Formula One announced a five-year deal Friday with Apple, which will be the global motorsports series’ U.S. broadcast partner beginning next season.
ESPN had been the broadcast partner since 2018 and through the explosion of popularity of F1 in the United States, but it notified the series at the start of this year that it would not be extending its deal.
At the same time, Apple was working with the series on F1: The Movie, an original film released internationally in cinemas and Imax in June. It will make its global streaming debut on Apple TV in December, and has already grossed nearly $630 million globallyas both the most successful sports movie in history and the most lucrative of Brad Pitt’s career.
The relationship made Apple the front-runner to land the U.S. broadcast rights. Financial terms were not released.
I feel like I am on the podium. This is amazing, said Eddy Cue, Apples senior vice president of services. “Our vision for Apple TVwe wanted to deliver customers the best story from the most creative storytellers. We launched in 2019, we started with nine original series, and now weve got a deep library of over 300 shows and movies and thousands of hours.
And everyone on Apple TV in the U.S. will now get Formula One, he added. Theyre going to get everything that Formula One has to offer.
Apple plans to air F1 on Apple TV as well as amplify the series across Apple News, Apple Maps, Apple Music, Apple Sports, and Apple Fitness+. Apple TV will also host all practice, qualifying, sprint sessions, and races.
Select races and all practice sessions throughout the season will also be available to watch for free in the Apple TV app. F1 TV Premium, F1s own premier content offering, will continue to be available in the U.S. via an Apple TV subscription and will be free to Apple subscribers.
Apple TV is available in over 100 countries and regions on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone and other products, such as PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles.
Cue said Apple’s reach will only help grow F1 in the United States, which currently hosts races in Miami, Las Vegas, and this weekend in Austin.
“The many millions of Apple TV viewers that we have in the U.S., we know many of them are Formula One fans, hopefully, and we know that many of them are not yet,” he said. “Were going to be able to bring [new fans] to the table right away; thats very much low-hanging fruit.
The deal with Apple was praised by Dan Towriss, CEO of TWG Motorsports and the Cadillac Formula One team that will debut next season.
As we build a truly American team, Apples scale, influence, marketing and, most importantly, deep commitment to innovation will bring us to American audiences in exactly the ways we want to reach them, Towriss said.
Stefano Domenicali, F1 president and CEO, noted the potential for growth.
This is an incredibly exciting partnership for both Formula One and Apple that will ensure we can continue to maximize our growth potential in the U.S. with the right content and innovative distribution channels,” Domenicali said. “We have a shared vision to bring this amazing sport to our fans in the U.S. and entice new fans through live broadcasts, engaging content, and a year-round approach to keep them hooked.
Domenicali also praised the coverage and growth ESPN brought the series over eight seasons.
Were incredibly proud of what we and Formula One accomplished together in the United States and look forward to a strong finish in this final season,” ESPN said in a statement. “We wish F1 well in the future.
By Jenna Fryer, AP auto racing writer
It might start with a cassette deck that streams Spotify and charges your phone. It doesnt have to stop there.
These days, yesterday is big business.
A retro revival is underway in the design world: mushroom-shaped lamps, walnut stereo consoles, daisy dishware, neon Polaroid cameras. Its like our homes just hustled over from One Day at a Time or That ’70s Show or moonwalked in from Thriller-era 1982.
Welcome to the retro reset, where 70s, 80s, and ’90s aesthetics are getting a second life. It’s not just in fashion and film but in home décor and tech. Whether you actually lived through it or long for a past you never experienced, nostalgia is fueling a surge of interest from Gen X to Gen Z in throwback styles that blend vintage charm with modern convenience.
Old-school tech, new-school tricks
A big part of the trend is tech that looks analog but functions digitally. Think portable CD players in the kind of candy colors popular at Radio Shack in the 1970s, AM/FM radios equipped with USB outputs, or turntables with Bluetooth amplification to wireless speakers. Compact radios styled after 1970s transistor models now double as smart speakers.
