Free Republic

As John Adams said:Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.Now, if Stephen Scherr had taken Adams’s observation into consideration, he might still have a job. (However, no sympathy from me; he’ll be employed in no time at all, making more bad decisions that inevitably cost me money, in one way or another.) From a report at the New York Post this afternoon:Hertz, one of the four largest car rental companies in the world, is replacing its CEO after the company...

Electric vehicle start-up Fisker is exploring bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reported this week. Fisker’s stock plunged this week as investors worry about the company’s ability to survive amid a cash crunch. The auto company also said it would slash 15% of its workforce. The Wall Street Journal reported: Electric-vehicle startup Fisker FSR -55.88%decrease; red down pointing triangle has hired restructuring advisers to assist with a possible bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter. Fisker, which recently warned that it risked running out of cash this year, hired financial adviser FTI Consulting and the law firm Davis Polk...

Automakers from Ford Motor and General Motors to Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans.. consumer demand for EVs hasn’t shown up in the way executives had expected ... The buzz around electric vehicles is wearing off. For years, the automotive industry has been in a state of EV euphoria. Automakers trotted out optimistic sales forecasts for electric models and announced ambitious targets for EV growth. Wall Street boosted valuations for legacy automakers and startup entrants alike, based in part on their visions for an EV future. Now the hype...

Powering the nation’s long-haul trucks with electricity would require the same amount of electricity for more than 46 million homes every year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In 2022, California adopted regulations that required all new cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the state to be zero emissions by 2035. Immediately, 17 states eyed the electric vehicle mandates and started considering their own. That was on top of the Biden administration’s own tailpipe standards, which many say function as a federal EV mandate. The vision of a forced electric vehicle transition hasn't quite gone as California and the Biden administration have hoped. But in...

A green nonprofit that is indirectly funded by a foreign billionaire is pressuring broadcasters to drop advertisements that criticize the Biden administration’s massive electric vehicle (EV) agenda. Climate Power wrote to numerous broadcasters this week demanding that they stop airing American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers (AFPM)-funded advertisements in swing state markets that rail against President Joe Biden’s plans to impose widespread EV adoption in the coming years. The charitable organization affiliated with Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss health care mogul and billionaire philanthropist, donates millions of dollars to the Fund for a Better Future, which was the fiscal sponsor for Climate...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- A well-known restaurant in downtown Colorado Springs is picking up the pieces from an overnight crash. It began as a domestic disturbance that led to a string of alleged crimes resulting in extensive damage to multiple businesses downtown. "That is just awful because I know it's a big part of the community," says Ryder Ernewein. A Colorado Springs man is now under arrest after a domestic altercation dramatically escalated, leading to a serious downtown car crash. Colorado Springs Police (CSPD) arrested 24-year-old Fidencio Meza-Pelayo following the Sunday incident. According to CSPD, the overnight series of...

There's a reason very few new automakers have been launched over the past 40 or so years. Building and selling cars takes a tremendous amount of infrastructure. When you add in having to create not just a new design, but a new method of powering your car, you see why big auto has generally been a closed club. Tesla (TSLA) , of course, has crashed that party, becoming the first startup electric vehicle manufacturer to operate at scale. You can credit that to the genius and drive of Elon Musk. It may have been lost in his recent conversion to...

The Joe Biden regime has classified elite getaways, including Martha’s Vineyard, as “low-income” in an effort to qualify them for an electric vehicle (EV) charger subsidy program under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The EV charger tax credit program was supposed to allocate subsidies to “low-income” or “non-urban” areas. An examination of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) eligibility map identified several upscale areas deemed “low-income” by the regime, allowing them to receive EV charger subsidies. To be seen as “low-income,” areas must either have a poverty rate of over 20 percent, a median income beneath 80 percent of their wider...

Motor vehicle thefts up, arrests down in Chicago... Nearly 30,000 cars were taken from their owners in Chicago last year, yet police efforts to catch the bandits reached record lows... The number of vehicle thefts reported last year is the highest in 23 years..Not only did the arrest rate for car theft fall to 2.6%, but data collected through the Chicago Data Portal showed that it was the lowest level since the city started tracking crime online in 2001. The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the 29,063 motor vehicle thefts reported in...

The 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV is an early step in General Motors' promise of an electric vehicle future. "Our early experience in a Chevy Blazer EV has been anything but positive, sadly," said Alistair Weaver, editor-in-chief of Edmunds.com. *snip* "We took it into a Chevy dealer, asked them to have a look at it, and they came back with nothing short of 23 different error codes, which frankly is almost unheard of," said Weaver.

