h/t Breitbart; Another nail in the coffin of the Electric Vehicle revolution.
Ford to trim workforce at plant that builds its F-150 Lightning as sales of electric vehicles slow
by: The Associated Press
Posted: Mar 28, 2024 / 07:58 AM EDT Updated: Mar 28, 2024 / 07:58 AM EDT
DETROIT (AP) — Ford will drastically cut the number of hourly workers at its factory that builds the Ford F-150 Lightning as sales of electric vehicles slow, according to a media report.
Ford began the year by cutting production of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup after weaker-than-expected electric vehicle sales growth.
When I first clicked on the EV article (the Breitbart copy), an advertisement popped up offering a discount cremation service. I sure hope this is not because a funeral provider has found a new use for discarded EVs.
On a serious note, my heart goes out to the workers who put their faith in Ford Management’s defective strategic vision, and retrained as EV production line workers. This is not the prosperous future they were promised.
The year 1957 is memorable for at least two historic launches. The launch by the Soviet Socialist Union of the Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, prompted the U.S. to create the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) the very next year.
Eleven years later, Neil Armstrong stepped out of Apollo 11 and famously proclaimed, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Barely three years later, Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan announced the end of the manned space flight experiment: “We shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”
Many believe that the Challenger launch failure in 1986, with teacher Christa McAuliffe one of the seven dead, and the disintegration of Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, in which another seven astronauts died, ended the U.S. dream of manned space flight.
Former NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory systems engineer Mark Adler spilled the beans in 2015. “The bottom-line answer is that it was … way too expensive. The shuttle never met its promise for low-cost access to space.” [Well, it was a government program!]
Cost-cutting and bureaucratic overkill were behind the Challenger (whose politically correct O-rings failed) and Columbia disasters. As chief NASA historian Bill Barry told Newsweek, “People realized that [Columbia] was a lot more risky than generally thought [mostly] because of [design] compromises … due to cutbacks in the budget [emphasis added].”
The other historic 1957 launch was Ford Motor Company’s much-heralded Edsel. Ten years in the making, at a development cost of $250 million ($2.78 billion in 2024 dollars), Ford dealers saw thousands lining up to buy the new dream car that September, but by yearend monthly sales had fallen by a third.
Two years later, Ford ceased production of the Edsel and revamped its production lines to build compact cars. According to Time reporter Lily Rothman, “As it turned out, the Edsel was a classic case of the wrong car for the wrong market at the wrong time.”
Ford had relied on market research showing that within a decade half of U.S. families could buy then-popular medium-priced vehicles. Further studies led Ford to design “the smart car for the younger executive or professional family on its way up.”
To Ford’s sad surprise, by 1957 the lust for medium-priced cars was usurped by a new boom in the compact field, an area the Edsel research had overlooked completely, said Rothman.
Much as with the space program, the federal government has spent huge sums subsidizing the construction and purchase of electric vehicles, including 18-wheelers, airplanes, and tanks. All of this has been driven, ostensibly, by the perceived threat posed by the plant food carbon dioxide.
Much as with the Edsel, the electric vehicles that European, American, and other Western governments have been subsidizing are “the wrong car for the wrong market at the wrong time.”
Around the planet, individuals, automakers, and even policy advisors are waking up to this gross miscalculation.
Meanwhile, the Chinese, who long ago cornered the market on the primary raw materials and technologies needed for producing EVs in quantity, stand to be the primary sellers of vehicles Western governments have mandated that the hoi polloi purchase.
The largest Chinese automaker, Biyadi (BYD), uses the slogan “Build Your Dream” to lure buyers into even greater reliance on Chinese technology that will erase tens of thousands of American jobs.
BYD sells battery-electric vehicles in China for US$26,000. BYD makes its own batteries, semiconductors, and seal upholstery, and its nearly 30,000 patents owned or filed puts BYD light years ahead of any Western automaker.
The only brakes on China destroying the world auto market are tariffs and other import restrictions – or ending the EV mandates. But the tariffs would likely be passed onto customers, forcing Americans to pay double if Washington forces Chinese EVs down their throats.