Theres even a growing market for clunky-but-charming mini cathode-ray-style TVs and boomboxes with streaming capability. It’s as if the Carter, Reagan and Clinton eras have collided with the latest of the digital age.
What draws us? Some of it is the tactile appeal of dials and buttons of interacting with something that feels solid, more real.
In a room, these elements arent just nods to the past. Theyre also aesthetic statements that add way more character than a giant, flat, black screen, or a smart” sound system you cant even see. Stereo consoles in a woodgrain finish or a pastel-colored lacquer offer not only music but a nice furniture addition to a space. (Though who knows: Will those minimalist black screens be retro” one day for our children and grandchildren?)
Whether its turntables, cassette players, speakers or musical instruments, theres definitely a fascination among younger audiences with analog technology and how things worked before the digital age,” says Emmanuel Plat, merchandising director for MoMAstore, the design shop at New Yorks Museum of Modern Art.
The store has Tivolis Model One table radio, with a throwback-style, wood-grain frame, circle speaker grill and knobs, but 2025s sound quality and connectivity. Theyre also stocking pocket synthesizers, Bluetooth turntables, and Peanuts-themed Polaroid cameras and cassette players.
Whos into it and why
Gen Z is seeing it all with fresh eyes, and enjoying the hunt for vintage or vintage-look stuff. Millennials and Gen X may enjoy reliving their childhood aesthetics.
And that can be comforting in today’s stressed world, says Joseph Sgambatti, 37, a design journalist in New York City.
Nostalgia-driven design choices become comforts that help us cope,” he says.
There’s also an ironic, social-media component to the trend.
Midcentury modern and retro design objects are simple, often show-stopping artifacts,” Sgambatti says. “These finds carry a lot of social currency in a generation that prioritizes publishing their life online.”
Style trends do tend to arrive in cycles think Happy Days portraying the 1950s for the 1970s, or the current Gen-Z crush on Y2K fashion. Plus, a steady diet of nostalgia-rich media from Stranger Things to Barbie has reintroduced retro design to younger audiences.
But theres also an emotional component. After years of digital overload and pandemic-era disruptions, were gravitating toward styles that feel warmer, softer more human, even.
Colors that carry meaning
If you walk by the E.C. Reems Academy, an elementary school in Oakland, California, or Houstons Childrens Assessment Center, you cant miss the vibrant graphic murals done by Berkeley-based Project Color Corps. The group, which helps transform libraries, schools and other community spaces with eye-catching wall art, often uses graphics, typefaces and an overall palette with a 70s and 80s vibe.
In the 1970s, we sought solace in warm, earthy tones that symbolized grounding and stability. Browns, oranges, olive greens and deep yellows dominated the aesthetic landscape, reflecting the growing Earth movement, says Laura Guido-Clark, who founded the nonprofit.
It was a different aesthetic in the 80s one dripping with materialism, consumerism, the emergence of ”yuppie” culture, says Guido-Clark. “Neon colors, bold patterns and vibrant fashion choices.
And theres affection for that, too.
Her group recently worked with the design firm Gensler on a lounge space at Chicagos NeoCon trade fair for commercial interior design. The space featured retro-flavored colors and motifs.
Genslers design director, Marianne Starke, says the colors draw viewers into a sensory experience that might be rooted in memory: A popsicle on a 90s summer day, an 80s striped T-shirt, a rollerskating rink in the ’70s.
Furniture with curves and confidence
In furniture, the revival of those slightly distant decades leans toward soft silhouettes, rounded edges and a low-slung vibe. Arched bookshelves, bubble chairs, Lucite tables and terrazzo finishes have all reentered the conversation. Wallpaper and textile patterns feature bold geometrics, Memphis-style squiggles and Pop-Artsy botanicals.
Its a deliberate swing away from the chilly gray-on-white-on-gray look that farmhouse modern décor gave us for the past couple of decades.
