Feeling out the EV softness at Pebble Beach
Turns out even the ultra-rich are worried about depreciation.
Hello, from somewhere over Albuquerque, where I'm lucky enough to be able to look down on the arid terrain to relax my eyes between paragraphs while getting a little work done. I’m finally heading home. I've been on the road for the better part of a week, heading out last Thursday for the Monterey Car Week festivities before ducking down south to take a little spin around in the Volvo EX90.
The EX90 is Volvo's long-anticipated three-row SUV. It's electric, of course, and it looks fantastic, but sadly, that's about all I can tell you about that. Full impressions are under embargo until a later date. It isn't too far off, so sit tight and keep an eye on Engadget, where my words will appear in due time.
For now, I wanted to delve into something else: the somewhat uneven temperature toward EVs that I was picking up as I made my way around Monterey this past weekend. Pebble Beach, and the whole of the Monterey Car Week that's grown up around it, has evolved a lot even over the decade or so that I've been attending.
Put simply, it's not really an enthusiast event anymore. Well, okay, let me say that I always struggled to think of it as an enthusiast event in the first place because I struggle to see people who can buy whatever they want whenever they want as enthusiasts. But, everyman gatekeeping aside, the week is increasingly less about appreciating and sharing, and more about launching and positioning. It's work, now, and that's doubly true for me. As a freelancer, I was really hustling to chase as many stories as I could.
Good news: There were quite a few. I was lucky to speak with several executives at several companies, some on the record and some off, about their thoughts on... well, everything. But the specter that loomed over most conversations was EV depreciation, something that may or may not be played out by another Spectre, that being the ultra-luxe EV from Rolls-Royce that I wrote about last year for Inverse.
The concern is that premium EVs are depreciating too quickly to sustain the ongoing, perpetually increasing valuations that enable the aspirationally ultra-rich to roll from one supercar to another without really ever paying for any of the steps along the way.
Lamborghini CTO Rouven Mohr
Depreciation made up for a significant part of my conversation with Lamborghini CTO Rouven Mohr, who told me that the technology for the company's EV, the Lanzador that the company showed off last year, is more or less ready. They're just not sure whether the market is. Like many others, he's waiting to see what happens to Spectre values over time.
It was a great conversation, thanks to that and because I learned plenty about the company's next super sports car, the Temerario, which pairs the Revuelto's three-motor hybrid system with a screaming, 10,000 RPM V8 in a smaller, lighter package. It should be a delight.
Porsche NA CEO Timo Resch
Porsche NA's new CEO, Timo Resch, also sat down with me to give me his thoughts on the perceived softening of the EV market in the US. Like many, Porsche previously had some aggressive timelines for going electric, but Resch says they're now more or less letting customer demand drive timelines. It's the right call, even if it's frustrating for those of us who know just how good living with an EV can be.
Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson
Other executives are still bullish, few more so than Lucid's CEO Peter Rawlinson. I'm lucky to have interviewed Peter many times over the years, starting when he proudly walked me through the design of the Model S something like 14 years ago. He's always a good conversation, rarely minces words, and never skips an opportunity to say what he thinks about Elon Musk. (He indeed got a good jab in here.)
Anyhow, he's gearing up for the long-awaited launch of the Gravity SUV and shared with me his thoughts on the state of the EV market. If that's not enough, Lucid's designer Derek Jenkins unearthed some nuggets about what comes after Gravity, and I’m excited.
Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath
Thomas Ingenlath is equally optimistic about EVs, but as another CEO of another all-EV company, he kinda has to be. Just the same, I think his optimism is well-founded. The company's equally long-awaited electric SUV, the Polestar 3, is finally in production. And, with American manufacturing secured thanks to a little (okay, a lot) of help from Volvo, he doesn't have to sweat the tariff situation. Not for this car, at least…
BMW’s Semi-CSL
Sick of reading about EVs? Well, first of all, let me commend your patience for reading through all that and sticking through to the end. As a reward, I have my on-track impressions of the BMW M4 CS, which is the lightweight but not-quite-CSL lightweight flavor of the M4. It's a great drive, truly a joy on the track, and it looks so good in that green you should really click on through just to enjoy more pictures. I think they came out pretty alright, if I do say so myself.
And with that, I'll sign off as I have a pair of exclusives I need to wrap up and ship off to their appropriate publications. More on those coming soon, but until then, be good, be well, and if you're in the window seat, don't forget to lift that shade every once in a while and see what's going on out there. It's good for your eyes. And your soul.