And, as noted, without the tariffs, Ford, General Motors, and every other non-Chinese automaker could quickly be forced into bankruptcy. The United Auto Workers know this and hedged their bets for 2024 by throwing money in both directions. Western automakers, joining Toyota, have already pulled back from their EV production commitments.
Ford, which has been losing $60,000 – more than the selling price – on every EV it sells, saw sales of its Lightning F-150 fall 46% in third quarter 2023. Mercedes downsized its EV sales projections by 2030 by 50% and announced it will update its petrol-fueled fleet engines into the next decade. Now Ford has halted all shipments of the Lightning F-150.
Rivian, too, has fallen on hard times, laying off 10% of its workforce, signaling a significant decline in demand. With prices starting at $70,000 for its pickup and $75,000 for its SUV, the sales downturn led to a corporate loss of $1.52 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2023.
Slackening demand for EVs has even led to entire mines shutting down as the supply of rare-earth minerals now exceeds demand. Albemarle announced it was deferring spending on a planned $1.3 billion plant in North Carolina. The price of lithium has shrunk by 90%, and the price of nickel has been cut in half. As a result, a nickel mine in New Caledonia recently suspended operations.
In the UK, auto dealers are offering discounts of up to 25% on EVs sitting idle on their lots. The Lords Committee says British drivers are “giving the cold shoulder” to the electric transition despite dramatic drops in finance rates for EVs in an effort to boost flagging sales. Non-fleet EV purchases in the UK fell by 25% from the prior year, with yet another reason being much higher auto insurance rates.
The obvious ability of China to dominate the EV market, coupled with increasing public resistance to EV mandates, has put pressure on the European Union and its member states. A year ago, the EU took a baby step backward, agreeing to allow sales and registration of internal combustion engine vehicles after the 2035 deadline if they operate only on carbon-neutral fuels.
In the U.S., President Biden had until very recently doubled down on his EV demands, ignoring the concerns of automakers, auto unions, and the auto buying public. Just a week ago, the EPA indicated it was “considering” delaying EV mandates beyond 2030, an election-year concession that could quickly be reversed.
A 2023 Gallup poll showed that only 16% of Americans with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 either own or are “seriously” considering purchasing an electric vehicle. The most likely EV buyer is a Democrat who lives in a Pacific Coast state, but only 28% of U.S. Democrats and 25% on the West Coast either own or are “seriously” considering an EV.
As Mark Knopfler’s Romeo said to Juliet, “the timing was all wrong,” perhaps the only real flaw with the current EV mandates is that the supply chain – especially in the West – is just not ready for prime time.
But in another few years, things could change. After all, the privately funded Odysseus Moon lander just became the first new U.S. presence on the lunar surface in 55 years.
On the other hand, unless the West cedes EV manufacturing to China, the EV may soon become so unpopular it will go the way of the Edsel.
Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues.
President Biden in 2021 drove a Ford F-150 Lightning and expressed his desire to electrify the White House’s fleet of vehicles, including the armored presidential limo known as “the Beast.”
At the time, Bryan Hood doubted the wisdom, given its weight of 15,000 to 20,000 pounds, its armor and high-tech security features, and its oversized truck frame. At twice the weight of the GMC Hummer EV, the Beast would require a massive battery array to provide any real protection – and would be defenseless in the event of a battery failure.
In his first week in office, President Biden announced his goal of electrifying the entire 600,000-vehicle federal fleet of civilian vehicles, to be “made right here in America.” He pledged, “I’m going to start the process where every vehicle in the U.S. military is going to be climate friendly.”
Biden’s goal, reiterated last April by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, is to electrify all U.S. military vehicles, including tanks and aircraft, by 2030, a daunting, budget-busting task. The Army’s 242,000 tactical vehicles should for now be hybrids, but its 170,000 non-tactical cars and trucks “could go right to electric,” according to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.