In the process, eras get conflated. Who’s to say whether an inspiration or design comes precisely from the 70s, the 80s or the ’90s or contains elements of all three?
Designers are even revisiting some once-controversial elements of the disco era: Smoked glass, chrome accents and mirrored surfaces are making subtle (not a word often used in connection with the 1970s) comebacks in upscale interiors and product lines.
Whether its a lava lamp grooving on a media console, daisies and doves dancing on wallpaper, or a sofa rocking a bunch of ruffly chintz pillows, the retro revival feels less like a gimmick and more like a shift in how people want to live integrating elements of the past that offer comfort and delight.
As long as those cassette players keep syncing to Bluetooth and we can stream Annie Hall, Saturday Night Fever or Miami Vice, the past, it seems, is here to stay at least until our own moment inevitably becomes a nostalgia play in itself.
Kim Cook, Associated Press
The MrBeast burger. MrBeast toys. Rumors of a MrBeast phone company. Could a MrBeast bank next?
The world’s most-subscribed-to YouTuber, with 446 million subscribers, has filed an application with the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office for a service called MrBeast Financial.
The recent trademark application for the latest venture from MrBeast — whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson — lists plans for a mobile app and online services for a range of banking, financial advisory, crypto exchange, and other services.
The venture has not yet been approved and the full details remain unclear. However, the trademark application, which was filed on Oct. 13, aligns with a 2025 fundraising pitch deck, reported by Business Insider, outlining plans to expand into financial services.
Much of MrBeast content is built on the promise of huge cash prizes in exchange for partaking in bizarre tasks. Would You Risk Dying for $500,000? is the title of one video posted this month. Survive 30 Days Chained To Your Ex, Win $250,000, reads another.
Now, rather than throwing money at fans, he wants to help them manage it.
Having to explain to your wife and 3 kids mrbeast is taking your house away because you didn’t pay your mortgage on time and the only way you can get it back is by winning beast games season 3 on amazon prime, one X user joked.
Yet, its easy to see why a self-made 20-something, whos big on philanthropy, would be an appealing financial role-model to MrBeasts predominantly young audience. A 2023 study found that Gen Z places greater importance on being rich than any other age demographic and Gen Alpha are already busy earning big online before they are even old enough to drive.
If this latest venture gets off the ground, it would join Donaldsons growing list of companies including chocolate brand, Feastables, packaged food brand, Lunchly, as well as his Amazon Prime series Beast Games. Through these various exploits he achieved billionaire status in 2024.
However, he admitted, his mom still controls his bank account.
Apples mission to remake Apple TV into a streaming hub for sports is on track, literally.
Apple will buy exclusive broadcast rights to Formula One (F1) races in the U.S. for the next five years, the company announced Friday. Apple cited the success of F1: The Movie in its decision to partner more deeply with Formula One, as the international motorsport gains a foothold among U.S. viewers.
The five-year deal aims to extend the appeal of an Apple TV subscription to a broader swath of viewers while converting existing Apple TV users into racing fans, if things go as planned. Terms of the deal werent disclosed, but reports from CNBC and New York Times-owned The Athletic put it in the ballpark of $140 million.
Apple TV will air practice, qualifying, and sprint sessions and Grand Prix events for subscribers, and some races and all practice sessions will be available for free through the Apple TV app. F1s existing subscription service, F1 TV Premium, will remain available in the U.S. only through Apple TV.
Were thrilled to expand our relationship with Formula One and offer Apple TV subscribers in the U.S. front-row access to one of the most exciting and fastest-growing sports on the planet, said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services. 2026 marks a transformative new era for Formula Onefrom new teams to new regulations and cars with the best drivers in the worldand we look forward to delivering premium and innovative fan-first coverage to our customers in a way that only Apple can.
The deal follows Apples success with the summer blockbuster F1: The Movie, starring Brad Pitt, its highest-grossing original film to date. The movie earned $293 million at the box office 10 days after release and marked a high point for Apples at times faltering film strategy. After earning $629 million at the global box office to date, the racing film will hit Apples streaming service on December 12.
