Free Republic

New technologies that will make monitoring drivers' behavior easy and comprehensive … will soon also be mandatory.H.R. 3684, an “infrastructure” bill signed by Joe Biden in 2021 included a provision mandating expanded monitoring of folks as they drive an automobile. And henceforth the intrusive technologies will be required in all new vehicles being manufactured and sold in the U.S.New vehicles will be required to have passive monitoring systems to assess each driver’s behavior. An algorithm will determine if the driver is too impaired to operate the vehicle. If so, the vehicle will either be disabled, or some as yet unexplained...

At $1.5 million per job, this new incentive package from the state is at least 15 times the norm. For this much money, the state could have just handed out a million bucks to 827 people, instead of creating 550 jobs.Gov. JB Pritzker announced Thursday that the State of Illinois will provide an $827 million incentive package for Rivian to invest $1.5 billion to expand its electric vehicle factory in Normal, Illinois. The expansion is expected to create at least 550 full-time jobs within the next five years, and will build Rivian’s next model EV, the R2. Rivian initially got...

Here at Jalopnik, we know there’s nothing wrong with keeping a beloved old beater running for mile after mile, and we regularly celebrate high mileage heroes. Now, it turns out the rest of America is catching onto this way of thinking as the savings of holding onto an old car for longer begin mounting up. Drivers across the country are increasingly holding onto their cars for longer than ever, with an increasing number hitting more than 100,000 miles in their cars, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. The trend comes as drivers realize the savings to...

The Biden administration hasn’t hesitated to rule by fiat, especially when it comes to environmental regulations. Separation of powers? Who cares? Why worry about constitutional processes when you can ramrod your agenda through the bureaucracy? Congressional Republicans are taking on the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest rule that seeks to govern greenhouse gas emissions for heavy-duty trucks. The rule is set to take effect on June 21. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho) introduced a resolution in their respective chambers on Wednesday that would invoke the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to allow Congress to vote to nullify the...

NORMAL, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rivian Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIVN) announced today it has received an $827M incentive package from the State of Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity, which will allow the company to expand operations at its plant in Normal, IL. The funds from the incentive package will go towards expansion of the plant, improvements in public infrastructure and job training programs for Rivian’s workforce, leading up to the company’s production of its midsized SUV, R2. Rivian will be participating in several city improvement projects to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to investing in the Illinois economy and community.

Ford, Chevy, and other major new entrants into the (formerly) lucrative electric vehicle business have — or perhaps had — a secret weapon in their arsenal for making EVs more attractive to buyers.If you want to know what that secret weapon is, I can tell you with just one word: Tesla.The Austin-based EV maker was first and fastest in building out the charging infrastructure necessary to make EVs anything more than urban curiosities. Tesla has more than 6,000 Supercharger stations with nearly 55,000 chargers in the U.S. alone, and exclusive access to them was one of the perks of owning...

Money Mail can today reveal a timebomb looming in the second-hand market for electric vehicles (EVs). Our investigation found that many EVs could become almost impossible to resell because of their limited battery life. Experts said that the average EV battery guarantee lasts just eight years. After this time, the battery may lose power more quickly and so reduce mileage between charges. Many EVs will lose up to 12 per cent of their charge capacity by six years. Some may lose even more. Yet the cost of replacing an EV battery is astonishingly high, our research found. In some cases,...

One strategy for state officials looking to transition Washington’s transportation sector to electric vehicles is by subsidizing them with taxpayer dollars.This week, Gov. Jay Inslee announced $45 million in subsidies through a Department of Commerce grant program for families deemed “low-income” to purchase an EV. “Washingtonians really get it when it comes to electric vehicles,” Inslee said at a Wednesday news conference in Tukwila.The program provides up to $9,000 for families to lease an EV, or $5,000 to purchase one. The grant program allows them to purchase either new or used EVs. The funding would be available to those who...

DETROIT – Two fatal crashes involving Ford's Blue Cruise partially automated driving system have drawn the attention of U.S. auto safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation of the crashes, both involving Mustang Mach-E electric vehicles on freeways in nighttime lighting conditions, the agency said in documents Monday. The agency's initial investigation of the crashes, which killed three people, determined that Blue Cruise was in use just before the collisions. One of the crashes occurred in February in San Antonio, Texas, killing one person, while the other happened in Philadelphia in March in which two...

Cars will beep, vibrate or slow down if drivers are speeding under new mandatory safety technology which comes into effect this summer. From July 6, new vehicles sold in the European Union and Northern Ireland will be fitted with intelligent speed assistance (ISA) to prevent accidents. Although the UK has opted out, meaning it will not be a requirement on British roads, the technology will still be installed in most cars, and drivers can choose to switch it off on a daily basis. Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, an independent research organisation, told the Sunday Times: “I think...