Biden even envisions electric tanks, which Kyle Mizokami, writing in Popular Mechanics, says makes a lot of sense. In his view, EV tanks reduce the vulnerability of fuel-laden convoys; are more easily upgraded than tanks with internal combustion engines and transmissions; and are cheaper to run and “easier on the planet.”
After all, the chief goal, says Mizokami, is “to get away from fossil fuels,” not to win wars.
One obstacle to the Biden Administration’s goal was the adoption in 2021 of a new postal vehicle design, to be built by Wisconsin-based Oshkosh, that can be fitted with both gasoline and electric drive trains. The award dealt a heavy blow to the favored all-electric contractor, Workhorse.
Recent reports indicate that only about 2 million fully electric vehicles have been sold in the United States, two-thirds of them Teslas. Total electrification for federal vehicles alone could match that number – at enormous, budget-busting cost.
The EV merchants, however, have been rocked of late by some very bad news. Most Americans appear unwilling to adapt to a plug-in future. Like Mad Max, they queue up at the pump saying, “I’m just here for the gasoline.”
Ford just nnounced it was cutting production of Biden’s beloved F-150 Lightning pickups in half, to just 1,600 vehicles per week, for 2024. This on the heels of cutting the price by $10,000, despite the fact that the storied automaker was already losing $66,000 for every electric vehicle that comes off its assembly lines.
General Motors is pushing back the opening of an electric truck factory in Detroit after scrapping an earlier goal of producing 400,000 EVs over a two-year period through 2024. The automaker may be dropping its Buick line to stay afloat.
Was Biden’s plan to drive all U.S. auto makers into bankruptcy?
Then there’s the report that investors are backing off from EV charging companies. Stock prices have fallen at ChargePoint, EVgo, and Blink Charging in spite of Biden’s $7.5 billion in subsidies. Blink Charging CEO Brendan Jones told The Wall Street Journal, “I think the investor class has grown weary of the industry’s lack of profitability.”
And no wonder.
Back in February Biden praised ChargePoint, which operates the nation’s largest public network of EV charging stations, for demonstrating that his efforts had “spurred network operators to accelerate the buildout of coast-to-coast EV charging networks.”
Oops!
ChargePoint’s stock value had dropped from a high of $46.10 per share in December 2020 to just $2.24 per share in December 2023, down nearly 75% in this year alone. CEO Pasquale Romano has stepped down, and the company is facing a class action lawsuit. Plaintiffs claim the firm’s share price was artificially inflated because of false and misleading statements by company executives.
Biden’s dream of an all-electric vehicle fleet is further compounded by an April 2023 Gallup Poll that showed only 12% of American auto buyers (and just 1% of GOP voters) were “seriously considering” purchasing an EV.
In Europe, where most new vehicles are sold via lease, the rapidly declining value of used EVs is causing rental car firms and other fleet purchasers to cut back on EV adoptions that end up costing money on the back end.
Chinese motorists have purchased an estimated 14 million EVs, but today its used car lots are overflowing with unsold vehicles, and junkyards brim with abandoned EVs with plants sprouting from their trunks.
Add the significantly lower resale value of used EVs to the list of reasons motorists are resisting state and federal lawmakers and regulators and other EV enthusiasts who demand submission without any questions.
The Biden Administration has spent trillions to jumpstart a (heavily subsidized) EV “market.” Several states have followed California’s lead to forbid the sale of non-electric vehicles. New Jersey’s ban begins in 2035, but Rhode Island and Washington upped the ante to 2030.
That’s earlier than the 2040 date set at COP 26 in Glasgow and adopted by dozens of countries from Canada to Azerbaijan (host to COP 29). Curiously, some commentators see the 2040 deadline as a “weak and unambitious goal.”
Electrek’s Fred Lambert believes “there will be a major shift in consumer demand around 2024-25 that will result in virtually all new car buyers realizing that their next car is going to have to be electric.”
And that’s the key – HAVE TO BE ELECTRIC.
