As GM drops the Volt, Trump’s damage to GM is part of a bigger and sadder picture.
The two remaining major American car companies .. Ford and FM .. are either getting out of the small car and EV world or exporting those activities to Asia and Europe.
Even John Deere and Trump’s beloved Harley Davidson have moved their technology to Germany. While Trump thinks the right to work laws (with their cheap Confederate state labor) are incentives to car builders, our competitors .. Japan, China, Korea, and Europe tout free trade and investments in technology. Instead of “right to work laws” they have industrial policies that require a seat at the board table for workers.
What is left may be Trump’s nemesis .. Elan Mush and even Tesla is now building a factory in China.
All this illustrates the madness of Trump’s economics policies. Classically tariff walls have hurt innovation by protecting inefficient industries. Why develop EVs here when China and the EU are building infrastructure to support EVs? Why build EVS in the US when Trump’s tariffs make big gas guzzlers more profitable than the Volt?