So the libs are going to blow up the car industry in the coming years, do another bailout, and make certain the well to do get the advantage of inflation on the poor and government subsidies, a rebate on their taxes, not called a rebate, then celebrate their victory as they accuse some CEO with a 100 million dollar golden parachute. I would be drinking riding horses enjoying my paramour and laughing with the CEO at the country club too.
If one looks at e-aviation, the aircrafts are often very different morphology from a conventional airplane or helicopter. Likewise e-cars designed with electric propulsion in mind would evolve to forms much better suited to the tech I suspect, and be very different as a result, if the freedom to do so existed. Instead, we have electric vehicles that go to very redundant lengths to imitate a gasoline car in form, because US DOT regulations essentially define what a car is at this point. An ongoing opportunity cost there.
Private electric mobility sucks for many reasons. One of the most important is that the service time is less than 1, i.e. it takes longer to recharge the tank (the batteries) than it takes to empty it, and while recharging, the car is unusable.
I'm sympathetic to the argument but note that Amazon racked up losses for something like 10 years before turning the corner (or "getting over the peak", "emerging from the trough" or your own simile of choice).
Questions would be how big is the Ford finished EV inventory?
How much of their overheads are independent of vehicle production volumes?
Amazon reinvested profits such that they could grow faster, rather than let them sit on their balance sheet or return them to shareholders. If I recall correctly their core businesses were still largely profitable from the start, their capex early on simply exceeded revenue (by a bit, not a ton). Granted my timing might be off but after the early 2000s that was certainly the case.
I'm not sympathetic to that argument. My recollection is that Amazon started out selling books, and moving from there into other consumer goods. This is all inexpensive stuff, and Amazon just had to get to where it was selling so much of this cheap stuff that it was making a profit.
Car companies, on the other hand, have to sell cars with batteries. Batteries are a helluva lot more expensive than gas tanks.
The US would have been much more sensible to require zoning for superinsulated, passive solar homes and other buildings, and use of heat pumps for any necessary heating. For some reason, a lot of people just felt they HAD TO PICK ON CARS, because cars are so visible in our lives, and they move around!
It also would have made a lot more sense to establish a carbon tax, and let individuals make the decisions.
Jaw-dropping evidence of the corporative willingness to comply with these top-down directives, even when it is obviously a money losing proposition.
My opinion is that our plutocrat overbosses believe that no cost is to high to force through their agenda , and that they will be more than amply compensated later when the coup/takeover is complete.
I don't know Robert, if I do a quick search on other common car companies here - Kia, Hyundai, VW - they have all recently posted big profits and alongside this it seems there are profits on their EVs, and all state their intention to go even harder on EVs. I
Make no mistake, VW is not making a dime on EVs. Every one is a loss leader. And it's impossible to forget that they sell several brands the world over. Not every country has sold it's soul to the devil to support the absurdity of EVs. You can be sure that Skoda sells no electric cars in Eastern Europe for instance.
I don't believe or agree in any of the rationale behind EVs, but they are being pushed hard from all quarters, and despite them basically being toys for rich people - I feel like governments are the car industry are not going to walk back on this, as EV becomes the sole focus over the next 20 years and the push to ban new sales, those of us who don't want one or worse - the majority who can't afford one are going to have their lives severely affected by an inability to buy a cheap second hand family car, when the only option is an outdated Tesla with a degraded battery.
When Volkswagen bought Bugatti, it promised to build the most exotic supercar in the world and did so. In the process of selling that $1M guilded motorized cage, VW lost several hundred thousand dollars per unit sold...but it was building arguably the fastest, most ridiculous, powerful, luxurious, and rare automobile in the world in the Veyron. It served the purpose of delivering the message to consumers worldwide that VW, owner of brands like Bentley, Audi and Lamborghini, was a premium brand and that it was willing to do whatever it takes to create a great car.
Ford cannot make the claims that VW did; their pedigree no longer includes the likes of Volvo, Range Rover and Jag. Nor can Ford lose spectacular amounts of cash indefinitely. Even though the loss per EV sold lessens as each new car represents a diminishing downside to the battery production development, they will sell ever more cars at no profit or a loss for the forseeable future. Mark Kelly isn't an idiot, though he has been forced to act like one towards America's stupid power brokers in the institutional investment and federal government structures. He and every other auto brand chief (except maybe for Mary Barra who seems totally capable of being dumb in the face of any decision) know that the only way out of the morass is to soak the taxpayer for all we're worth in the form of Orwellian EV subsidies or they will cease to operate. But what can they do...Joe Biden and his band of mental defectives have spoken. EV's or bust, am I right?