The UN, the Biden White House, the myriad states that have adopted EV-only mandates, and numerous Al Gore and John Kerry wanna-be’s have decided that the world’s 1.4 billion motor vehicle owners, most of whom have voted with their mouths and their pocketbooks that they do not trust electric vehicles, can have no say in how they spend their hard-earned money.
Prior clashes between autocratic governments and noncompliant masses have not turned out well. In the world of Mad Max, governments lose all control over the population and collapse, leading to the collapse of civilized society and a return to a nomadic search for, well, gasoline.
Today, there remains the possibility of voting out those who intend to impose an all-electric future on unwilling people – despite the gargantuan efforts of those in control to prevent such a political uprising.
In the U.S., 2024 will mark a major turning point. Those who still prefer their gas appliances, gasoline-powered vehicles, rare steaks, and innumerable other benefits of modern society need to recognize that this may be the last time they have a chance to keep those choices available in the future.
Otherwise, Fred Lambert may be right. People will tuck their tails, bow their heads, and submit their entire lives to the whims of a few self-righteous billionaires and their greedy lieutenants.
Meanwhile, the bullies still insist that we drive electric golf carts whether we like it or not.
While freely admitting to a propensity for wistful thinking, this writer can’t help but wonder if automotive backpaddling on government strong-arm electric vehicle (EV) production mandates and an oil and gas company landgrab for increased reserves during their war on fossil fuels might suggest that they foresee an upcoming consumer and voter revolt.
It’s one thing to ask the public if they support “clean energy”, which is typically couched in terms that brand essential plant-nourishing CO2 as climate pollution, and quite another to ask what they are willing to pay for these green fantasies in terms of increased gas pump and heating costs, food and commodity inflation, and artificially reduced automotive market choices.
Customers expecting to make up added average Kelley Blue Book costs of $11,000 or more to buy a plug-in than a full-sized gas-powered car and nearly $30,000 more than the average compact in net mileage efficiency are delusional as “gas guzzlers” are replaced with “electricity drainers.”
Regarding those EVs, the simple fact is that most of the public isn’t buying them largely because they cost more and impose long, uncertain recharging requirements for long trips.
As for saving the planet from climate change, according to an environmental assessment accompanying the Department of Transportation’s newly proposed fuel standards, including a 2% increase in mandated requirements each year would reduce average global temperatures in 2060 by 0.000%.
Despite generous taxpayer-funded subsidies, EV sales have slowed due to a limited pool of consumers.
As Wall Street Journal contributor Sean McLain notes, “The first wave of buyers willing to pay a premium for a battery-powered car has already made the purchase, dealers and executives say, and automakers are now dealing with a more hesitant group, just as a barrage of new EV models are expected to hit dealerships in the coming years.”
With falling demand, Ford pushed back a plan to produce 600,000 EVs annually to late 2024 instead of the end of this year, and as sales for that model falter, is reportedly considering canceling a shift of factory production on its electric F-150 Lightning truck.
According to Ford CEO James Farley, his company lost nearly $60,000 on each EV it sold during the first quarter of this year, largely due to high battery costs.
Ford has temporarily cut one of the production shifts for the electric pickup and has paused construction of a $3.5 billion battery plant in Michigan.
Meanwhile, there is no sign on the horizon that oil and gas companies are going to surrender their core businesses to climate alarm cartels anytime soon.
Quite the opposite, we are witnessing what The Wall Street Journal characterizes as “the smell of mergers and acquisitions in the air” this month following more than $110 billion worth of oil megadeals to increase holdings.
ExxonMobil cut a $59.5 billion deal to buy Pioneer, which, in turn, apparently put pressure on rivals to pursue competitive purchases of their own.
As observed by Dan Pickering, chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners, “The FOMO [fear-of-missing-out] component of it is only going to accelerate. See one or two more deals, and there could be a scarcity premium that starts to emerge.”
This trend may hopefully be countering a recent liberal government multi-agency policy push that has hamstrung fossil energy companies with punitive regulatory Environmental Social Guidance (ESG) requirements, including investments in money-losing “green alternatives.”
