Posted on 07/16/2023 10:45:52 AM PDT by Signalman
The Left likes to treat skeptics of electrical cars as if they were Luddites. Truth is, making an existing product less efficient, but more expensive, doesn’t really meet the definition of innovation.
Even the purported amenities and technological advances EV makers like to brag about in their ads have been a regular feature of gas-powered vehicles going back generations. At best, EVs, if they fulfill their promise, are a lateral technology.
Which is why there is no real “emerging market” for EVs in the United States as much as there’s an industrial policy in place that props up EVs with government purchases, propaganda, state subsidies, cronyism, taxpayer-backed loans, and edicts. The green “revolution” is an elite-driven, top-down technocratic project.
And it’s increasingly clear that the only reason giant rent-seeking carmakers are so heavily invested in EV development is that government is promising to artificially limit the production of gas-powered cars.
In August 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to set a target for half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 to be zero-emission. California claims it is banning combustion engines in all new cars in about 10 years. So, carmakers adopt business models to deal with these distorted incentives and contrived theoretical markets of the future.
In today’s real-world economy, Ford projects it’s going to lose $3 billion on electric vehicles in 2023, bringing its EV losses to $5.1 billion over two years. In 2021, Ford reportedly lost $34,000 on every EV it made. This year, it was losing more than $58,000 on every EV. In a normal world, Ford would be dramatically scaling back EV production, not expanding it.
Remember that next time we need to bail out Detroit.
Then again, we’re already bailing them out, I suppose. Last week, the U.S. Energy Department lent Ford—again, a company that loses tens of thousands of dollars on every EV it sells—another $9.2 billion in taxpayer dollars for a South Korean battery project. One imagines no sane bank would do it. The cost of EV batteries has gone up, not down, over the past few years.
Ford says these upfront losses are part of a “start-up mentality.” We’re still pretending EVs are a new idea, rather than an inferior one. But scaremongering about climate and a misplaced romanticizing of “manufacturing” jobs have softened up the public for this kind of waste.
In the real world, there is Lordstown. In 2019, after General Motors—which also loses money on every EV sold—shut down a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, then-President Donald Trump made a big deal of publicly pressuring the auto giant to rectify the situation. CEO Mary Barra lent Lordstown Motors, a new EV outfit, $40 million to retrofit the plant. Ohio also gave GM an additional $60 million.
You may remember the widespread glowing coverage of Lordstown. After Biden signed his “Buy American” executive order, promising to replace the entire U.S. federal fleet with EVs, Lordstown’s stock shot up.
By the start of this year, Lordstown had manufactured 31 vehicles total. Six had been sold to actual consumers. (Most of them would be recalled.) The stock was trading at barely a dollar. Tech-funding giant Foxconn was pulling its $170 million. And this week, the company filed for bankruptcy.
Without massive state help, EVs are a niche market for rich virtue-signalers. And, come to think of it, that’s sort of what they are now, even with the help. A recent University of California at Berkeley study found that 90% of tax credits for EVs go to people in the top income strata. Most EVs are bought by high earners who like the look and feel of a Tesla. And that’s fine. I don’t want to stop anyone from owning the car they prefer. I just don’t want to help pay for it.
Really, why would a middle-class family shun a perfectly good gas-powered car that can be fueled (most of the time) cheaply and driven virtually any distance, in any environment, and any time of the year? We don’t need lithium. We have the most efficient, affordable, portable, and useful form of energy. We have centuries’ worth of it waiting in the ground.
Climate alarmists might believe EVs are necessary to save the planet. That’s fine. Using their standard, however, a bike is an innovation. Even on their terms, the usefulness of EVs is highly debatable. Most of the energy that powers them is derived from fossil fuels. The manufacturing of an EV has a negligible positive benefit for the environment, if any.
And the fact is that if EVs were more efficient and saved us money, as enviros and politicians claim, consumers wouldn’t have to be compelled into using them and companies wouldn’t have to be bribed into producing them.
They’ll get their way for 2 reasons:
1) We don’t fight.
2) We don’t know how to fight.
That's as good a summary as I've seen. There is very little market demand for EVs, perhaps 5%, tops 10% of the overall market.
But government will simply NOT let ICE and EV coexist side-by-side, regardless of what the market says. They have a new shiny object to ram down our throats.
AND I don't want the existence of their car to stop production of the car I prefer.
The goal is to take away our personally owned vehicles.
Rather than virtue signaling, the Demonicrat kakistocracy's EV indoctrination continues to give aid and comfort to the domestic and foreign enemies of the United States.
.....Electric Vehicles: Costly Virtue Signaling Forced on America by Left.....
May the new President elected in 2024 (hopefully Donald Trump) utterly wipe out the electric-car and “renewable energy” oppression from America!!!!
Global-warming believers must work on radically new energy technologies, which will be affordable and usable by all—not just the ultra-rich!! (Come on—MIT and Harvard!) If they do not, they are just liars and oppressors!!!!
Our elected republicans ..most of them are okay with EVs replacing the combustion engine...global warming..trans kids..gay marriage ..universal healthcare..street drugs..child trafficking..open borders...name it. They are okay with anything that doesn’t affect them personally. And very little affects them personally. Aa long as the check clears.
“The goal is to take away our personally owned vehicles.”
That is exactly what it is. Anyone who points this truth out is immediately shouted down and marginalized.
This is why auto-makers should have moved more towards the gas-hybrid electric model. This would have been sufficient to bring mileage up in vehicles. There are still some issues with the hybrid model, but drivers would enjoy the higher mileage coupled with the familiar ICE. Ford had an excellent regenerative braking system that worked well on many of its models.
“1) We don’t fight.
2) We don’t know how to fight.”
I know how to fight and I’ll fight with anybody.
Democrats simply aren’t worth the effort.
Americans will do just fine, without the Democrat baggage.
We are patient.
I’ll stand by and watch my enemy, Democrats destroy them selves. Look at their cites as an example. Fuk them.
Wait till nobody will ship them food since the vehicles needed are illegal and the ones legally mandated aren’t able to because they simply can’t do the work.
You cannot mandate Technology breakthroughs with a political process.
IMO the only reason there has not been a spate of shootings at airport rental locations is arriving passengers don’t generally have guns. We are planning a trip this summer and I have not found the button that says: NO EV.
Acquaintances from southern CA drove up to Davis for a family member funeral last week. They have an EV and had to stop three times to charge the damned thing taking 45 minutes each stop. On another EV note, auto wrecking yards will not take EVs. What a scam, all meant to shackle our freedom to travel. Now all they need is to loose an EMP on us and that’s coming.
The Left really thinks EVs are great they’re powered by Magic
I will not be forced to own or drive an EV.
I am later in life than most. Probably another 10 to 12 years of driving, for me...
The EV vs ICE argument was settled by about 1920. They had the same issues then as they do now. The big advantage that the EV’s had in the early 1900’s had is that they probably wouldn’t burst into flames and burn your house down.
EVs are the new Covid. A gimmick.
Remove the EV tax credit and the cost of buying a new EV goes down. EV’s are like everything else: when the government “helps” with tax credits and such, they artificially inflate the price. Remove all subsidies and mandates and let the free market play out.
its not about EVs
its about destroying private transportation
It is worth it to pay twice as much for a car which is half as good to let everyone at Starbucks know you care.
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