Streamers scoop up sports
With the Apple deal, F1 will leave its existing media partner, ESPN, for greener pastures. ESPN was paying roughly $90 million for each F1 season, but Apple offered around $140 million to poach broadcast rights to the sport, according to CNBC. Apples move to throw cash at a growing sport to lure it away from a stagnant ESPN contract has echoes of Paramounts recent $7.7 billion play for UFC, which will double what it earns each season under its new terms.
In its announcement, Apple notes that it will boost the sport across its suite of apps, including Apple News, Apple Maps, Apple Music, and Apple Fitness+. Apples Sports app will include live F1 updates, real-time leaderboards, driver standings, and a special home screen widget.
Apples F1 deal isnt its first foray into sports in the U.S. In 2022, Apple announced a 10-year deal to air all Major League Soccer matches. The company charges $14.99 for MLS Season Pass, its soccer streaming package, on top of an Apple TV subscription, though existing subscribers get a few bucks off.
Based in the U.S. and Canada, MLS doesnt approach the popularity of soccer leagues in Europe and South America, but it does host Argentine legend Lionel Messi. Messi signed with Inter Miami in 2023, giving the world a reason to tune in to Apples exclusive MLS streams and earning a revenue-sharing agreement with the tech giant to boost the more than $20 million he makes on the field each season.
In 2022, Apple also picked up the streaming rights to weekly Major League Baseball doubleheaders, branded as Friday Night Baseball, during the regular season. The company pays $85 million a season for the games, but its not yet clear if that relationship will continue as MLB negotiates new media rights deals for its games.
Even if Apple does back away from its exploratory relationship with MLB, its clear the company sees big potential in owning the rights to stream growing sports in the United States. Soccer and F1 arent exactly niche sports, but neither dominates U.S. viewership like the classic American trifecta of football, basketball, and baseball. With a big boost at the box office over the summer, F1s U.S. growth might be on the cusp of booming, a trend Apple hopes to amplify by bringing its races under the Apple TV umbrella.
Would you want to be in a group chat with your favorite sports celebrities and athletes? You’ll have your chance this fall, thanks to a collaboration between WhatsApp and OffBall.
OffBall, a year-old sports media startup that focuses on careful curation for its followers, announced on Friday that it was bringing back The Chat, which it had previously conducted with sports stars such as LeBron James.
The franchise is designed to get users to participate in big group chats and discuss sports or anything else. High-profile personalitiessuch as professional athletes or othersalso take part, and everyone can text or message each other like any other group chat, or simply follow along with the discussion.
With the success of previous iterations of The Chat, OffBall is going to hold additional Chats, featuring F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo, media personality Kylie Kelce (wife of former NFL player Jason Kelce, and future sister-in-law of Taylor Swift), and NBA players Tyrese Maxey and Tyrese Haliburton.
The Chats will occur during live sporting events, allowing fans to engage and discuss whats happening, Offball said. The company describes it as a unique “second screen” experience.
Heres the announced schedule for the future chats:
October 19: F1 Austin Grand Prix with Daniel Ricciardo, Hunter Lawrence, and Jett Lawrence.
November 12: NBA Los Angeles Lakers versus Oklahoma City Thunder with Tyrese Maxey and Tyrese Haliburton.
November 23: NFL Indianapolis Colts versus Kansas City Chiefs with Kylie Kelce and Caleb Hearon.
In an interview published earlier this year by Lia Haberman on her Substack newsletter ICYMI, OffBall cofounder Michaela Hammond said that The Chat was born of athletes love of social media, and fans love of group chatting around sports.
The Chat is built on an existing product feature on WhatsApp called Communities,” Hammond said. “People already use it for larger community-based chats, like neighborhoods, parents at a school, and workplaces.
