But it comes with a Frunk!
Friday, April 26, 2024
Ford lost $132k on each EV: Joe Biden mandating electric vehicles will simply bankrupt the car companies and require huge future bailouts
Ford’s electric vehicle unit reported that losses soared in the first quarter to $1.3 billion, or $132,000 for each of the 10,000 vehicles it sold in the first three months of the year, helping to drag down earnings for the company overall.
Ford, like most automakers, has announced plans to shift from traditional gas-powered vehicles to EVs in coming years. But it is the only traditional automaker to break out results of its retail EV sales. And the results it reported Wednesday show another sign of the profit pressures on the EV business at Ford and other automakers. ... And that means this is not the end of the losses in the unit - Ford said it expects Model e will have EBIT losses of $5 billion for the full year.
More.
Ford really, really, really doesn't want to go down that path lol, or that other one.
I mean, who wants to be the butt of every truck joke when electric ones literally can't pull their weight, giving new meaning to Found On Road Dead?
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Biden tailpipe rule will turn America into a Cuba of old cars
New York Post here:
Biden’s goals will push internal-combustion-vehicle prices into the stratosphere, and likely still not get consumers to play along; the 2032 mandate is beyond impossible to meet.
Instead, Americans will keep older cars on the road far longer; even paying through the nose for clunkers and repairs will be the better bet.
May 2023: Average age of a car on the road in the US hit a record 12.5 years, up 3 months from 2022.
I have two cars for my family. One is 27 years old, the other 17.
Remember Cash For Clunkers under Obama?
Yeah, I skipped that.
Kim Strassel: Biden is coming for your truck
Friday, March 22, 2024
I found the source for Trump's well-founded fear of an auto industry bloodbath
CNBC reports today:
Why a small China-made EV has global auto execs and politicians on edge :
There’s fear among global automakers that Chinese rivals like the Warren Buffett-backed BYD could flood their markets, undercutting domestic production and vehicle prices to the detriment of their own auto industries.
“The introduction of cheap Chinese autos — which are so inexpensive because they are backed with the power and funding of the Chinese government — to the American market could end up being an extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector,” the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a U.S. manufacturing advocacy group, said in a report last month.
BYD sold 1.57 million battery EVs last year, up from just 130,970 all-electric vehicles in 2020. That sales growth was enough to surpass Tesla to become the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles in late 2023.
The rise of BYD and other Chinese automakers led Tesla CEO Elon Musk in January to warn that Chinese automakers will “demolish” global rivals without trade barriers. ...
The company has quickly rolled out new and updated products. It’s also rapidly established manufacturing, as it has its eyes set on factories in Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Hungary, Uzbekistan and, potentially, Mexico. ...
Former President Donald Trump – the front-runner among Republicans in the 2024 presidential race – on Saturday suggested instituting a 100% tariff on cars made in Mexico by Chinese companies, should he be elected to a second term.
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Biden deals bloodbath blow to auto industry, EPA finalizes rule requiring 67% of new cars and trucks sold to be electric by 2032
The administration forged ahead with its plan despite pleas from thousands of car dealerships across the country, warnings from industry leaders and major manufacturers slashing production. Demand in recent years has failed to meet growth expectations. ...
“This rule is delusional,” the senators said. “This is the Biden administration’s attempt to get rid of the internal combustion engine without congressional authority.” Sen. Joe Manchin III, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, was ready to side with Republicans. He called the rule “reckless and ill-informed.” “The federal government has no authority and no right to mandate what type of car or truck Americans can purchase for their everyday lives,” said Mr. Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee.
At the current pace of sales growth of all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, the U.S. would take decades to meet the administration’s 2032 goal. ...
The EPA wants 67% of all new light-duty vehicles and up to 32% of medium-duty vehicles to be electric by 2032. That includes a mixture of all-electric, plug-in electric hybrids and battery electric hybrids.
More.
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Sunday, January 14, 2024
Reuters got it right, CNBC green lunatics try to soften the blow: "Rental giant Hertz dumps EVs, including Teslas, for gas cars"
Jan 11 (Reuters) - Rental firm Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ.O) is selling about 20,000 electric vehicles, including Teslas, from its U.S. fleet about two years after a deal with the automaker to offer its vehicles for rent, in another sign that EV demand has cooled.
Hertz will instead opt for gas-powered vehicles, it said on Thursday, citing higher expenses related to collision and damage for EVs even though it had aimed to convert 25% of its fleet to electric by 2024 end.
More.
Hertz makes ‘agile’ decision to shift strategy and sell EVs, Teslas
Thursday, December 28, 2023
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Saturday, September 16, 2023
Thursday, April 20, 2023
Experts say EV fires can take hours, rather than minutes, to extinguish
For more than a century, first responders have quite easily extinguished vehicle engine fires by popping the hood and drowning the area in water. That playbook doesn’t work with EVs.
More.
Imagine being on an all electric airplane at 35,000 feet.
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Sunday, October 9, 2022
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Saturday, September 3, 2022
LOL, it's not "affordable": It costs $41k minimum, goes 270 miles, and takes 18 minutes to charge
A 2022 Honda Civic LX will cost you about $24k, go 446 miles, and take you just a few minutes to fill its 12.4 gallon tank.
Thursday, September 1, 2022
As with electric cars, rooftop solar energy is great until it blows up and starts on fire: Now they tell us
Between April 2020 and June 2021, solar panels atop Amazon fulfillment
centers caught fire or experienced electrical explosions at least six
different times. ...
The documents, which have never been made public, indicate that between April 2020 and June 2021, Amazon experienced “critical fire or arc flash events” in at least six of its 47 North American sites with solar installations, effecting 12.7% of such facilities. Arc flashes are a kind of electrical explosion. ...
By June of last year, all of Amazon’s U.S. operations with solar had to be taken offline . . ..
More.