After Delays Coming: Latest Updates and Analysis

After delays, the VW ID.7 now won’t be coming to the US at all

Volkswagen has officially cancelled the long-delayed [website] electric sedan in America, instead focusing on selling it in Europe and China.

The [website] is VW’s electric mid-size sedan offering, currently available (and selling well) in Europe and also in China.

Previously the [website] had been intended to launch in 2024 in North America, after launching in Europe in 2023. But when launch time came close, VW delayed the North American debut of the model indefinitely last May.

As in the recent past as October, VW America’s boss Pablo Di Si (who has since moved on) stated that the [website] could still come in 2025.

But now we know that that indefinite delay is now fully definite: the model has been canceled in the US and Canada.

The news was broken yesterday by The Car Guide, speaking with a VW Canada representative. We’ve since reached out to VW, who confirmed the news to us.

Automotive News quoted a VW spokesperson saying the decision was made due to “the ongoing challenging EV climate.” Last year in North America, EV sales grew by 9%, faster than the overall auto market which grew at [website], suggesting that the market is in fact more challenging for non-EVs than EVs at the moment. Further, gas car sales have been in long term decline since 2017, whereas EV sales have risen drastically in that time period.

That growth was achieved with very few available sedan models as well, with almost every EV available in America being an SUV-type. Adding additional model availability could open up the market to more buyers who want a right-sized vehicle instead of a land yacht.

But VW has been having a challenging time itself in the US. Until in recent times, it only offered a single SUV model, the [website], in the US. While the [website] has brought a lot of upgrades in recent times, it’s also one of the few vehicles whose sales were down in a growing market (which was true even before the stop sale which has now been lifted after fixing a door handle problem). Perhaps VW could have benefitted from offering a vehicle in a different format.

VW had previously blamed its delay of the [website] on “market conditions.” It didn’t specify which market conditions it was referring to, but we have some suspicions.

Manufacturers have a belief that Americans only want SUVs (or so they say – really, this is at least partially driven by emissions rules), and the [website] is not one. Although VW at one point did try to portray it as one – when we first saw the [website] it was in the guise of the “Space Vizzion” concept, and VW mentioned it “combines the aerodynamic qualities of a Gran Turismo with the generous interior space of an SUV,” trying to leverage Americans’ supposed desire only for land yachts by portraying a somewhat more sensible wagon as something it’s not.

That mentioned, the car likely would have been higher-priced than the [website], as it is in Europe. The best-selling electric sedan in the US is the Tesla Model 3, with few other options outside of the luxury market. The [website] could have offered an alternative for buyers who are looking for something that isn’t associated with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, but its likely high starting price might have limited that appeal.

But while this is a disappointment for those of us waiting for more right-sized electric vehicles, it doesn’t mean the end for new VW EVs in the US. Automotive News quoted a VW spokesman as saying that “electric vehicles continue to be a core part of Volkswagen’s long-term product strategy, and new electric models will continue to be introduced for this market.” So, stay tuned for more.

Well, if you still want an electric VW, there’s always the [website] To contact a local dealer and see if they have any VW [website] ready to sell, feel free to use our link. You can also reach out about the [website], if a quirky electric minivan is more your speed.

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BMW i5 spotted with native NACS port – could be one of the 1st brands to switch?

A BMW i5 with a native NACS port was spotted charging this weekend in Green River, Utah, leading to thoughts that BMW’s NACS transition may leapfrog a few other companies.

We’ve seen a lot of action in the NACS transition in the last few weeks, with several brands added to Tesla’s Supercharger “coming soon” page, separate announcements from VW and Honda, and with Hyundai shipping the first third-party vehicles with a native NACS port (which works great on Superchargers) and Kia’s native NACS EV6 just around the corner as well.

One of the brands added to the “coming soon” list is BMW, a brand whose NACS transition we haven’t heard a whole lot about lately. It presented in 2023 that NACS would come in 2025, and we know that an adapter will be available when BMW gains access to the network (though the transition has gotten a little bit chaotic in the interim, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s unwise abrupt firing of the whole Supercharger team).

But BMW also has a new class of vehicles coming out – dubbed, in the most German way possible, “Neue Klasse” – with a new EV platform that advanced integrates batteries into the vehicle structure. Those vehicles may come with NACS support natively, and the first of them should ship by the end of this year.

And we may have seen the first physical indication of those future native NACS vehicles this weekend in Utah, with a BMW i5 spotted being driven and charged by BMW engineers.

The pictures were taken by reddit user Redditq_, who we also followed up with. They mentioned that the vehicles all had various engineering equipment stuck to the dashboards, that there were three development vehicles in total at the station (other than his, in the middle of the shot above), and that the cars were using an adapter to charge. The engineers mentioned they were testing the NACS port.