The U.S. has succeeded in blocking a global fee on shipping emissions as an international maritime meeting adjourned Friday without adopting regulations.
The worlds largest maritime nations had been deliberating on adopting regulations to move the shipping industry away from fossil fuels to slash emissions. But U.S. President Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia, and other countries vowed to fight any global tax on shipping emissions.
The U.S. had threatened to retaliate if nations support it. Trump urged countries to vote “No” at the International Maritime Organization headquarters in London, posting on his social media platform Truth Social on Thursday that the United States will not stand for this global green new scam tax on shipping.
The IMO is the United Nations agency that regulates international shipping.
Saudi Arabia called for a vote to adjourn the meeting for a year. More than half of the countries agreed.
Now you have one year, you will continue to work on several aspects of these amendments, Arsenio Dominguez, secretary general of the International Maritime Organization, said in his closing remarks. You have one year to negotiate and talk and come to consensus.
Ralph Regenvanu, minister for climate change for the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, said the decision is unacceptable, given the urgency we face in light of accelerating climate change.
If the green shipping regulations were adopted, it would have been the first time a global fee was imposed on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Most ships today run on heavy fuel oil that releases carbon dioxide and other pollutants as its burned.
The delay leaves the shipping sector drifting in uncertainty. But this week has also shown that there is a clear desire to clean up the shipping industry, even in the face of U.S. bullying, said Alison Shaw, IMO Manager at Transport & Environment, a Brussels-based environmental nongovernmental organization.
Shipping emissions have grown over the past decade to about 3% of the global total as trade has grown and vessels use immense amounts of fossil fuels to transport cargo over long distances. In April, IMO member states agreed on the contents of the regulatory framework, with the aim of adopting the Net-Zero Framework at this London meeting.
Adopting the regulations was meant to demonstrate how effective multilateral cooperation can deliver real progress on global climate goals, said Emma Fenton, senior director for climate diplomacy at a U.K.-based climate change nonprofit, Opportunity Green. Delaying the process risks undermining the framework’s ambitions, they added.
The regulations would set a marine fuel standard that decreases, over time, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions allowed from using shipping fuels. The regulations also would establish a pricing system that would impose fees for every ton of greenhouse gases emitted by ships above allowable limits, in what is effectively the first global tax on greenhouse gas emissions.
The IMO, which regulates international shipping, set a target for the sector to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by about 2050, and has committed to ensuring that fuels with zero or near-zero emissions are used more widely.
What matters now is that countries rise up and come back to the IMO with a louder and more confident yes vote that cannot be silenced, said Anas Rios, shipping policy officer for Seas At Risk. “The planet and the future of shipping does not have time to waste.
___
The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Sibi Arasu and Jennifer McDermott, Associated Press
The U.S. stock market seems to be steadying on Friday, as banks recover some of their sharp losses from the day before.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% in midday trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 23 points, or 0.1%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% lower. All three indexes drifted between gains and losses through the morning, but the moves weren’t as jarring as the big hour-to-hour swings they had earlier in the week.
Drops for Big Tech stocks weighed on the market, including a 0.5% dip for Nvidia. Theyre fighting criticism that their stock prices have soared too high because of the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, even though their profits have also been growing quickly.
Bank stocks stabilized after several reported stronger profits for the latest quarter than analysts expected, including Truist Financial, Fifth Third Bancorp, and Huntington Bancshares. That helped steady the group, a day after tumbling on worries about potentially bad loans hitting smaller and mid-sized banks.
The two banks at the center of Thursdays action also rose Friday to trim some of their sharp losses.
Zions Bancorp., which is charging off $50 million of loans where it found apparent misrepresentations and contractual defaults by the borrowers, added 2.8% following its 13.1% loss.
Western Alliance Bancorp, which is suing a borrower due to allegations of fraud, rose 1.3% after its 10.8% fall on Thursday.
Scrutiny is rising on the quality of loans that banks and other lenders have broadly made following last months Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing of First Brands Group, a supplier of aftermarket auto parts.
