Stalled Out

Captures the moment the EV revolution hit a wall — tax credits expiring, dealership lots full of unsold electric vehicles, the clean vehicle dream colliding with political reality. The electronic production mirrors the subject: synthetic, forward-looking, but glitching. Lyrics reference specific policy battles, the gap between Silicon Valley optimism and Midwest skepticism, and the families who bought EVs only to watch charging infrastructure stall. The title works three ways: stalled cars, stalled policy, stalled progress.

[verse 1] September thirty was the deadline, credits running dry, Everybody rushed the lot before the fourth of July, Clean vehicle credit gone, commercial credit too, Two incentives vanished and the market fell right through, Ten point five percent in Q3, the future looked alive, Five point eight in Q4 when the subsidies took a dive, Two-thirty-four thousand units, lowest since twenty-two, Forty-six percent collapse and nobody had a clue, Dealerships with inventory stacked up in the rain, Sticker shock without the rebate, seven-five-K pain, Charging desert on the highway, range anxiety real, Promise of the future but the present lost its zeal, Lobbyists in Washington debating left and right, While the charging station sits there dark without a light [chorus] Plugged in, pulled out, the revolution stalled, Plugged in, pulled out, see the writing on the wall, One point three million sold but the momentum crawled, Plugged in, pulled out, who dropped the ball? Plugged in, pulled out, the future just got small, Plugged in, pulled out, answer when the voltage calls [verse 2] Globally the story reads completely different lines, Twenty point seven million sold, the world was doing fine, Twenty percent up from the year before the count, China leading, Europe pushing, numbers that surmount, But here at home the politics just pulled the plug on hope, Policy-driven collapse, not the tech, not the scope, Cox Automotive says eight percent is where we land, Twenty-six could see the numbers stabilize as planned, New models from the factories, infrastructure on the way, Consumer confidence returning but the scars will stay, Tesla stock went sideways, Rivian held the course, Legacy automakers caught between the old and force, Hybrids climbing while the full electric took the hit, Market split in half deciding whether it should commit [bridge] The grid is waiting, wires humming in the ground, Forty-three gigawatts of solar making not a sound, But the car that needs the current sits unsold tonight, Plugged in, pulled out, caught between the dark and light, Is it pause or is it over, is it stall or is it stop, Plugged in, pulled out, waiting for the other shoe to drop [outro] Plugged in, pulled out, Plugged in, pulled out, The revolution is buffering, Plugged in, pulled out