Fear and Electrification at the Los Angeles Auto Show

The Los Angeles Auto Show over the years has been the launchpad for lots of new electric vehicles and a place for carmakers to declare their EV ambitions. It’s a fitting stage given California’s status not only as the home of American car culture, but also as the United States’ biggest EV market by far.

At the 2025 show, which had its media day on Thursday, electrification was more off to the side than front-and-center, however. The new breed of affordable models that could give many more drivers access to the electric car market — such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt revivals and the upcoming Toyota C-HR electric — could be found on the show floor, waiting to be discovered by the car fans who would descend on the L.A. Convention Center in the days to come.

But fanfare over the electric future was decidedly tamped down. The atmosphere reflected the uneasy state of EVs in America in this first year of the new Trump administration. During Kia’s press conference to start the day, for example, the EV9 three-row electric crossover lingered at the edge of the stage while brand bigwigs revealed a redesign of its petroleum-powered cousin, the best-selling Telluride, whose climate credentials go only as far as a 30-miles-per-gallon hybrid version.

Hyundai has been perhaps the most successful brand outside of Tesla in selling America on EVs, but its L.A. presentation pushed battery power into niche corners of the car world, the racetrack and the trail. One of its two attractions was the North American reveal of the limited-edition Ioniq 6N, the powered-up sports car version of the Ioniq 6 electric sedan, which the brand revealed at this very show three years ago.

This 641-horsepower battery-powered beast was an inevitability, given that Hyundai’s high-performance “N” division has built limited-edition racing versions of many of the carmakers’ stock vehicles, and its muscular version of the Ioniq 5 hatchback has been one of the best-regarded performance-focused EVs yet to hit the car market. Like its predecessor, Ioniq 6N is a test case in how to make electric power appeal to car enthusiasts who crave stick shifts and snarling V8s, so Hyundai built in simulated gear shifts and sounds to simulate the sensations of pushing a combustion car to its limits.

More compelling — and curious — was the Crater, the kind of otherworldly angular tank that Tesla’s Cybertruck wishes it were. A concept car rather than a vehicle ready to go into real production, the Crater is meant to signify the vision of Hyundai’s XRT sub-brand that makes off-roading versions of the brand’s vehicles, combustion ones included.

Although Hyundai barely said the “e” word during its presentation, Crater is meant to at least suggest an all-electric version of a supremely rugged vehicle that would compete with the likes of the Jeep Wrangler and Ford Bronco. The concept has no tailpipe or engine, and the pixelated lights are taken from those used on the Ioniq series. Yet even this is uncertain: Having been burned by the back-and-forth of regime change in America, with Biden-era EV incentives disappearing just as the Korean brands were adjusting their production lines to meet the rules, the carmakers are wondering how hard to push battery power here.

Even the all-electric car brands didn’t arrive with sound and fury to show off all-new cars that would invigorate the EV market. Instead, they are doing the slow and steady work that legacy car companies have been doing for years, hoping to build long-term stability by filling out their vehicle lineups with more subtly different versions at more price points.

The Rivian R2 sat at the edge of the brand’s small display, giving many people their first in-person look at what could be the make-or-break vehicle for the EV startup. Its quiet presence was a subtle reminder that the smaller SUV is coming next year at a promised price of around $45,000, which would provide a (more) affordable option for drivers who’ve lusted after the brand’s $70,000-plus initial slate of electric SUVs and pickup trucks.

Likewise, Lucid took the mic after Hyundai to introduce a somewhat more attainable version of its electric SUV. The Gravity Touring edition brings the vehicle’s starting price from six figures down to $80,000, thanks in part to a smaller battery pack that still delivers more than 300 miles of range thanks to the carmaker’s hyper-focus on aerodynamics and efficiency. The price is still high, but this is a compelling vehicle: Gravity is a spacious three-row vehicle that goes 0 to 60 miles per hour in four seconds and recharges its battery at blazing speed thanks to 1,000-volt architecture that can add a claimed 200 miles in 15 minutes.

Car show stories come with a big caveat: These events don’t have the status they did in the heyday of old media, when new vehicles greeted the world for the first time in front of the assembled reporters. Tesla has always hosted its own vehicle events rather than share the stage, and these days, lots of brands have followed suit. Rivan revealed the R2 and R3 on its own turn last year, which is why the R2 could loom, unheralded, in a quiet corner of the show floor in Los Angeles.

Yet what the car industry chooses to show and say in front of the car media is still a telling indicator. What the companies said and didn’t say on Thursday suggests an industry that’s clearly struggling to navigate the electrification transition in America. Kia has been at the forefront of building great EVs for the States; its trumpeting of a hybrid Telluride is welcome, but 10 years out of date. The absence of EV hype in press events reveals an industry putting the brakes on the big talking points and preparing to lean back toward fossil fuels to maintain their profitability through this era of American EV limbo.