One of the financial firms that could feel pain because of First Brands’ bankruptcy, Jefferies Financial Group, rose 5.1% Friday. It had lost roughly 30% of its value since mid-September.
The question is whether the lenders problems are just a collection of one-offs or a signal of something larger threatening the industry. Uncertainty is high following a long stretch where many borrowers were able to keep running, even with the weight of higher interest rates. And with prices soaring to records for all kinds of investments, the appetite for risk may have gotten too high.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon addressed the issue on an earnings conference call with analysts earlier this week.
When you see one cockroach, there are probably more, Dimon said. Everyone should be forewarned on this one.
But banks make loan loss provisions and typically have plenty of capital to keep the cockroaches from causing structural damage, said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. Based on earnings and data so far, it looks like this isnt an infestation and that the potential canary in the coal mine is probably passed out and not dead.
Trading has been shaky on Wall Street, with stocks regularly swinging between gains and losses, since President Donald Trump threatened to crank tariffs much higher on China at the end of last week.
But Trump told Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures that such high tariffs are not sustainable, helping to ease some of the worries. He also said that he would meet with Chinas leader, Xi Jinping, at an upcoming conference in South Korea after earlier saying there seemed to be no reason for such a meeting.
In the bond market, Treasury yields steadied following their sharp slides from Thursday, which came as investors rushed into investments seen as safer.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.00% from 3.99% late Thursday.
Gold also pulled back from its latest record as more calm seeped through the market.
The price for an ounce slipped 1.3% to fall back to $4,247.40, but it’s still up more than 60% for the year so far. Besides worries about tariffs, gold’s price has also surged on expectations for coming cuts to interest rates by the Federal Reserve and concerns about the massive amounts of debt that the U.S. and other governments worldwide are building.
In stock markets abroad, indexes tumbled across much of Europe and Asia after Wall Street’s weakness from Thursday moved westward.
Germanys DAX lost 1.7%, and Hong Kongs Hang Seng sank 2.5% for two of the worlds bigger moves.
Stan Choe, AP business writer
AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.
An American businessman whose firm invested in several European soccer clubs that struggled under its ownership has been indicted in New York on charges of financial wrongdoing in an alleged $500 million fraud scheme.
Josh Wander was a co-founder of Miami-based 777 Partners that owned stakes in an Australian airline, plus soccer clubs Hertha Berlin in Germany, Genoa in Italy, Standard Liege in Belgium, and Vasco da Gama in Brazil.
The 777 story became a cautionary tale in the global soccer trend of multi-club ownership investors taking stakes in several clubs in different countries. European soccer body UEFA has identified the trend as a threat to the integrity of games and the player trading industry worth more than $10 billion each year.
As alleged, Wander used his investment firm, 777 Partners, to cheat private lenders and investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars by pledging assets that his firm did not own, falsifying bank statements and making other material misrepresentations about 777s financial condition, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.
The indictment charging Wander with wire fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit those crimes was unsealed Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. Most of the charges carry a maximum prison term of 20 years.
Wanders lawyer, Jordan Estes, told The Associated Press on Friday that Wander looks forward to setting the record straight.
This is a business dispute dressed up as a criminal case, Estes said in a written statement.
Wander and 777 had failed last year in targeting their biggest capture in soccer, nine-time English champion Everton, amid increasing scrutiny of the business and a lawsuit in New York from a London-based investor.
Reporting about 777s soccer interests, led by Norwegian soccer magazine Josimar, intensified even before Wander was elected to a board seat at the influential European Club Association, a network of hundreds of teams that shapes the Champions League and other competitions.
Wanders firm had moved heavily into soccer in 2021, buying stakes in financially distressed clubs recovering from playing in empty stadiums during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The former chief financial officer at 777, Damien Alfalla, is cooperating with the government, the FBI said, and made a guilty plea this week.
