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- David Rosing, a California resident, is struggling to purchase his desired configuration of the electric Chevrolet Silverado.
- Experts suggest Rosing’s difficulty finding his ideal truck stems from limited availability of specific configurations and the distribution of EVs across the U.S.
- Dealership floor planning practices contribute to lower EV inventory, as dealers prioritize faster-selling gasoline-powered vehicles.
When General Motors announced layoffs of 200 employees at its all-electric Detroit-Hamtramck Factory Zero to ensure that production will “align with market dynamics,” one vehicle shopper across the country took the news harder than most.
For David Rosing, a former system engineer at the CalTech Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Sunland, California, the decision to purchase an electric vehicle was far from rocket science. After meticulous research and a thorough understanding of the technology, Rosing decided back in January to purchase a Chevrolet Silverado EV.
Since then, he has tried, and failed, to procure the exact version he wanted. When he learned that the assembly facility that produced the truck of his dreams would be laying off employees, he felt betrayed.
“I would love to get the message to the C suite at GM that there’s a lot of people ticked off at Tesla looking for something else,” Rosing told the Detroit Free Press. “Please pass along a message to the workforce at Factory Zero that there is, indeed, demand for their products.”
Factory Zero employs roughly 4,500 workers, according to the company’s site. A person familiar with production plans said that the bulk of the reductions will be in the battery pack manufacturing area and that the company has no current plans for those jobs to return.
A GM spokesperson said that production of the Silverado EV hasn’t been interrupted, and in fact is ramping up as the company prepares to start 2026 model year assembly the first week of May.
Yet experts say that the availability of electric vehicles nationwide may have hindered Rosing’s search.
The Silverado EV LT has an option package with features above those offered in the base model, Rosing said, but has a price tag that still qualifies for the federal EV tax credit. The premium midgate option on the work truck can fit items reaching up to 10 feet 10 inches, tow a maximum 10,000 pounds and has a company-estimated 450-mile range, according to the website.
It’s exactly what Rosing could use driving around the city but also hauling lumber for projects, he said.
Rosing is a customer of Rotolo Chevrolet in Fontana, California, and has been calling and emailing the dealership once a week hoping for the model that would be just right — that particular configuration in the hue Blue Smoke Metallic.
“I’m a Catch-22 in GM’s eyes — they think there’s no demand even when we’re begging to order one, but we can’t order one because they think there’s no demand,” Rosing lamented. “I’m going to hold out. My expectation is this vehicle could last me 10 years. I may not have to buy another car ever again. I would love to buy it.”
Early adopter syndrome
Gasoline-powered vehicles can convert only so much energy from its fuel source to run a car, according to Rosing.
An electric car makes the most sense down to the molecular level, and as an engineer, Rosing sees the logic in a machine that uses its energy more efficiently while leaving out components that corrode or break over time. The Silverado EV has the range and a midgate option that Rosing is willing to invest in, and his 1992 F-150 isn’t getting any younger.
“All that heat causes the engine bay to get hot and then you have heat-induced failures in the wiring and plastic components and the parts talking back and forth on these computers,” he said. “The modern car may not last for that 10 to 15 years the way it could when I got my F-150.”
Electric vehicles may have been around for decades, but buyers like Rosing still fall under the category of early adopters, according to Ivan Drury, Edmunds’ director of insights.
It helps that he’s a rocket scientist, but even so, it’s a rare customer who weighs all considerations before making an educated purchase of an electric vehicle, Drury said.
“Most people think, ‘what’s the payment, can I charge it at home’ — that’s it,” he said. “He is kind of an outlier but for understandable reasons. He’s in EV central, but that’s not GM central.
“They just don’t sell as many vehicles in that region,” he added. “There’s fewer chances for him to come across that vehicle.”
Dude, where’s my car?
A huge part of the problem is where electric vehicles are spread out across the U.S.
Rosing wanted the Silverado that he wanted, and it had to be just right. The Silverado EV work truck starts at $41,595, including shipping, while the retail version starts at $106,695. Rosing placed an order on the GM website which was then transferred to the dealer he had already been emailing once a week.
“It’s not like there’s no demand. It’s waning, but there’s still people there,” Drury said. “He’s hard up in a few ways that he’s selected a brand that’s going in on EVs but is still having trouble.”
A major factor that impacts dealership inventory levels is the method dealerships use to acquire vehicles: floor planning.
Floor planning is financing dealers use to purchase cars and trucks for showroom floors and lots. Dealers borrow — typically from a lender that is owned by the automakers, which is called a captive finance company.
Those loans accrue interest that the car dealer must pay even if a customer never sees that expense, Drury said. The carmaker gets paid back for the loan once the dealership sells the vehicles it financed.
