If this doesn’t make you chortle, nothing will:
Executives at Ford Motor Company, General Motors (GM), and Stellantis are begging President-elect Donald Trump to keep in place President Joe Biden’s Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates. The plea comes as automakers have invested billions in EVs that have failed to turn a profit.
Aw diddums. How my heart bleeds for your lost profits, you chiseling bastards.
What’s the old expression? Oh yeah: lie down with the dogs, get up with fleas.
Well, you kowtowed to the government stupidity, always forgetting the other old dictum: what the government giveth, the government may take away.
Had there not been so much virtue-signaling from the auto manufacturers as they glommed onto those subsidies (#Jaguar #Volvo #etc), I might have had a little sympathy. As it is, however, I don’t give a rat’s ass.
And I know the followup threat: “Without subsidies, we’re going to have to close factories and lay off workers!”
Here’s a thought: take all the executive bonuses you were going to pay your management — yeah, right down to junior levels — and pay those billions (and it is billions) into an independent investment fund, i.e. a fund that’s managed by a financial institution so that you can’t raid it whenever you feel like it (#PensionPlans), and let the interest payments go to the workers you’re going to lay off.
It won’t be enough, but it sure as hell is better than the alternative, which is continuing to make a product that nobody wants, partially (or mostly) funded by taxpayers.
You should have done your research before sinking to your knees — anyone with a brain could have told you that the whole eco-electrical boondoggle was doomed to failure, especially if it was going to be dependent on government building the charging-station infrastructure (and which we’ve already seen has been a catastrophic failure).
The best lessons are those which come through suffering; so suffer, and learn.
You idiots.
“ The plea comes as automakers have invested billions in EVs that have failed to turn a profit.”
Invested? No. WASTED!!!!
“Without subsidies, we’re going to have to close factories and lay off workers!”
GOOD! Fuck Ford and Fuck Stellantis too.
I hope both of those companies go tits up.
They have been building absolute shit for years.
Consumers decide what to buy with their money. Not the government using stolen tax money.
Why the fuck should tax money be stolen from people like me who drive a modest gas powered vehicle (4 cylinder Toyota) so that some liberal cock sucker can buy an overpriced dildo battery powered piece of shit with my tax money helping with the “rebate”
If you need stolen tax money to entice consumers to buy your shitty electric vehicles, then your vehicles suck.
I used to like ford years ago. Then they refused to reimburse me the 700 and change for a repair they had a recall on (plastic manifold failures). They had a class action they settled and said either get it repaired at a dealer or bring a receipt if you had it repaired at a private garage. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
Toyota, Honda and Subaru make good vehicles that the working class want.
As a side note – Electric vehicles are heavier than their gas power counterparts. This means more wear and tear on roads and bridges etc. there should NOT be subsidies for them. Rather the people buying and driving them should be paying extra taxes on these pieces of shit.
Electric vehicles have also proven to be a huge fire hazard and far more difficult to put out the car fires they have vs gas powered.
Charge the idiots who buy and drive these electric chunks of shit more money. They should be happy to pay for these junkers, after all they are allegedly saving the planet right?
Hybrids work.
Think about it: trains have been diesel-electric for decades.
So a clean diesel-electric car is not a stretch, since we already have gasoline-electric, like the Toyota Prius; which works and has a reasonable battery life span. So move to a small diesel engine, and call it a day.
Sorry for being That Guy, but a diesel-electric locomotive is not a hybrid, at least not in the way a gas-electric hybrid is. The diesel engine, aka the “prime mover,” turns a generator or alternator (depending on if the locomotive uses DC or AC power; most modern ones are AC) which powers the traction motors on the wheels. There’s no batteries, no regenerative braking, and none of the increased fuel efficiency that hybrid cars see over a conventional ICE. The alternator/electric motor setup is used because it’s better at transmitting the massive amounts of power and torque to the drive axles vs. a “direct-drive” mechanical system.
A lot of large mining vehicles use hybrid with batteries and regenerate breaking, etc.
The problem with hybrid for cars is that it is expensive and the payback is not necessarily obvious, but they are at least theoretically feasible.
And this is why people are not buying EVs.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk//cars/hybrid-electric-cars/high-mileage-electric-car-usage-expensive-ford-mustang/
TLDR: it’s more expensive than petrol and the recharging infrastructure isn’t there.
‘It looked as though Gridserve hadn’t done much planning, either. Of its 24 high-current chargers at Exeter services, eight were out of service. It was chaos.’
‘And, frankly, if you travel quickly in any EV, the range plummets. In the days of combustion that merely meant a little more on your fuel bill, but these days it means hours at a charging point, time that no one pays me for.’
Depends entirely on the country. Here in the Netherlands the charging infrastructure is there, and using an EV costs less per kilometer in electricity than using a petrol powered car does in petrol (or diesel).
EV sales are slowed down only by the price of the vehicles (most sales are in smaller, cheaper, categories, but in their market segment EVs (and PHEVs) make up the majority of sales) and the long delivery times.
Netherlands? According to Google maps, it ain’t even 200 miles top to bottom. I drive half that distance just going to work and back each day. A weekend trip in Texas can be 400+ miles. Different market, different culture, different needs. so yeah, you are absolutely right, depends entirely on the country.
People won’t likely fully embrace EVs until they develop a hot-swappable universal battery that you can buy fully charged and change out in 15 minutes or less.
For example, most people will gladly swap out the brand-new propane canister that comes with their gas grill for a used pre-filled canister that’s only 3/4 full for the sake of convenience. Very few people take their canisters to a propane filling station to get a full 20lbs.
