of mass-market EVs was the Mustang Mach-E, which debuted in late 2019. As the corporate bought nearer to delivering the primary fashions in late 2020, it began speaking increasingly about electrical autos on its earnings calls.
Except for an identical dip in mentions on the Q1 2021 name, which was slowed down by discuss of the worldwide semiconductor scarcity, Ford — like GM — began spending round a 3rd of every quarterly investor check-in speaking about EVs. These discussions had been buoyed by the launch of its second main EV mannequin, the F-150 Lightning, in 2021. And that stage of focus largely held via the Biden years, as his administration freed up federal cash for charging stations and EV manufacturing credit, whereas shaping coverage across the battery materials provide chain.
Ford started speaking much less about EVs earlier than the 2024 election, although. By the center of that yr, the corporate was already backing away from a few of its largest contemporary EV investments in favor of a skunkworks challenge that finally grew to become the Common Electrical Automobile platform. Speak of EVs dipped additional after Trump took workplace, with CEO Jim Farley spending more time discussing support for the president’s protectionist trade policy and the corporate’s near-term concentrate on its higher-margin fuel F-Sequence vehicles.
Nonetheless, on Ford’s most up-to-date name, Farley talked up the concept that the corporate “will turn out to be a significant scaled competitor as we spend money on reasonably priced, versatile EVs.” However for that to occur, buyers must wait till at the very least subsequent yr.
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