Throughout all of this nonsense the oldest adage in marketing has reared its head. Don't build what YOU want them to buy, build what THEY want to buy. And build what your market can afford. Joe Biden is of course a drooling vegetable so he doesn't count. But his cabinet and department heads don't care what it costs to build out their utopian vision of an electric future. They don't care what emissions look like from battery plants or what mine tailing ponds mean to the environment or how much diesel it takes to extract the necessary minerals to make 100,000 Lithium Ion batteries. They're idiots and captive ones at that. But when Ford, GM and the rest stumble towards irrelevance as the Koreans and Chinese take over car sales, I bet the feds will dance to a different tune. They might hate rural Americans with the passion of a thousand Brooklyn Gen Zers who've had their artisanal, vegan cheese stolen by a white, unbearded CIS male, but they want their votes.
"The Washington Post writes in 1915..." It is interesting to note that over that same decade, deaths from weather-related disasters have fallen an entire order of magnitude. And without the help of EVs, windmill, or solar farms.
Your Substack and podcast are the most informative on the madness of the proposed climate solutions. I have learned a lot and have recommended it to many.
I'm one of those people who wouldn't consider an EV. First of all I'm looking for a small truck, and the F150 class vehicle is larger than I want. Secondly, I live 18 miles from work and go by one gas station/charging facility on my way there, and I really have no desire to pay someone a couple grand to upgrade my electric to accommodate a home charger.
Yet my home state of Delaware is hellbent on eliminating new ICE sales by 2035, despite the fact that over 70% of those polled say no.
This truck may be the last new vehicle I buy. I can see a scenario in a decade where our roads look like a modern-day Cuba as people hang on to their 2000-2020 model ICE cars and don't buy new ones - or go to states which don't follow this foolish law and tag 'em there.
I'm keeping my '08 Civic hopefully for the rest of my life. I love the car, the way it handles, the wonderfully responsive engine, and the stick shift, and at 150k it feels like it did when I first got it with 35k on the clock. And even among the ICE cars, there's nothing I particularly want, except maybe for a Porsche Cayman, which I can't afford.
I've been a Ford gal from WAY back. Even now I have an 85 Bronco2, a 93 F150, a 95 Bronco and my husband has a 2006 f350 and we recently got a 2023 f450 to pull a 5rh wheel. I've had various other Fords over the years.
I have a brilliant idea...build another hybrid and one model ev and shitcan the rest. THEN build LOTS of Broncos. They are in demand. Resellers of brand new ones are getting $10-25k OVER MSRP! Even the Bronco Sport is selling. I would buy a new Bronco in a MINUTE but I'm not paying the extra. If I order it could be a year.
When are the stockholder going to begin to revolt? If I owned stock in Ford I'd be furious.
I am with you on the Bronco. I want one with a manual transmission but I am waiting not only for reasonable pricing but also for a solution for the grenading Ecoboost 4 cylinder motor.
I just purchased a personal vehicle and after looking at an EV (which I could afford & that intrigued me because of the wicked quick acceleration), but I quickly elsewhere because of the “range anxiety,” “charging time,” and other serious logistical issues that made the steeper price unworthy of the sacrifices.
I want at least one car that will take me cross country with minimal warning, hassle, and fueling time. So long as I have one nice vehicle, an EV won’t be it.
It will make a fun second vehicle toy ... someday.
These should be honestly marketed as Ferrari performance for a price attainable by a dual income, solidly upper middle income couple with no kids at home.
That’s clearly not a dream the Department of Energy should be subsidizing on the backs of lower middle income young parents, but that’s what has occurred.
Thinking on this a bit more, I came upon a simpler rule.
25 year old me, a guy who had a much lower income, kids at home, and real blonde hair rather than this “Arctic blonde” look, should not be subsidizing the lifestyle that 55 year old me can afford.
So the libs are going to blow up the car industry in the coming years, do another bailout, and make certain the well to do get the advantage of inflation on the poor and government subsidies, a rebate on their taxes, not called a rebate, then celebrate their victory as they accuse some CEO with a 100 million dollar golden parachute. I would be drinking riding horses enjoying my paramour and laughing with the CEO at the country club too.
