Why are EVs launched under their own sub-brands? Why do b***rds have the last name snow in GoT? So ashamed of their EV's that they can't share the family name.
Traditional car makers are in a difficult situation with EVs. They can't afford to have demand switch to EVs. It would crash sales for their ICE cars and the world can't produce enough batteries to switch to EVs. For anyone with any awareness of the prevailing winds, the future is EVs. Even executives in most major car companies see this.
The problem is surfing the transition from the old tech to the new. A lot of companies failed to make major paradigm shifts. Kodak is often cited as an example of this and it is true, but my father had a direct dealership with Kodak and consulted with them off and on. He said most of the people involved in R&D and management at Kodak knew they needed to make the transition to digital but ultimately there was no way for them to make money doing digital. With film, there is a huge supply chain to supply film, chemistry for processing, and photographic paper. Kodak was the biggest company in the world providing all these things. With digital, most customers buy one or two pieces of media and might buy some occasional printer paper to make hard copies, but the amount of supplies each customer needs is vastly smaller than for film.
The transition from ICE to EVs face a similar problem. EVs don't complex motors, transmissions, gasoline, vastly smaller amounts of lubricant, and once the bugs are fully worked out, they will be significantly more reliable. That is a massive problem for both car makers who have a tremendous amount of money invested in R&D and for their primary customer who are car dealers. Car dealers don't want to sell EVs because they don't stand to make as much from service.
An added headache for planners in car companies is the world battery supply. This wasn't an issue with the transition from film to digital, but it is an issue with EVs. EVs require a massive supply of something that is in short supply and requires a massive increase before the transition can fully happen. Car makers need to control demand for EVs until the battery supply ramps up.
So car makers have a lot of reasons to put EVs in a ghetto for now. They know they need to change and they are doing what they can to lay the groundwork, but whether all of them will make it is still an open question.