The women and men of the SDNY and our law enforcement partners will continue to work tirelessly to protect our investors and our markets, Clayton said.
Another 777 executive, Steven Pasko, also is targeted in a civil law court filing Thursday by the Securities and Exchange Commission. It wasn’t immediately clear who is representing Pasko.
Between July and September, electric vehicle sales in the U.S. hit a record high. Americans bought more than 430,000 EVs, up 40% from the previous quarter, as they race to qualify for federal tax credits before they expire.
That EV boom wasnt just limited to the U.S., though: Global EV sales hit an all-time high of 2.1 million in September. Two-thirds of those sales were in China, the worlds largest EV market.
And yet, theres still talk of an EV retreat, both in the U.S. and abroad. Automakers have expressed concerns about their EV profits, and policymakers in Canada and the European Union are pausing, or adjusting, their EV mandates.
Theres an inherent duality of the market moment were in, says Corey Cantor, research director of the Zero Emissions Transportation Association. On the one hand, EV sales are higher than they have ever been, and yet automakers still remain concerned.
Heres why, and whats going on in the electric vehicle landscape.
EV rush before tax credits expired
EVs counted for nearly 11% of total vehicle sales in the U.S. between July and September. Thats a big increase from the same time period last year, when their share was 8.6%, according to Cox Automotive, which recently released data about the countrys third quarter EV sales.
That jump wasnt a surpriseit was expected, experts say. Americans were rushing to buy EVs before the federal tax credits expired on September 30.
The tax credits, part of President Bidens Inflation Reduction Act, offered up to $7,500 back for Americans who bought a new EV, if the cars they purchased met certain conditions. There was also a credit of up to $4,000 available for used EVs.
President Trumps One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated those tax credits, killing what analysts say was a key catalyst for EV adoption. EVs are still seen as a premium purchase; in August, the average EV cost more than $57,000, according to Cox$9,000 more than a similar gas car.
Concerns about future growth
Not every automaker benefited from all those third quarter EV sales, either. Cox Automotive notes that Mercedes-Benz EV sales in that time period were mostly flat year-over-year, and Toyota and Nissan sold fewer EVs during that boom than they did in the third quarter of 2024.
Despite the backlash Tesla has been dealing with throughout 2025, that carmaker actually saw an 8% sales increase year-over-year, but its share of total EV sales has fallen. Tesla once made up 49% of all EV sales in the third quarter of 2024, but its share this past quarter was 41%.
Volkswagen, General Motors, Honda, and Hyundai had notable increases in their EV sales. Volkswagen and GMs sales were more than double the levels one year ago.
But those automakers still have concerns. This week, GM said it was taking a $1.6 billion hit from changing its EV rollout in the U.S. It changed its rollout in part because of Trumps elimination of the tax credits, and his move to loosen emissions regulations.
These policies make the future far less certain for automakers. Federal policies could tighten again in a couple of years or remain the same, Cantor says. The federal policy pathway is far less clear moving forward than it was a year ago.
One thing experts do expect is that U.S. EV sales will slump after this quarter, because that surge to purchase before the tax credits expired pulled forward sales that would have been spread out over more time. Cox Automotive forecasts that EV sales will drop notably in Q4 and through the early months of 2026.
EV struggles worldwide
Changing U.S. policies arent only affecting the EV sales outlook here. Trumps tariffs are also adding costs for automakers in international markets, like Canada and across the European Union.
The EU recently said it would review its 2035 target for cutting car emissions to zero. A policy note published before those talks highlighted challenges for the European car industry, including higher tariffs on shipments to the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported, as well as low profit margins for EVs and the growth of cheaper Chinese offerings.
China has been dominating the EV market, not just in its own country but worldwide, in part because it offers extremely affordable EVssome priced as low as $10,000.
But that could make the market oversaturated. While Chinese EV sales are increasing, that growth is happening more and more at the expense of profitability, the Wall Street Journal notes; more than 110 EV brands operated there in 2023, and they likely wont all last.