Shocking video shows the moment three gunmen ambushed a vehicle in Queens Tuesday night, killing a mother who was sitting in the front passenger seat and wounding the driver. Clarisa Burgos, 28, was in a black Honda sedan that was pulled over near 127th Street and Liberty Avenue in Richmond Hill when she and the 39-year-old male driver came under fire just before midnight. Burgos was shot once in the head and died on the spot, police said. “We’ve raised her in a good way, with love,” her aunt told The Post before closing the door Wednesday.

The Biden administration is more interested in pet projects, unsustainable green schemes, and ideological revenue redistribution than in the core functions of government.. The Biden administration is so obsessed with making electric vehicles (EVs) work as part of its green agenda that it’s taking money away from seniors — namely, drug savings under Medicare. Unsurprisingly, it has also failed to advertise that fact. The news of EV and green energy subsidies flew under the radar until a poll conducted in Arizona alerted voters there to the scheme. Fully three-quarters of Arizona voters polled (76 percent) said they didn’t know the...

The White House issued new guidance requiring federal government employees to prioritize using electric vehicles (EV), trains and public transportation options when conducting official business. The actions, which the White House said fulfilled President Biden's promise to "lead by example" on tackling climate change, seek to take advantage of the federal government's annual business travel purchasing power of $2.8 billion and status as the nation's largest employer. Overall, government employees on official business took more than 2.8 million flights, made 2.3 million vehicle rentals and took 33,000 rail trips last year. "These operational changes will accelerate the clean transportation transformation,...

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm made $1.6 million from an electric car company the Biden administration boosted that just went bankrupt. Proterra, an electric bus and battery company that President Joe Biden touted as a success of his green energy initiative, filed for bankruptcy in August. Last week, it finally sold its embattled battery business at a rock-bottom price as part of the bankruptcy proceeding. The rise and fall of Proterra demonstrates once again that politicians should refrain from betting taxpayers’ money on business ventures to advance their political agenda. According to the Wall Street Journal, Proterra has sold only 550...

Stellantis is offering to buy out thousands of its American white-collar employees as a result of the company’s transition to electric vehicles (EVs) — a move spurred by tax credits from President Joe Biden’s administration. Executives with Stellantis — which owns Jeep, Chrysler, Ram, Dodge, and others — announced a buyout plan in which 6,400 of its 12,700 non-union American white-collar employees would be offered a “voluntary separation package.”

Electric vehicles hit another sales record—but manufacturers are losing money. Experts blame government interference in the free market. Though electric vehicles hit another sales record, high production costs and a dwindling new customer base have spawned increasing corporate losses, forcing electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers to scale back on their plans to expand the market. Some experts believe these problems are a result of government interference in the business of industrial policy. The Oct. 12 report from Kelley Blue Book revealed that sales of electric vehicles hit another record in the third quarter of 2023, accelerating past 300,000 batter-powered vehicles "for...

A shocking video showed tourists being thrown off a vehicle while trying to stop brazen thieves from speeding off with their belongings during a violent robbery in a popular San Francisco area. Dmitry Koval, a victim who posted the video to Instagram, told The Post that he and his friends were hoping to take in the scenery and get something to eat at the Fort Mason Center lot in the Marian District on September 13. The group was already across the parking lot at about 4 p.m. when they saw a black SUV park pull up next to their two...

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm embarked on a four-day road trip in an electric vehicle this summer and faced a few issues, including trouble locating chargers, long downtimes as batteries slowly refilled, and even having the police called on her. Granholm drove from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Memphis, Tennessee, in an attempt to draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars, according to a report by NPR. The U.S. Secretary of Energy even made passionate town hall stops along the way, advocating for reshaping Americans’ lives by transitioning from...

President Biden frequently extolled an electric vehicle company — in which his energy secretary heavily invested — before it declared bankruptcy on Monday. Bay Area-based electric bus and battery maker Proterra filed for Chapter 11, with CEO Gareth Joyce citing “various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to efficiently scale.” The EV firm, which sold more than 1,300 electric buses to public transit systems in the US and Canada, was valued at $1.6 billion when Biden, 80, took office in January 2021 — but closed with a market value of $362 million, according to Reuters.

A Tennessee teenager could be seen on a doorbell camera footage as he was shoved out of a moving vehicle after being shot several times. Surveillance footage shows the moment an unidentified 15-year-old was shot and dumped in the street on Eagles Bluff Drive in Clarksville, Tennessee, on Sunday. The Nest doorbell footage picked up the sound of at least five gunshots in the quiet neighborhood, just moments before a Toyota Camry Hybrid came speeding down the road. Halfway down the street, the back driver’s side door opens up and the teenager, wearing a red shirt, was shoved onto the...