LOL – count me as one of the people who buys his own propane cylinders and then takes them to a propane filling station. I hate the swap stations. I’m supposed to trade in a brand new, clean, no dirt, no rust cylinder and get some dirty rusty POS that’s half full? Count me out. I have at least 6 or 7 small tanks and thinking on buying the next size up – everything from RV to grill to smoker to patio heater to dual-fuel generator – I like to keep a good supply on hand.
The swappable battery station idea has a few drawbacks. #1, how many initial batteries do you have? Say 100? Monday morning with people going back to work and that 100 batteries at full charge is gone in roughly 1 hour. If that. Now you have 100 dead batteries that need several hours to charge and you are turning customers away. So 200 batteries? 300? How do you store them? How many chargers do you also have? Do you have people swapping chargers even with no customers in order to keep the full battery inventory charged up? What happens when someone with a damaged battery pack comes in? Do you run a diagnostic and reject them?
People that suggest swappable battery packs probably haven’t done the math to see how that even works. My local gas station probably fills 200 cars per hour each morning, every morning, for the 2 to 3 hour rush to work. You’d need ~1000 batteries fully charged each morning to handle that and not turn people away. Who’s going put up that investment? Kamala?
You’re right.. haven’t done the math.
Yes. Kamala would do it (with someone else’s money).
Not to mention that batteries degrade over time and the number of charge/discharge cycles (and charging speed). One pack may get you 300 miles range, another 200 (or less). Who eats the loss when someone shows up with a degraded battery that is next to useless? Battery packs for trucks will be different than battery packs for urban runabouts. Every single vehicle would have to be designed around standardized battery packs and changing methods, meaning all-new vehicle designs. Ain’t gonna happen.
Yeah, this too. You’d have to have a system where you buy a car with no battery pack (or a baby battery just to get you home) and then purchase membership in a battery swap network. That way you never own the battery and must always use you paid membership network. The intro cost to the network would be the cost of at least one full battery pack, plus monthly fees to equal replacement costs, all of this above and beyond the actual fee each time you swap batteries. Good luck running those numbers past the average consumer who can still remember $1.00 a gallon gas prices.
Anyone could see this on the wall. Government subsidies can change with the party in power. And thus it has happened as foretold.
Everyone noted the reasons for the failure of these glorified golf carts. Good!! I just hope the management actually learns this time. Unfortunately the boards of directors won’t be removing their stupid leadership and the lesson will be lost on middle and lower management.
I like Honda Toyota and Subaru.
I used to like GM up to about 2008 models. Had a 2004 Impala. One of the best cars I ever drove.
Bush Jr bailed out the domestic automakers after 911. We all thought ok
Then Obama bailed out domestic automakers during the “Great Recession “. We all thought this is bullshit but ok
Then Obama and Biden gave huge subsidies to ev companies.
Enough is enough. No more fucking bailouts. None for banks. None for vehicles.
Make products people want to buy without subsidies or go out of business
Check to see who you are giving loans to before you issue them and see if people can actually pay them back or go out of business
Why should I and others – who never went bankrupt and never bought an electric vehicle – have to have money stolen from my wages via taxation (aka theft) to pay for others fuckups and poor choices.
Fuck bailouts. Fuck subsidies. Either we live in a free market or not.
The auto executives who made these stupid decisions have swallowed the blue pill of leftism. That means they will not suffer. The leftist network will look after them.
The shareholders will take the hits.
Many of the shareholders are pensions, mutual funds, etc. ie ‘institutional’ shareholders Ford: 56.33%, GM 87.3%, Stellantis 46.36%. VW is only 19%, perhaps the Krauts are smarter tan we think, Mercedes is 30%.
But a lot of people are going to suffer a lot of pain
Ford ( F ) Stellantis ( STLA ) and VW ( VWAG ) are already at or close to 5 year lows. For some unknown reason ( GM ) is at a 5 year high. Probably because GM previously announced it’s scale back of EV production because no body was buying what they were selling.
Yeah… unappealing designs, shaky product quality and no support infrastructure. Who’d a thunk?
Pain is an excellent teacher. However I suspect the executives who made these decisions will avoid any consequences for their poor decisions.
I’m amazed: nobody’s even mentioned where all this electric recharging power is coming from: thousands of ugly windmills (when the sun doesn’t shine) or thousands of acres of fields covered in solar cells (when the wind doesn’t blow) or unicorn farts (when the two aforementioned don’t provide)?
And think of the trickle down effects.
Our local and state governments gave large incentives to build two battery plants for EVs. One will open shortly and another the end of 2025. No market for cars means no need for batteries with the possible exception the plants are more efficient than any they may replace. Total employment for both plants would be about 5000-7000.
This sparked a housing boom to supplied the workers affordable housing and and a bond to build 1 to new schools. When asked if all this was premature the county officials had no comment.
A house of cards.
Henry Ford and Thomas Edison made and electric car out of a model t. They could not get the charge to be faster, so the gas was pushed. Only the government would have the needed hubris to think they knew better. So much for that. Hybrid make some sense.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. But the execs in charge should decorate lamp posts.
I don’t think I will ever understand why some people think that any new idea has to be either prohibited or mandated.
Can’t we just let people who want to invest in electric cars put their money into it and see how it works out? If the new technology solves a problem or makes people’s lives better, then it will succeed without the government saying that all new cars have to be electric. If not, then the mandate would be a stupid idea anyway.
Also, we should stop subsidizing anything. Let the market decide prices.