Free Republic

Joe Biden’s massive electric vehicle (EV) agenda will subsidize the lifestyles of America’s well-to-do while hitting average people the hardest.... The Biden administration is aggressively regulating the U.S. auto market to drastically increase the proportion of EVs sold over the coming decade, but consumer demand has not taken off as quickly as proponents had projected despite the subsidies made available by Biden’s flagship climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Manufacturers are slashing prices of their EVs to make the vehicles more appealing to consumers, which will increase prices for internal combustion engine (ICE) cars to compensate; this dynamic will...

Tesla's price CUTS in Australia follow the company's decision on April 3 to announced 0% financing for new orders of the Model 3 and Model Y in China. The incentive runs through the end of April and is Tesla's first interest-free promotion for China, the world's biggest EV market.Meanwhile, Tesla INCREASED its U.S. prices for all Model Y trims on April 1. Tesla RAISED prices on Europe Model Y vehicles on March 22. In China, Tesla also HIKED prices on its entire Model Y line by around $690 on April 1, even as some incentives expired.

Being proved right isn't always fun. Just weeks after my warning in the March issue that our modern high-tech cars are tracking us and sharing data with manufacturers, cops, and parties unknown, came a report of soaring auto insurance premiums because of snitching vehicles. The consequences get worse from there. Fortunately, there are ways to keep your snoopy ride from contacting the mothership. Your Driving History May Be Transmitted and Stored "Car companies are collecting information directly from internet-connected vehicles for use by the insurance industry," Kashmir Hill reported this month for The New York Times. "Sometimes this is happening...

The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revealed its ambition: to phase out gas-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles (EVs). Incredibly, this announcement comes as we are flooded with overwhelming evidence that EVs are a market loser. Indeed, the artificial boom and then meltdown of the EV market is a modern industrial calamity. It was created by government, social media, wild disease frenzy, far-flung thinking, and the irrational chasing of utopia, followed by a rude awakening by facts and reality. CEO of Hertz Stephen Scherr has been booted out due to a vast purchase of an EV fleet...

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...

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...

Startling surveillance footage captured the moment a band of teens from the Chicago area broke into a Wisconsin Jaguar/Land Rover dealership and sped off with more than half a million dollars worth of high-end vehicles – later leading police on a dramatic 40-mile chase. In a coordinated heist, several black-clad individuals pulled up to the Waukesha dealership in the early hours of Feb. 18, pried open the key box and got into nine cars, the footage shared by FOX6 News showed. One of the thieves got into a Land Rover Velar and used the car “as a battering ram” to...

A provision in the 2021 "infrastructure" spending package, as it turns out, includes a provision that directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to come up with a way to stop you from driving your car or truck if the government doesn't want you to. The measure is sold as a way to keep people from driving while impaired, but the implications are chilling. "A provision in the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden signed in 2021 directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to come up with a rule by this year requiring new...

Electric vehicles that typically weigh more than gasoline-powered cars can easily crash through steel highway guardrails that are not designed to withstand the extra force, raising concerns about the nation’s roadside safety system, according to crash test data released Wednesday by the University of Nebraska. Electric vehicles typically weigh 20% to 50% more than gas-powered vehicles thanks to batteries that can weigh almost as much as a small gas-powered car. And they have lower centers of gravity. Because of these differences, guardrails can do little to stop electric vehicles from pushing through barriers typically made of steel. Last fall, engineers...

The fourth quarter of 2023 was not good for Electric Vehicles (EV). Multiple manufacturers decided to curb or halt production. Ford in particular decided to cut their F150 Lightening Truck series in half. Roughly 4,500 auto dealers signed on to a letter petitioning the Biden administration to “tap the breaks” on its aggressive EV push, on account of EVs stacking up on dealer lots. The new year is already off to a rough start and we’re not even through the first month. Hertz announced it will be selling off about one third of its EVs, which will amount to roughly...

Several cars had to be towed from a charging line in Evergreen Park on Monday as temperatures struggled to rise above freezing. Tests found that electric vehicles lose between 20% and 30% of their range when temperatures dip below freezing... Ice causing flooding concerns The frigid temperatures in Illinois are causing flooding concerns. Chunks of ice have built up along the Kankakee River near Wilmington, causing the water to rise in some areas. A flood warning was issued for the area for the remainder of the week. Flood waters have surrounded homes as river waters continue to flow beneath the...