Whereas drillers have largely kowtowed to accommodate ESG pressures since Joe Biden took office, a new pro-hydrocarbon administration and Congress would be a huge boon to their profitability and American energy independence.
Meanwhile, drilling isn’t only in the U.S. interest — global demand for oil last month surpassed its last peak — a pre-COVID-19102.3 million barrels a day, reached in August 2019.
Saudi Arabia Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has said that recent multi-billion-dollar acquisitions by U.S. oil majors ExxonMobil and Chevron of smaller rivals showed that hydrocarbons were “here to stay.”
Accordingly, his country is investing heavily in increasing its oil production capacity by one million barrels per day (bpd) to 13 million bpd by 2027.
Supporting this policy, the secretary general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) projects that global oil demand will increase by 23% through 2045, rising to 110 million barrels a day in about 20 years.
A report by the International Energy Forum (IEF) and S&P Global Commodity Insights records that oil and gas capital expenditures increased by 39% in 2022 to $499 billion, the highest level since 2014 and the largest year-on-year gain in history.
Further, IEF projects that annual world investment will need to increase to $640 billion in 2030 to ensure adequate supplies.
Who will supply this demand?
That answer — an urgent national security matter —will depend upon whom Americans elect in 2024 to sit in the Oval Office and majority congressional control.
CFACT Advisor Larry Bell heads the graduate program in space architecture at the University of Houston.
He founded and directs the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture. He is also the author of “Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax.”
Growing up on a farm, an initial mechanical obsession of mine was tractors (don’t laugh until you’ve tried one – think you feel unassailable in a 4×4 F-150? You have no idea), quickly followed by cars. They are so central to everything, and represent freedom, in a sense. The auto industry has been a passion ever since, my head hopelessly stuffed with useless trivia that only gearheads appreciate.
There have been painful episodes along the way, including watching beloved automakers at times make unfathomably stupid decisions. The entire US auto industry ran itself onto the rocks of bankruptcy a decade and a half ago, their smug executives shouting about their respective superiority right up until the infamous day that the three bonehead leaders of the big US auto manufacturers all flew from Detroit to Washington on the same day in separate private jets to beg Washington for bailouts.
Times change, and these days it’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for that bungling brigade. Consider the tight wire act they’re being forced to walk on, with the only safety net being the precarious support of governments barrelling full speed ahead towards an energy transition strategy that first and foremost burns all the bridges behind. Governmental transition plans with respect to autos will work against some very big odds, or will be a spectacular failure.
While the Biden administration recently spoke of increasing corporate average fuel economy standards significantly in coming years – a great development, more on that in a minute – the greater winds of change are clearly towards outlawing internal combustion engines (ICE) both in North America and in Europe. Canada and many western European countries have firm deadlines, as does California, and what California does, the rest of the US often follows emissions wise.
Imagine then what it’s like for North American/European auto manufacturers to see news headlines like this: EVs Are Piling Up on Dealer Lots as Supply Outpaces Demand. No more piffle about supply chain woes hindering EV sales, something else is going on.
On top of that are grim results for those vehicles actually sold. In the second quarter of 2023, Ford lost $72,000 on every EV sold. While the latter is ‘sort of’ normal for new car platforms – and EVs are nothing if not new platforms – what isn’t normal is for highly-touted/media-frenzy revolutionary new autos like the Ford Mustang Mach E EV to be selling under 3,000 units per month in the US as it is in 2023, two years after introduction (US sales peaked over 5,000 units per month shortly after introduction). In the second quarter of 2023, Ford sold 14,843 EVs (out of 513,662 vehicles sold by the company overall), a fairly meagre total considering the capital invested and the marketing campaigns. In the minds of most consumers, it seems an EV means a Tesla, and there is scant interest in anything else no matter the marketing hyperbole.
Problems compound further. Western countries and auto manufacturers are piling into new battery plant investments, trying to emulate Tesla. Well, guess what… many of the materials going into those batteries will have to come from China, who controls most of the world’s critical mineral processing facilities. China is itself, of course, setting out to build as many batteries as possible. Given their home field advantage with raw materials and the cost advantages noted by western automakers, what chance will western automakers have to compete?
