Monterey Car Week is over, and with it the nonstop reveals of flashy top-dollar vehicles meant to appeal to those who already have everything — at least until the next big automotive event. But folks who attended Car Week noticed something odd in those reveals: The all-electric supercar with four-figure horsepower, once inescapable at Monterey, is now an endangered species. The question is, why?
Friend of the show Tim Stevens, writing for Ars Technica, noticed the trend at Monterey this year. He accredits the change to a few disparate factors like the popularity of restomods, the banality of four-figure power numbers, and the desire to create cars with more soul, character, and emotion. These are all good reasons, but I think there are another couple on the list: Luxury customers aren't shopping like they used to, and the future of vehicles is looking a lot different than it did just a couple of years ago.
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It's A Weird Time
The first issue is consumer behavior, or the oft-cited "economic headwinds." A McKinsey study says luxury buyers are wary of the state of the economy these days, and companies will need to try harder than ever to get customers to crack open their pocketbooks. If raw horsepower isn't doing it any more, in a world of 1,064-horsepower cars from Chevy, the real luxury plays have to stand out in other ways. They need, in a word, luxury.
The economy, though, isn't the only thing that's changed within the last few years. Look back to the early 2020s, and you'll see a world where automakers were going all-in on electrification. Automakers swore they would only sell EVs, plants popped up left and right to build more electric cars, and the fabulously wealthy with an interest in being ahead of the curve bought all-electric supercars. Now, though, that dream of an electric future has faded. Companies are slowly shifting their priorities back towards more-profitable ICE cars and hybrids, the federal government is cutting EV infrastructure funding, and Dodge will sell you a car with a little badge to say that this reversion is, in fact, both a middle-finger and a good thing. We aren't, at the moment, building towards an all-electric world — at least not here in the States.
EV hypercars are drying up because electric power is easy to build and, accordingly, quickly becoming not all that exclusive to own. The cars that target those with everything else they could ever want, it follows, are giving up on electrification — they're going for style, materials, craftsmanship, or a return to the things those rich guys loved when they were slightly-less-rich teens. It's a bit of a worrying trend when extrapolated to the entire economy, but don't worry: Those ultra-exclusive cars for the ultra-wealthy aren't going anywhere. They might just sound a little louder.
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