Tesla has certainly seen better days. In 2023, Tesla sold 55% of the EVs in America, far ahead of the second-place EV seller, Ford, which sold 6% of the total EVs sold. This makes Tesla a barometer by which much of the entire market can be measured. Experts say that some of Tesla's difficulties are a result of how Tesla is run, but some of the problems are systemic to the industry as a whole. Drop in Income, Stock clawing its way backOn Tuesday, Tesla reported a 9% drop in revenue in the first quarter, which was the largest drop...

A mechanical engineer with a zeal for quality, Petersen was only the second person outside the founding Ford family to lead the automaker. Donald Petersen, a former chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Co. whose focus on quality, unbridled product design and a collaborative workplace helped the company recover and prosper during the mid- to late 1980s, has died. He was 97.

VIDEO AT LINK................... 13 UNUSUAL Old Car Features, No One Wants Anymore! Discover the quirky side of automotive history with "13 UNUSUAL Old Car Features, No One Wants Anymore!" This video explores peculiar car features from the 1950s to the 1990s in the USA that were disliked and have since disappeared. From odd designs to impractical gadgets, these features were once part of everyday driving but are now a thing of the past. If you're a car enthusiast or curious about the evolution of automotive technology, this video is a must-watch! Acid Jazz by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a...

The Green Slime! The global movement towards Green Energy (or global Marxist movement) is really The Green Slime! Or maybe it should be renamed “The Red Slime.” Ford lost $132,000 on every electric vehicles they sold in Q1. It was so bad that even CNN reported it! And then we have Hertz dumping its inventory of EVs. A slew of used Teslas have hit the Hertz car sales website after the company announced Thursday it planned to sell off 10,000 more electric vehicles from its fleet than originally planned, bringing the fire sale’s total to 30,000. Perhaps one of the...

Hertz raised the number of electric vehicles it plans to sell this year as it is cutting its EV fleet to reduce losses that have weighed on the car rental giant’s earnings. In the first quarter, Hertz upsized its EV disposition plan by 10,000 vehicles, for a total of 30,000 EVs intended for sale in 2024. Most of these EVs will be Teslas. The company incurred a $195 million charge to vehicle depreciation to write down the EVs held for sale which were remaining in inventory at quarter-end to fair value and recognize the disposition losses on EVs sold in...

Shares of rental car giant Hertz plunged by more than 20 percent on Thursday after the company reported huge losses related to its investment in Electric Vehicles (EVs). For months, Hertz has been struggling after going all-in on EVs. On Thursday, Hertz executives said it lost $1.28 per share in the first quarter, many times larger than Wall Street’s estimate of a loss of 45 percent per share. The wider-than-expected loss came even though business was actually busier than expected for Hertz. The company took in $2.1 billion in revenue, slightly outpacing expectations. In January, Hertz executives announced that they...

I'm not sure if car and truck manufacturers are still using soybean based coating for the myriad of wires in vehicles with sensors all over them. A friend just spent over $3k on two vehicles because of squirrels eating the wires. Both vehicles required complete re-wiring, entire harnesses were chewed through. Their pickup truck is only a few years old, the suv a bit older about 4 years. The insurance would not cover the damage, and the manufacturer would not either. Trying to find out if our 2022 Buick Encore has soybean coatings, lots of squirrels, mice and other critters...

BEIJING/FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Tesla has cut prices in a number of its major markets, including China and Germany, following price cuts in the United States, as it grapples with falling sales and an intensifying price war for electric vehicles (EVs), especially against Chinese EVs. The price cuts come after Tesla, led by its billionaire CEO Elon Musk, reported this month that its global vehicle deliveries in the first quarter fell for the first time in nearly four years. "Tesla prices must change frequently in order to match production with demand," Musk posted on X on Sunday. Tesla, the EV market leader,...

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Workers in attendance for Friday's United Auto Workers (UAW) watch party feel they've made history. And for those Volkswagen employees who wanted unionization, the third time was the charm. In order to unionize, the UAW needed 50% plus one vote. Both previous UAW elections fell short of this, with 2014's election showing 47%, and 2019's election showing 48%. But Friday night, employees won by a landslide with the official National Labor Relations Board results reporting 2,628-985 votes for union representation. Some who came to watch the vote were from other right-to-work states in the U.S., wanting to...

Europe’s plunging electric vehicle sales are painful proof the market isn’t ready to stand on its own, putting governments on notice for more support until affordable EVs become a reality. The glut is clogging up ports and factories are cutting production — a red flag for the region’s climate goals and risk of job cuts after Tesla’s mass layoffs this week. Without subsidies, the cost of EV ownership no longer makes sense for many drivers. Insurance and repairs are more expensive than for combustion-engine cars, and many would-be customers still bristle at limited charging infrastructure. At the same time, rapid...