Absurdity ala Blackmon:
Hauling Decreases Ford F-150 EV Pick-up Range By 25 %
AAA Automotive Engineers Find Best Use is Hauling Leaves and Styrofoam
https://tucoschild.substack.com/p/hauling-decreases-ford-f-150-ev-pick
Fiat CEO on 500e: "I Hope You Don't Buy It" - We Lose 14k A Sale
https://insideevs.com/news/321794/fiat-ceo-on-500e-i-hope-you-dont-buy-it-we-lose-14k-a-sale/
So why are they selling EVs at all ... hmmmm....
And what is causing this attempt to migrate to evs?
False narratives.
If one looks at e-aviation, the aircrafts are often very different morphology from a conventional airplane or helicopter. Likewise e-cars designed with electric propulsion in mind would evolve to forms much better suited to the tech I suspect, and be very different as a result, if the freedom to do so existed. Instead, we have electric vehicles that go to very redundant lengths to imitate a gasoline car in form, because US DOT regulations essentially define what a car is at this point. An ongoing opportunity cost there.
Show me what it should look like, I’m interested, post a link.
Private electric mobility sucks for many reasons. One of the most important is that the service time is less than 1, i.e. it takes longer to recharge the tank (the batteries) than it takes to empty it, and while recharging, the car is unusable.
I'm sympathetic to the argument but note that Amazon racked up losses for something like 10 years before turning the corner (or "getting over the peak", "emerging from the trough" or your own simile of choice).
Questions would be how big is the Ford finished EV inventory?
How much of their overheads are independent of vehicle production volumes?
Amazon reinvested profits such that they could grow faster, rather than let them sit on their balance sheet or return them to shareholders. If I recall correctly their core businesses were still largely profitable from the start, their capex early on simply exceeded revenue (by a bit, not a ton). Granted my timing might be off but after the early 2000s that was certainly the case.
I'm not sympathetic to that argument. My recollection is that Amazon started out selling books, and moving from there into other consumer goods. This is all inexpensive stuff, and Amazon just had to get to where it was selling so much of this cheap stuff that it was making a profit.
Car companies, on the other hand, have to sell cars with batteries. Batteries are a helluva lot more expensive than gas tanks.
The US would have been much more sensible to require zoning for superinsulated, passive solar homes and other buildings, and use of heat pumps for any necessary heating. For some reason, a lot of people just felt they HAD TO PICK ON CARS, because cars are so visible in our lives, and they move around!
It also would have made a lot more sense to establish a carbon tax, and let individuals make the decisions.
Jaw-dropping evidence of the corporative willingness to comply with these top-down directives, even when it is obviously a money losing proposition.
My opinion is that our plutocrat overbosses believe that no cost is to high to force through their agenda , and that they will be more than amply compensated later when the coup/takeover is complete.
I don't know Robert, if I do a quick search on other common car companies here - Kia, Hyundai, VW - they have all recently posted big profits and alongside this it seems there are profits on their EVs, and all state their intention to go even harder on EVs. I
Chris, let governments announce the end of subsidies and it dies in 24 hours.
Paying people to buy something most don’t really want
Not a great business model
Make no mistake, VW is not making a dime on EVs. Every one is a loss leader. And it's impossible to forget that they sell several brands the world over. Not every country has sold it's soul to the devil to support the absurdity of EVs. You can be sure that Skoda sells no electric cars in Eastern Europe for instance.
I don't believe or agree in any of the rationale behind EVs, but they are being pushed hard from all quarters, and despite them basically being toys for rich people - I feel like governments are the car industry are not going to walk back on this, as EV becomes the sole focus over the next 20 years and the push to ban new sales, those of us who don't want one or worse - the majority who can't afford one are going to have their lives severely affected by an inability to buy a cheap second hand family car, when the only option is an outdated Tesla with a degraded battery.
But it's saving us from death by carbon. So...
All those worried about “death by carbon” can reintegrate theirs into the Borg collective.
There is always a solution.
When Volkswagen bought Bugatti, it promised to build the most exotic supercar in the world and did so. In the process of selling that $1M guilded motorized cage, VW lost several hundred thousand dollars per unit sold...but it was building arguably the fastest, most ridiculous, powerful, luxurious, and rare automobile in the world in the Veyron. It served the purpose of delivering the message to consumers worldwide that VW, owner of brands like Bentley, Audi and Lamborghini, was a premium brand and that it was willing to do whatever it takes to create a great car.