And then it gets even worse from there. Think Cuba.
Cuba and the US have had their differences, as would any neighbourhood where adjoining neighbours are fierce capitalists and fierce communists. While the ideological fervour may be fading – Cuba is no longer as commie as it was, and the US is, well, like an ideological but malfunctioning fireworks show. Regardless, Cuba has not had access to modern automotive technology since the 1960s. As a result, streets still are full of ancient American cars, held together forever.
There is no reason to think that won’t happen in the US, Canada and western Europe when the new-ICE ban comes into effect. Some segments of the population will go with the regulatory-mandated flow, while a great many will hold onto what they know, trust, and love. Short of a miracle battery breakthrough, many will simply not trust EVs in cold weather and/or instances where battery power doesn’t cut it.
Should that happen, it will place a damper on new EV sales, or at minimum remove a potentially significant slice of the new car market. But the luddite old coots (as they will be known) hanging onto their ICE pickup trucks will be but a tiny worry in American automakers’ viewpoint; the central dominating terror in their eyes will be Chinese competition.
Chinese EV auto companies currently enjoy a 25 percent cost advantage in the manufacture of EVs, according to US automakers. Add that fact to the current stranglehold China has on critical minerals processing, and domestic auto manufacturers would be out of their minds not to be at least somewhat frightened.
But it gets even worse from there. North American and European automakers are being forced to abandon further development of ICE vehicles, because they have been assured by western leaders that those are doomed, and to suggest otherwise is to engage in modern blasphemy punishable by the worst of all possible punishments – public shaming and accusations that they don’t care about the planet.
Chinese automakers have no such compunction. They operate in a different universe. They will build what they have to and want to, including EVs and ICE and hamster-drive if they so choose.
Consider the meaning of Chinese vehicular manufacturing independence. The world currently purchases something like 100 million vehicles per year. The US, formerly the predominant market, is seeing its share slide to something like 15 percent. Europe likewise is shrinking.
But developing country demand is skyrocketing, and most developing countries have not declared China to be an industrial enemy. China will build what those markets want, and will not give even a fraction of a single hoot about western demands to eliminate gasoline and diesel. There are too many mouths to feed.
Western auto manufacturers that go all-in on EVs, as demanded by their governments, will find that they no longer can even dream of global domination; their home markets will be a money pit of massive proportions.
In case anyone cares, and it doesn’t seem that they do when energy transitions are discussed, this will all work out the absolute worst for lower income people. Ordinarily, the auto market provides options for lower economic classes with vehicles that are no longer in favour. For example, in periods of high gasoline prices, consumers that can afford to switch up will tend to go for more fuel efficient vehicles, and the market can get flooded with inefficient ones – which has the effect of pushing down prices of these out of favour beasts, putting them within reach of poorer people. The fuel costs may be higher, but at least they can buy wheels.
That likely won’t happen this time around, if we see people buy ICE vehicles and then hoard them for as long as they can. In fact, things are terrible already for lower income people looking to buy older used cars – prices have skyrocketed for those as well.
Used cars are expensive, new cars are hideously more so, and EVs are, thus far, mostly toys of the wealthy with multi-car garages, or well paid urbanites that can afford to use them where they really shine. Again, we can see where China is twelve steps ahead; many popular EVs in China are tiny, cheap EV runabouts that don’t have massive range, but get the job done. No such option is available here in North America, few in Europe, and if they do show up on these shores, it is a safe bet they will be of Chinese origin, because they’re the only ones that can make money at it.29dk2902lhttps://boereport.com/29dk2902l.html
One last bit of drizzle for the day. Recently, Toyota announced that they had made breakthroughs in solid state batteries; by 2026-27 they expect to have EVs on the road that can charge far faster, with batteries that don’t overheat and catch fire, and with more range. It truly is an exciting development (companies have teased us with solid state batteries for years, including one Lamborghini model that incorporated a tiny supplemental one more as a fashion statement than anything). I would be happy to buy a solid state Toyota EV if it lives up to its promise and is cost effective.