“Every day the car sits is the day it doesn’t sell, and every day it doesn’t sell, you pay interest on it. The longer that they’re there, they don’t make money and the dealer pays additional fees,” he said. “Dealerships don’t buy vehicles 100% cash, that’s not how they operate. They borrow money to buy cars; therefore they pay interest on it.”
Because of this business structure, it makes sense for dealerships to acquire fewer electric vehicles than gas-powered ones, Drury said. Making money fast and paying less in interest is key to profitable car sales.
“Unless you have the right customer, it’s more work, less time you spend selling a product that they’re more familiar with — that customers are more familiar with,” Drury said. “You go with what you know.”
Rosing’s specific wishes may be what’s driving his problem. Finding exactly what you want in the current market can be challenging regardless of what powers the vehicle, S&P Global Mobility analyst Stephanie Brinley said.
“He’s saying he wants his truck no matter what. You don’t have to be an early adopter to decide that’s what you want,” she said. “Is it that he can’t get a Silverado EV, or is it that he cannot get the specific trim and color that he wants?”
For contrast, California has 14.5% of all Honda vehicles listed on car shopping site Edmunds for sale in the U.S., 10% of all Hyundais and 7.9% of Nissans. Of those, 30.5% of all Hondas listed for sale in the state on Edmunds are all-electric, 35.8% of all Hyundais, and 24.4% of Nissan vehicles.
California has 6.3% of all nationwide General Motors vehicle listings on Edmunds, and 86.7% of those listed vehicles are not fully electric.
Even so, the growing tariff situation will undoubtedly hit vehicle inventory levels nationwide, and where a vehicle is made and where its parts come from will further complicate car shopping. Without specific insight into GM’s allocation decisions, as we move through higher tariffs, strategy will be king, Brinley said.
“The EV Silverado should be in good shape, but we could have an allocation situation like what we had during the chip shortage,” Brinley said, citing how consumers’ preferences for certain features had to be sidelined if there weren’t enough chips to support them, like heated steering wheels that should have come standard in a certain trim, for example.
“If your components are more expensive, you’re going to use them more strategically. Which trim levels do you build that’s going to give you the most margin and that consumers want? It’s a difficult line to walk,” Brinley said, “When the tariff costs are way too high for automakers to absorb.“
Looming EV mandate
Another factor, one that California car dealers view as a major hurdle, is the California Air Resources Board’s Advanced Clean Cars requirements. Starting with the 2026 model year — which automakers are building now — 35% of new car sales in the state must be zero emission. That builds to 68% in 2030, and 100% in 2035. The Trump administration is opposed to the rule and is reviewing options.
In any case, the CARB rule may not help customers like Rosing find more options for electric vehicles, according to Brian Maas, president of the California New Car Dealers Association. It could just mean that automakers send dealerships fewer internal combustion engine vehicles, the ones those dealers know they can sell quickly.
“As a general principle, getting particular EVs may be difficult depending on where a consumer is and whether or not a local dealer typically orders that vehicle,” Maas said. “In light of the tariffs and the impact of the board emission mandate, California dealers are worried that if we don’t get some relief, we’re going to have to throttle non-EV inventory, and they’re not going to get the full range of vehicles that their customers might want.”
In the association’s California Auto Outlook report, Experian Automotive data noted that California registered 96,416 zero-emissions vehicles out of the total 463,114 in the first three months of the year.
GM-produced electric-only models tallied 7,545 California registrations between Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC brands. Tesla, meanwhile, registered 42,322 vehicles for that same period.
Across powertrain types, Toyota Motor Co. is the most-registered vehicle brand in California, with 76,625 taking a 16.5% chunk of the state’s market share. Honda places second with 10.8%, the report also said, with Tesla taking third at 9.1%.
More options down the road
Despite the hurdles, Rosing’s patience may pay off. Sales are on the rise, with nearly 300,000 new electric cars sold in the first quarter this year, representing a 11.4% increase over first-quarter 2024, Cox Automotive notes.
Those sales accounted for 7.5% of total new-vehicle sales, driven largely by an uptick in GM sales specifically. GM sold more than 30,000 electric vehicles in the first three months of the year, nearly doubling the volume from a year ago while outstripping Ford Motor Co. and Hyundai. Honda and Acura sold more than 14,000 EVs last quarter, thanks exclusively to a now-concluded partnership with GM.
And GM has worked to expand customer access to EVs without sticking dealerships with the cost by using regional fulfillment centers.
GM’s program is expanding this year to broaden the pool of vehicles dealerships can access without shouldering those floor planning expenses.
“We offer customers more choice by providing the broadest EV portfolio,” GM said in a statement emailed to the Free Press. “Using data driven tools enable our fulfillment centers to help get the right vehicles to dealers and ultimately customers faster.”
As of February, GM confirmed that fulfillment centers cover 33 states from two locations in California and one each in Michigan, New York, Texas and Georgia.
Jackie Charniga covers General Motors for the Free Press. Reach her at jcharniga@freepress.com.