Ford cannot make the claims that VW did; their pedigree no longer includes the likes of Volvo, Range Rover and Jag. Nor can Ford lose spectacular amounts of cash indefinitely. Even though the loss per EV sold lessens as each new car represents a diminishing downside to the battery production development, they will sell ever more cars at no profit or a loss for the forseeable future. Mark Kelly isn't an idiot, though he has been forced to act like one towards America's stupid power brokers in the institutional investment and federal government structures. He and every other auto brand chief (except maybe for Mary Barra who seems totally capable of being dumb in the face of any decision) know that the only way out of the morass is to soak the taxpayer for all we're worth in the form of Orwellian EV subsidies or they will cease to operate. But what can they do...Joe Biden and his band of mental defectives have spoken. EV's or bust, am I right?
Throughout all of this nonsense the oldest adage in marketing has reared its head. Don't build what YOU want them to buy, build what THEY want to buy. And build what your market can afford. Joe Biden is of course a drooling vegetable so he doesn't count. But his cabinet and department heads don't care what it costs to build out their utopian vision of an electric future. They don't care what emissions look like from battery plants or what mine tailing ponds mean to the environment or how much diesel it takes to extract the necessary minerals to make 100,000 Lithium Ion batteries. They're idiots and captive ones at that. But when Ford, GM and the rest stumble towards irrelevance as the Koreans and Chinese take over car sales, I bet the feds will dance to a different tune. They might hate rural Americans with the passion of a thousand Brooklyn Gen Zers who've had their artisanal, vegan cheese stolen by a white, unbearded CIS male, but they want their votes.
"The Washington Post writes in 1915..." It is interesting to note that over that same decade, deaths from weather-related disasters have fallen an entire order of magnitude. And without the help of EVs, windmill, or solar farms.
Your Substack and podcast are the most informative on the madness of the proposed climate solutions. I have learned a lot and have recommended it to many.
I'm one of those people who wouldn't consider an EV. First of all I'm looking for a small truck, and the F150 class vehicle is larger than I want. Secondly, I live 18 miles from work and go by one gas station/charging facility on my way there, and I really have no desire to pay someone a couple grand to upgrade my electric to accommodate a home charger.
Yet my home state of Delaware is hellbent on eliminating new ICE sales by 2035, despite the fact that over 70% of those polled say no.
This truck may be the last new vehicle I buy. I can see a scenario in a decade where our roads look like a modern-day Cuba as people hang on to their 2000-2020 model ICE cars and don't buy new ones - or go to states which don't follow this foolish law and tag 'em there.
I'm keeping my '08 Civic hopefully for the rest of my life. I love the car, the way it handles, the wonderfully responsive engine, and the stick shift, and at 150k it feels like it did when I first got it with 35k on the clock. And even among the ICE cars, there's nothing I particularly want, except maybe for a Porsche Cayman, which I can't afford.
I've been a Ford gal from WAY back. Even now I have an 85 Bronco2, a 93 F150, a 95 Bronco and my husband has a 2006 f350 and we recently got a 2023 f450 to pull a 5rh wheel. I've had various other Fords over the years.
I have a brilliant idea...build another hybrid and one model ev and shitcan the rest. THEN build LOTS of Broncos. They are in demand. Resellers of brand new ones are getting $10-25k OVER MSRP! Even the Bronco Sport is selling. I would buy a new Bronco in a MINUTE but I'm not paying the extra. If I order it could be a year.
When are the stockholder going to begin to revolt? If I owned stock in Ford I'd be furious.
I am with you on the Bronco. I want one with a manual transmission but I am waiting not only for reasonable pricing but also for a solution for the grenading Ecoboost 4 cylinder motor.
I wouldn't mind a stick either bit our 450 has the 10 speed and it's awesome. Choices/Choices 😉
I just purchased a personal vehicle and after looking at an EV (which I could afford & that intrigued me because of the wicked quick acceleration), but I quickly elsewhere because of the “range anxiety,” “charging time,” and other serious logistical issues that made the steeper price unworthy of the sacrifices.
I want at least one car that will take me cross country with minimal warning, hassle, and fueling time. So long as I have one nice vehicle, an EV won’t be it.
It will make a fun second vehicle toy ... someday.
These should be honestly marketed as Ferrari performance for a price attainable by a dual income, solidly upper middle income couple with no kids at home.
That’s clearly not a dream the Department of Energy should be subsidizing on the backs of lower middle income young parents, but that’s what has occurred.
Thinking on this a bit more, I came upon a simpler rule.
25 year old me, a guy who had a much lower income, kids at home, and real blonde hair rather than this “Arctic blonde” look, should not be subsidizing the lifestyle that 55 year old me can afford.