Interestingly enough, this charging station doesn’t have any NACS charging heads, only CCS and CHAdeMO. So the engineers used a CCS to NACS adapter to charge at this station.

The BMW has the charging port on the passenger side, which is notable as Teslas all have charging ports on the driver side. This has caused some difficulty as brands gain Supercharger access, because older Supercharger stations have short cables that can’t reach both sides of the vehicle (the new V4 system will fix this, but not many of those stations have rolled out yet). This has led to some vehicles having to double-park in order to charge, which is actually the Tesla-recommended method.

But passenger-side ports are more beneficial for street-side charging, which is becoming more common in European cities and would be a method to make it easier for apartment-dwellers or other street parkers to charge their cars. The Rivian R2 was originally unveiled with a relocated charge port to the passenger side for this reason, before moving it back to the driver’s side for Supercharger compatibility instead.

This is actually one of the first vehicles that we’ve seen with a native NACS port, even in testing. While most brands have revealed a transition and several are already sending out adapters and are Supercharger-compatible, the only other cars we’ve seen with native ports have been Hyundai/Kia cars and unreleased/concept vehicles ([website] the R2 and the Aptera).

So, despite BMW not being on the absolute forefront of the transition in terms of adapter availability (like Ford or Rivian, for example), it may leapfrog some brands at bringing a NACS-native car to market. BMW is also a part of the IONNA charging network, which will install NACS plugs.

We saw similar early native NACS ports with Hyundai, when a camouflaged vehicle with a native port was spotted in July 2024, about six months before Hyundai started shipping the Ioniq 5 with its own native port. We wonder if something similar might happen with BMW.

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Volkswagen of America today introduced the initial pricing and trim for the 2025 Volkswagen [website] – here’s the lowdown.

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Planned merger between Honda and Nissan may be in trouble

Nissan and Honda are "advancing various discussions" regarding proposed merger.

Honda reportedly proposed to make Nissan a subsidiary.

Merger is seen as potential lifeline for Nissan, would create one of world's largest automakers.

The anticipated merger between Honda and Nissan introduced last December, may be encountering significant challenges that, , could potentially lead to its cancellation.

Initially, both automakers planned to finalize their decision by the end of January, but the deadline has been pushed back to mid-February. New tariff threats by the Trump administration are also likely to be weighing on the deliberations.

Now a series of reports citing insiders—and potentially part of the give-and-take of negotiation—indicate that Nissan is reconsidering its participation in the merger.

Citing several data, Reuters reported on Wednesday that Nissan's management expressed concerns over Honda's proposal to make Nissan a subsidiary, a move that could diminish Nissan's decision-making authority within the partnership. That research also appears to imply that negotiations have halted or that Nissan has withdrawn while it retains the option to restart negotiations.

Nissan, after that findings, has issued a statement confirming that discussions have not ended. "Based on the memorandum of understanding signed on December 23 last year, Honda and our firm are in the stage of advancing various discussions, including the contents of the findings, and we plan to establish a direction and make an announcement around mid-February,"

Honda had not yet at the time of writing issued its own equivalent statement. Japan's Asahi Shimbun also reported on Wednesday, perhaps as part of these "discussions," that Honda executives are frustrated with Nissan's slow progress in both the merger discussions and the implementation of a restructuring plan. This plan includes the reduction of 9,000 jobs and a 20% decrease in production capacity.

Unlike Honda, Nissan has been struggling with declining sales, particularly in the [website] and China, raising uncertainty about its future without the merger. Without a clear path forward, the merger has been seen as a potential lifeline. The Financial Times in its own research on Wednesday highlighted that Nissan's recent poor financial performance has caused its market capitalization to shrink to just one-fifth of Honda's, altering the balance of power in the negotiations.

Mitsubishi, which is already partially owned by Nissan, was invited to join the merger. However, reports from January suggested that Mitsubishi preferred to stay out of the merger, citing its smaller size and concerns over losing independence within the combined entity.

Even without the merger, Honda and Nissan may deepen their collaboration. The automakers are already partnered in some areas. Honda and Nissan have been collaborating on EV and software development since early last year, and Mitsubishi joined the partnership last summer. Nissan and Mitsubishi also already share vehicle platforms and technology via their existing alliance, which also includes Renault. Mitsubishi has also collaborated with Honda in the past, most not long ago in battery leasing for EVs through a joint venture called Altna.

Combined sales of Honda and Nissan in 2023 totaled more than 8 million vehicles. That would make the merged automaker, estimated to have a value of around $58 billion, the third largest by sales volume after Toyota and the Volkswagen Group, which sold [website] million and [website] million vehicles in 2023, respectively.

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