Everybody Wants EVs... Except for This Country
(5min read) And photos from CoMotion GLOBAL in Riyadh!
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ICYMI: CoMotion GLOBAL 2025 concluded last week in Riyadh (Dec. 7-9) that brought together global decisionmakers, industry leaders, city executives, innovators, and investors to chart the future of mobility in Saudi Arabia and worldwide. Check out the nice photos over on our Flickr page.
And now onto the news: In a year of tremendous progress for EV adoption, the U.S. is a notable outlier, evidenced by a drop in EV sales and the desperate steps U.S. automakers are taking to catch up with China’s burgeoning EV sector. As congestion pricing helps New York City expand its rail system, Serbians cheer the eventual arrival of the Belgrade Metro system they’ve been awaiting for 100 years. In a bright spot for mobility in the US, Waymo tripled its total trips for the year, but Uber is ending EV bonuses and car-sharing service Zevo moves to bring Tensor AVs into its fleet.
ICYMI
CoMotion GLOBAL 2025 in Riyadh: We were delighted to witness major announcements at our event, including:
Archer Aviation signing an MOU with the General Authority of Civil Aviation to deploy electric air taxis across the kingdom.
inDrive signing an MOU with Ai Driver to begin autonomous ride-hailing services in Saudi Arabia.
The unveiling of a new study by MIT Mobility Initiative and the Kearney Advanced Mobility Initiative: Envisioning the Future of Mobility Powered by AI, which calls for unprecedented public–private collaboration, shared data ecosystems, and integrated national strategies to fully unlock AI’s mobility potential.
Plus, Zagdaily reports on key discussion at the event: How AI, real-time routing, and autonomous vehicles are shaping Demand Responsive Transit.
What you need to know
EV sales way up — except in America: Over 18.5 million EVs have been sold globally in the first 11 months of 2025, according to research by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, an EV and battery supply chain research group. That is up 21% over the same time frame in 2024. Sales in Europe rose 33% and in China they rose 19%. In North America, however, sales were down 1%, dragged down by particularly bad numbers in October and November, after the elimination of the federal EV tax credit.
Europe’s largest city without a subway finally gets one: The first subway line in Belgrade is moving forward, slated to be completed in 2030. The Serbian capital has been kicking around the idea of a metro system since 1923; the repeated failures have become a running joke, even inspiring an early 90’s sitcom, “Waiting for Metro.” The planned system is being built by French and Chinese construction firms at a projected cost of roughly $5 billion for the first line, with plans to build a second line several years later.
Zevo gets into AVs: Car-sharing service Zevo aims to add autonomous vehicles to its fleet by purchasing 100 cars by Tensor, the company aiming to become the first mass-market producer of purpose-built driverless vehicles. The timeline remains very murky, however.
Uber dials back EV bonuses: Uber is reducing the bonuses it pays to drivers using EVs. It aligns with the company’s political shift in the second Trump administration.
Waymo tripled its trips in 2025: The Alphabet-backed robotaxi service has given 14 million rides this year, more than triple what it did the year before. Its stated expansion plans should push total rides much higher in 2026.
The speed cameras appear to be working: San Francisco’s 33 automatic speed cameras have reduced speeding by 72% on the affected roadways since they were put in place in March, but the handful of other California cities that the state government authorized to use the technology (*cough cough* Los Angeles) are dragging their feet to implement it. City officials are still working through a lengthy bureaucratic process and say they don’t plan to put the cameras in place until the end of 2026.
Boca Raton’s quaint driverless shuttle: The city of 100,000 deploys a small, eight-seat autonomous shuttle from Estonian startup Auve Tech on a short loop around the Minzer Park shopping district. There’s potential to expand the route to a 2.6 mile corridor to complement the rest of the city’s existing electric shuttle network.
Ford and SK On break up: Ford and Korean battery-maker SK On are ending their joint venture to build EV batteries at three facilities in Kentucky and Tennessee. SK On will own and operate the factory in Tennessee, while Ford will continue running two factories in Kentucky. It’s not clear what either company is gaining by ending the partnership, but there is naturally speculation that it has something to do with Ford paring back its EV ambitions.
Hybrid dreams take flight: Montreal-based startup Evio unveils a 76-seat, hybrid-electric aircraft concept aimed at regional trips. The company is backed by Boeing and other major aviation players.
What we’re reading
A look at New York’s first new transit line in decades: Benjamin Schneider takes a deep dive into the Interborough Express, a 14-mile planned rail line to serve fast-growing areas of Brooklyn and Queens. Running in an existing freight rail trench, the IBX will be New York’s first entirely new transit line in decades. Its construction will likely be funded by the billions of dollars being raised by the congestion pricing system the Trump administration is trying to kill.
The Ford startup trying to beat Chinese EVs: The New York Times looks at the Ford “skunk works,” a secretive lab near Los Angeles where a group of engineers and designers are building a new electric vehicle from the ground-up, like a startup. Above all else, they’re fueled by a desperate desire to catch up with China.
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