Hope for the future
Even before Trumps policies, there was talk of an EV sales slump in 2024. Thats because while sales were increasing, the rate at which they were growing sloweda common issue for all new technologies as they vie for mainstream appeal. Early adopters drive that beginning growth, and then the industry has to figure out how to attract everyone else.
Now, changing federal policies are making that next step even more difficult. But EV experts still have hope.
We’d expect the impact of these policy changes to be most acute during the forthcoming year, Cantor says. Overall, the global move towards electric vehicles continues. The International Energy Agency said in May that it expects one in four cars sold worldwide this year to be electric.
Cox Automotive says EV sales are the future, too. Cx Automotive continues to believe that over the long termthe next 10 years or moresales of vehicles powered solely by internal combustion engines will continue to decline, the company wrote in its Q3 EV sales report. Electrified vehicleshybrids, plug-in hybrids and pure EVsare the future.
We might not get to that future as fast as EV advocates hoped, though. Biden set a goal for EVs to make up 50% of all vehicle sales by 2030. Cox now says EV sales can hit 25% by then. So growth will be slower, but certainly moving out of the niche category, Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox, wrote in September.
And though the future of U.S. federal policy is up in the air, experts still say innovations will advance to help the EV market. Continued innovation in battery technology, improved transparency in battery health and expanding infrastructure give reason for optimism, Valdez Streaty wrote. The road ahead wil be challenging, but progress will continue.
If theres any doubt whether people are willing to pay $900 for a premium credit card, just look at the latest quarterly results for American Express: The credit card issuer reported Friday that it beat third-quarter earnings estimates and raised its full-year outlook.
Its been a month since American Express refreshed its Platinum line of credit cards, raising the annual fee by $200 to $895, and that change is already paying dividends. The company has seen strong demand for these cards and more than 500,000 people have requested the New York-based issuers new pocket mirror card.
The initial customer demand and engagement exceeded our expectations, with new U.S. Platinum account acquisitions doubling compared to pre-refresh levels, Stephen J. Squeri, chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
American Express reported that revenue rose 11% from a year ago to a record $18.4 billion in the third quarter, driven largely by a 9% increase in card member spending. Earnings per share came in at $4.14, higher than the consensus of analyst estimates.
American Express Platinum cardholdersboth individuals and businessesaccount for about $530 billion in annual billings, according to the company, and the recent refresh has helped drive additional revenue. In the first three weeks since the card refresh, the company reported a 45% increase in new high-yield savings accounts from these members and record-high bookings on Amex travel.
RACE FOR PREMIUM MARKET
Squeri said the successful relaunch of Platinum cards reinforces our leadership in the premium space. Indeed, the race for the premium credit card market has heated up in recent years as issuers have raced to one-up each other with a wide variety of cardholder benefits.
JPMorgan Chase bumped up the annual fee on its Sapphire Reserve card from $550 to $795 in June, promising even more perks at this higher rate, and American Express followed with its fee increase in September.
Offering these types of perks comes at a cost: American Express has paid $13.6 billion in card member rewards year-to-date, a 12% increase from the same period in 2024. Thats more than double the amount of another expense: Salaries and employee benefits.
But nabbing the premium market is clearly a priority for issuers, even if a majority of cardholders arent willing to fork over $800 to $900 for the privilege of using a credit card. Consumers who pay more than $500 in annual credit card fees spend nearly three times more each month than those with lower-fee cards, according to figures from J.D. Power.
MARKET REACTION
And thanks partly to the successful relaunch of its Platinum cards, American Express also announced Friday that it has raised its full-year guidance for both revenue growth and earnings. It now expects a 10% increase in revenue, up from 9% previously, and a $0.30 boost to earnings per share, to a total of $15.50.
Stock market investors rewarded the better-than-expected earnings report: Shares of American Express surged more than 6% by mid-day Friday. The stock is up nearly 16% this year, and has outperformed the S&P 500.