One key to making EV adoption to work is fast charging. People that are used to filling up their gas tanks in mere minutes won’t be so easily swayed by the idea of having to sit at a charging station for nearly an hour. In charging testing done by Edmunds, they found the fastest and slowest charging EVs on the market. While Edmunds used metrics like miles per charging hour to mainly measure the speed, it can come off a bit confusing. So we’ll stick with their basic metric here: the time it took to get to 100 miles of...

Bad news for EV owners with range anxiety - a half of electric cars go don't even go as far as makers claim. A real-world test of 22 of the most popular electric cars has found that 10 fell short of their advertised range. The biggest difference between quoted and actual ranges was observed in a 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Lariat Extended Range, which starts at around $70,000. It ran out of juice after covering 270 highway miles, 50 miles less than the EPA 320-mile estimate, according to a test by Consumer Reports. When a manufacturer sells an electric car...

My father-in-law paid for college in North Dakota with an old pickup and an industrial battery, jump-starting dead cars in the winter for 20 bucks a jump. In the era of electric vehicles, maybe someone needs to come up with a smart alternative, unlike this EV owner in Denmark. 👇 PIX11 News @PIX11News · Follow A toaster placed under an electric vehicle to warm up its battery likely caused a fire that destroyed the car and damaged a nearby house in Denmark, police said, Toasters apparently get a little too warm and can set the car on fire. Yep, a...

Electric vehicles (EVs) have vastly more problems that arise than gas-powered cars, a new report of American consumers reveals. The survey from Consumer Reports, which asked owners of about 330,000 vehicles about issues they faced over the last year, found that EVs have almost 80 percent more problems than gas-powered cars using traditional combustion engines. Most problems consumers face with EVs, the report suggests, are long charging times, a lack of charging stations in general, issues with the lithium-ion battery, outer and interior parts not fitting precisely, and engine failures.

Sales of electric vehicles in the US have plateaued even though sales of cars overall remain healthy - suggesting many buyers are in no mood to ditch gasoline models anytime soon. Over the last six months, overall car sales have been higher than they were for the same months in 2022 or 2021 - when demand for EVs was still increasing. But in 2023, EV sales during the same period have stalled at around the 100,000- a-month mark following a period of rapid growth. The reduced demand has seen inventories stock piled, with prices of EVs slashed over the last...

A comprehensive new study of electric vehicles shows that the cost of running them is far more expensive than has been commonly thought. Brent Bennett and Jason Isaac issued their report for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, pointing out that advocates for electric vehicles claim the vehicles require lower maintenance and lower fueling costs than traditional vehicles, and future reductions in battery prices will make EVs less expensive. But, they argue, “no one has attempted to calculate the full financial benefit of the wide array of direct subsidies, regulatory credits, and subsidized infrastructure that contribute to the economic viability of...

Five cars have been destroyed after a lithium-ion battery exploded at Sydney Airport on Monday night. Key points: A detached EV battery has been confirmed as the source of the fire Fire and rescue crews attended the scene under the control tower at Sydney Airport Authorities have monitored the battery overnight in case of a spark-up Fire and Rescue NSW and the Aviation Rescue Firefighting Service battled the blaze which broke out under the control tower on the southern end of Airport Drive in Mascot. Firefighters confirmed sparks spread from a detached lithium-ion battery from a luxury car to four...

HCMC – Hyundai IONIQ 5 electric cars, assembled by Hyundai Thanh Cong Vietnam Auto Joint Venture JSC (HTV) in Ninh Binh Province, are now available at showrooms in Vietnam with a starting price of VND1.3 billion per unit. HTV announced yesterday, July 31, that the joint venture officially rolled out the first batch of Hyundai IONIQ 5 vehicles for distribution in Vietnam. This is the first time that a high-tech electric vehicle model from Hyundai Motor has been assembled in Vietnam. Hyundai IONIQ 5 vehicles are assembled at Hyundai Thanh Cong 2 plant (HTMV2) in the northern province of Ninh...

EEMSHAVEN, Netherlands — Tugboats towed a freight ship that burned for a week on the North Sea while carrying thousands of cars into a Dutch port on Thursday for salvaging, laying to rest fears that it could sink close to shipping lanes and a protected habitat for birds. The Fremantle Highway was taken to the northern port of Eemshaven, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management said. A boat that has special booms to clean up oil spills accompanied the nearly 200-meter-long (around 650-foot-long) vessel as a precaution. The ship with 3,784 new vehicles, including 498 electric ones, on...