Jack Ewing

Jack Ewing covers the auto industry for The New York Times, with a focus on how the global shift to electric vehicles is reshaping carmakers, workers and investors. His coverage treats cars as a business, technology and policy story at once, drawing on more than four decades in journalism and long experience reporting on the European car industry. He brings a background in business and economics reporting and in-depth work on corporate misconduct to a beat that often centers on strategy, regulation and long-term risk rather than individual models.

Electric vehicles and the auto industry's transition

Ewing’s core subject is the transition from combustion engines to electric vehicles and what that means for established automakers. He has written about manufacturers “retooling” their marketing as they go electric, showing how range, connectivity and sustainability have replaced horsepower as selling points. He covers companies that are doubling down on electric vehicles even as competitors pull back after suffering heavy losses, highlighting the financial strain of the shift. His work on the used E.V. market examines how falling prices and cheaper second-hand Teslas are changing who can afford electric cars and how quickly the technology spreads.

Beyond products, he reports on the search for enabling technologies, such as a decade-long quest to develop batteries capable of ending the gasoline era. His pieces on automakers’ post-pandemic struggles follow how investment in new technologies, political instability, protectionism and rising Chinese competitors are testing business models that once seemed secure. Ewing also looks at labor and workplace consequences, using callout formats to gather experiences from people working in the auto industry as it adapts to electric cars and new supply chains. This mix of technology, marketing, finance and worker testimony sets his coverage apart from more narrowly focused auto reporting.

Tesla, Elon Musk and corporate power

Ewing treats Tesla and Elon Musk as a lens on corporate governance and market power as much as an auto story. In his coverage of Tesla, he has detailed how the company’s board chair earned nearly $200 million selling stock awarded for board service, using securities filings to show how insiders respond to share price swings. He has written about Tesla owners experiencing buyer’s remorse and the company’s declining sales as backlash against Musk grows, tying consumer sentiment directly to the behavior of a high-profile chief executive. In pieces like his analysis of a possible megamerger between SpaceX and Tesla, he explores how Musk’s control of multiple companies could reshape the auto and space sectors and concentrate decision-making in one set of hands.

This work often connects corporate moves to broader themes such as investor confidence, regulatory scrutiny and the durability of Tesla’s brand as rivals enter the electric vehicle market. Ewing’s reporting on Tesla sits within his wider coverage of electric vehicles and batteries, making the company one case in a larger story about how new technology giants collide with legacy manufacturers and financial markets.

Global carmakers, regulation and crisis

Ewing’s beat extends across major global automakers and the rules they operate under, with recurring attention to companies facing strategic or regulatory crises. He has chronicled Toyota’s difficulty mastering fully electric vehicles despite its pioneering role in hybrids, showing how misjudging the timing and scale of the transition can alienate customers and hurt sales. In pandemic-era coverage, he tracks how carmakers that once thrived are now cutting jobs and reconsidering investments amid technology costs, political tension and aggressive Chinese competition, treating the auto industry as a barometer of wider economic pressures.

His longstanding work on the car industry includes a book on the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal, where he reconstructed how one of the world’s largest automakers committed a massive fraud by installing defeat devices to cheat pollution tests. That history underpins his reporting on regulation, risk and public trust in carmakers. He also co-writes on trade issues, such as deals that could give Japanese cars a leg up in the U.S. market, connecting tariffs and trade policy to showroom competition. Across these stories, Ewing pays close attention to how corporate culture, regulation and international politics interact in the auto business.

Reporting approach and formats

Ewing’s reporting combines explanatory business features, technology coverage and on-the-ground industry reporting. He writes about business with a consistent focus on the auto industry and the transition to electric cars, reflecting a beat he has covered for more than twenty years. He frequently uses callouts to invite participation from readers who work in the auto sector or have bought used electric vehicles, then builds their experiences into stories about jobs, adoption barriers and consumer behavior. His archive includes pieces on marketing, corporate finance, batteries, trade and labor, indicating a beat defined more by the forces reshaping transportation than by any single company or country.

Before joining The New York Times as a business and economics writer covering the European car industry, Ewing spent many years reporting and editing on European business topics, experience that informs his perspective on global automakers and regulation. He has also produced book-length investigative work on corporate misconduct, which gives his auto coverage a strong grounding in documents, regulatory records and long-term corporate histories. For communications professionals, his body of work signals a reporter interested in stories where technology, corporate strategy, regulation and human impact intersect within the automotive world.