The year began with high hopes for the transition from fossil fuel-burning vehicles to battery-powered ones.

Nine months later, the electric vehicle market is in a much different position.

“The expectation going into this year was that this might be the year EVs really hit that next evolutionary level. And it hasn’t happened,” Kevin Roberts, director of industry insights and analytics at CarGurus, told Tech Brew. “This year, sales are still up. They’re just not up as much as had been anticipated, and that’s where the narrative around EVs has shifted.”

Instead of being the year EVs went mainstream, 2024 is shaping up to be the year of the EV retreat.

Hype meets reality: A record 1.2 million EVs were sold in the US last year, and battery-powered vehicles captured 7.6% of the new-vehicle market, per Kelley Blue Book (KBB).

Back in January, Tech Brew reported that EV sales were expected to grow this year, but at a slower pace than in 2023. But the tempo has turned out to be much slower than expected.

CarGurus previously estimated that EV sales would grow 42% in 2024. But when we checked back in with Roberts this month, he told us his team is now forecasting 11% YoY growth.

Indeed, US EV sales rose 11.3% YoY in Q2, according to KBB. And in Q2, Tesla’s US market share fell below 50% for the first time.

So, what’s changed?

Keep reading here.—JG

You may know net zero as the state when emissions are balanced by the amount removed from the atmosphere. It’s also the largest infrastructure opportunity you might come across today.

Wanna learn more? Check out EQT, an organization that has already made thematic infrastructure investments into areas like:

• generating, storing, and distributing energy
• decarbonization and electrification of industrial processes and transport
• resource efficiency and circularity

EQT has set Science Based Targets for portfolio companies corresponding to nearly 60% of its invested equity. Its infrastructure business has invested over $13 billion in the energy transition to date—including in the energy and environmental sectors as well as transport investments with a significant decarbonization angle.

Delve deeper with EQT.

If a delayed bus has ever messed with your morning commute, one San Francisco-based tech startup might be able to help.

Hayden AI has developed a vision AI system that it’s deploying in numerous US cities with the goal of improving public transit. The company is leveraging artificial intelligence to enforce violations when vehicles obstruct bus lanes.

Hayden AI’s system uses cameras mounted on buses to monitor bus lanes, capture images, apply algorithms to the images, and collect evidence of parking violations in bus lanes that it then sends to the relevant authorities.

“As we saw more and more cities looking to add things like bus lanes, there became a recognition that without some type of enforcement, the rules around the use of the lanes were likely to be ignored,” Charles Territo, Hayden AI’s chief growth officer, told Tech Brew.

The system is working as designed if it accomplishes four objectives: boosts on-time arrivals of buses, reduces bus collisions, decreases greenhouse gas emissions by cutting down on the amount of time buses spend idling, and increases ridership.

“The more efficient, the more reliable, the safer those routes were, the more people would choose transit,” Territo said.

Keep reading here.—JG

Meta Founder Mark Zuckerberg swears by generative AI and its impact on how brands advertise on Facebook and Instagram.

And it seems generative AI is working for Meta’s ad unit. For Q2, Meta reported total revenue of $39.07 billion, and 98% of it ($38.3 billion) came from selling ads.

One of the products advertisers are spending money on is Meta’s AI-powered Advantage+ umbrella of tools. “Advertiser adoption of these tools continues to expand, and we’re adding new capabilities to make them even more useful,” Meta CFO Susan Li said on the Q2 earnings call.

This holiday season, Meta is once again making a pitch for its AI tools, citing use cases and ways brands can make ads faster and reach the right target audience.

Retail Brew sat down with Meta’s head of industry, Karin Tracy, who oversees retail, fashion, and luxury practices across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, to learn more about creative diversification and Meta’s ad strategy going into the holidays.

Keep reading here.—VC

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