The problem is, if the new Toyota tech is as good as hoped (and Toyota brings much needed credibility to the idea), then what happens to all the existing EVs, to all the existing battery plants now being funded at a cost of hundreds of billions, to all the money being spent on lithium ion battery development/processing/etc.? It is normal for new technology to overtake old and outdated items, but these massive current investments will not have had any chance to recoup the investment. Ford may have lost $72,000 on each EV sold in Q2 2023, but that could be acceptable if they went from selling 14,000 EVs per quarter to a million.
But what if that is as good as it gets? What if they never see sales of these lithium-ion EVs rise to the levels needed to recoup even a fraction of that investment? What if they build them and no one comes?
In that scenario, there is at least one silver lining – poor people might have an amazing choice of today’s EV crop, at very modest prices indeed.
In a sane world, automakers would morph first into hybrid vehicle manufacturers, which can make pretty much everyone happy. That’s why Biden’s proposed new fuel efficiency standards would be important; we should be striving for higher mileage, low hanging fruit instead of utterly demolishing the old ICE world. Besides that logical point, hybrids are far, far better for the environment from a materials availability perspective. Toyota calculated that they could make 90 hybrids for the same battery material that goes into a single EV, and that those 90 hybrids over their life could offer electrical motivation of a magnitude no single EV could even hope to. Plus, the energy transition is being hobbled by lack of critical metals/minerals; why not pursue the biggest bang for the buck while the world sorts through exactly what additional resources are available, and where, and when?
But sanity is forbidden in the west. It is EV or nothing. Infrastructure be damned. Investment be damned. Popular demand be damned.
The only western auto company I’ve seen that is keeping their feet on the ground and their wits about them is Toyota, who is openly stating that there is a future for ICE, a future for hybrids, and that maybe hydrogen fuel cells will be the power of choice. Hats off to them for, if nothing else, courage.
The scenarios above are, of course, possibilities, and maybe probabilities, but not certainties. But the odds of big trouble for western automakers are significant and ignored at our peril. No one wants to see forlorn Big Three auto execs having to climb into those private jets for that humbling ride again.
Energy conversations should be positive and, most of all, grounded in reality. Life depends on it. Find out more in “The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity” at Amazon.ca, Indigo.ca, or Amazon.com. Thanks!
Read more insightful analysis from Terry Etam here, or email Terry here.
An article from John Ray explains how the Electric Vehicle movement is losing steam The electric car ‘revolution’ is a disaster before it’s begun.Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. (The UK references are due to the original article appearing in The Telegraph.)
The electric car revolution is stalling, of that there can no longer be any doubt. It has left the big global carmakers floundering, uncertain of how to proceed in a race they reluctantly entered in the first place.
Electrification was initially met with fierce resistance. But once politicians held a gun to the heads of company bosses with a series of cliff-edge deadlines for phasing out the combustion engine, carmakers had little choice but to go all-in.
Century-old business models were declared dead and ambitious plans hurriedly drawn up to electrify entire portfolios from small city run-arounds to family saloons and SUVs, at astronomical cost. Even Ferrari has embraced the movement – much to the consternation of petrolheads everywhere.
But with electrification barely off the starting grid, one by one the big carmakers are already pulling back as demand badly falters.
Volkswagen is so concerned about flagging sales that it has taken the extraordinary decision of halting electric vehicle production at one of its biggest plants. Assembly lines for electric models will be paused for six weeks at the Emden factory in northwest Germany and 300 of its 1,500 staff laid off after sales fell 30pc short of forecasts.
This means production of the new VW ID.7 electric model, which had been due to commence in July will be pushed back until the end of the year. The ID.4 electric SUV and the upcoming ID.7 electric sedan will also be delayed.
“We are experiencing strong customer reluctance in the electric vehicle sector,” plant boss Manfred Wulff said.
That is remarkably plain language from the largest car manufacturer on the planet, and a company that recently announced plans to invest €120bn (£103bn) over the next five years in “electrification and digitalisation”.
It comes months after Ford poured cold water on the shift to electric with thousands of job losses in Europe.
Electric vehicle production is unable to support anything like the same number of jobs that petrol and diesel models are able to sustain, it said. Boss Jim Farley estimates that 40pc fewer staff will be needed to develop battery versions.
A generation of pure electric vehicle makers has hardly fared any better. On Tuesday, Lordstown Motors, the US electric truck specialist that Donald Trump once heralded as the saviour of a depressed Ohio town, filed for bankruptcy protection.
Even Elon Musk has been forced to repeatedly cut the price of Teslas in a desperate effort to prop up demand and protect market share.
But it’s the setback at VW that stands out, raising serious questions about whether politicians are making the catastrophic mistake of forcing electric cars on a public that doesn’t want them. Indeed, the decision to impose strict deadlines for the phase out of petrol cars could turn out to be one of the most ruinous policy decisions of our lifetimes.
Think about it for a second: an entire industry not only forced to abandon a product that the vast majority of people still want and use, but also bullied into channelling all its resources into making something on a colossal level that there simply isn’t the market for – at least not within the horrendously short timeframe that is being imposed on car manufacturers.
It’s industrial self-sabotage and a commercial, economic and social catastrophe in the making. But what’s worse is that the damage risks being far greater in the UK than anywhere else in the Western world thanks to the Government’s myopic obsession with arbitrary net zero targets.
While the rest of the industrial world seems to have largely settled on a 2035 deadline for petrol and diesel phase out, ministers, for reasons destined to remain a mystery, have decided Britain needs to hit this milestone five years earlier than everyone else.
It makes no sense at all, and yet the ramifications threaten to be huge. By diverting capital into something that lots of people essentially don’t want, it risks inflicting massive losses on an already fragile UK car industry.
It is pure fantasy to imagine that Britain – with a dearth of battery factories (consultants Alix Partners estimates as much as a third of Britain’s battery requirements will need to be imported), a paucity of chargers and dramatically higher energy costs – will be in any position to go fully electric in the next seven years. And the Government simply isn’t capable of solving any of these challenges in time, if at all.
The UK risks becoming the unfortunate guinea pig in a costly and dangerous experiment that persuades the rest of the world to push their own deadlines out even further, turning this country into an example of how not to become a nation of electric car owners.
New video footage of a fire that started in a Ford F-150 Lightning earlier this year highlights an emerging concern regarding the adoption of electric vehicles.
The previously unreleased footage, obtained by CNBC, shows smoke billowing from three tightly packed electric pickups. Moments later, flames shoot several feet above the vehicles, which were unoccupied.
Fires involving EV batteries can burn hotter and longer and require new techniques to extinguish, posing a growing challenge to first responders.
DEARBORN, Mich. — New video footage of a fire involving a Ford F-150 Lightning this year highlights a growing concern around electric vehicles: volatile fires from the batteries that power them.
The previously unreleased footage, which CNBC obtained through Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act from the Dearborn Police Department, shows smoke billowing from three tightly packed electric pickups in a Ford Motor holding lot in Dearborn, Michigan.
Moments later, flames shoot several feet above the vehicles, which were unoccupied. It wasn’t clear based on public documents and police video how long the fires burned. Experts say EV fires can take hours, rather than minutes, to extinguish.
EV fires have become a growing concern as automakers push to increase sales of electric vehicles and meet tightening emissions standards.
An electric Ford F-150 Lightning caught fire on Feb. 4, 2023 due to a battery issue traced back to one of the automaker’s suppliers. The blaze spread to two other electric pickups in a holding lot of Ford’s in Dearborn, Michigan.
EV fires are extraordinarily difficult to extinguish, and emit toxic fumes which can cause acute and long term debilitating injuries in anyone unlucky enough to breathe them. They also burn hot enough to melt steel and concrete, and need minimal or in some cases no oxygen to continue burning – more like a thermite fire than an ordinary flame.
Lets hope Ford figure out what went wrong, before someone gets killed.
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Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
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