Posted on 05/01/2023 7:37:08 AM PDT by CFW
Rivian (NASDAQ: RIVN) and two contractors are facing a lawsuit in federal court brought by a Georgia resident who claims muddy runoff from the construction site of Rivian’s future factory has choked streams and ponds downstream in violation of federal environmental law.
The filing presents another potential legal hurdle for the EV startup, which has faced stiff resistance from some local residents since announcing plans to build a factory a year and a half ago.
The complaint was filed last week in the Middle District of Georgia by Julie Jenkins of Morgan County, who oversees a family trust that sold some of its land to the state for the Rivian project. She and her family still own other properties near the 2,000-acre site of the future factory.
(Excerpt) Read more at streetinsider.com ...
The crux of that article was that Rivian's market capitalization that exceeded $150 billion days after a blockbuster public trading debut in late 2021 now stands at less than $12 billion after a 93% stock wipe-out, reflecting almost no value beyond the company’s cash hoard.
In December of 2021, the stock traded at $103.00 and today it is at $12.60 per share.
The residents of Walton County, Georgia are still fighting against the Rivian plant and the tax breaks the company was promised by Kemp in order for them to build the battery plant in rural Georgia. I'm beginning to suspect the plant will never actually be completed.
This may turn out to be as bad as DeLorean’s collapse.
I don't type that as an EV hater. My wife and I like both our EV car and our mid-size ICE pickup. When I decided to make one of our cars an EV and keep one as an ICE car (to have one of each and, therefore, have the best of both worlds), there are technical limitations as to why I chose not to have the pickup be the EV.
Maybe if Ford, GM, and Rivian had gone with a small truck being fully electric, that might last more than a fad. Many small pickup owners don't regularly carry/tow large loads -- otherwise they would have bought large trucks. They usually use those trucks as commuter cars but with pickup features to handle small pickup chores every now and then on the weekends. You'd think if there was any sustainable market for EV pickups it'd be those pickup owners.
I would think that Toyota could sell a plug in hybrid version of the Tacoma very well. Heck, I might even buy one.
If that vehicle could drive on battery for 50 miles but still have a V6 engine for longer trips or when I occasionally pull a trailer or load up the 6’ bed.
We live about 5 miles straight line from this construction site. Three cheers for anyone who can slow or stop this disgusting project.
When the day eventually comes to replace my ICE pickup I'll probably replace it with a plug-in hybrid one. That'll be better on my pocket than a normal ICE pickup. But I can't expect it to give me the amount of free miles with a 50 mile range (before needing gas) as the fully electric car. That's because if I drive on average 30-40 miles per day around town, with a 50 mile range I have to charge it every day (unless I want to use gas). So on a rainy day (read: little free power from solar) when I'd charge it it would add to my power bill.
But with the full EV getting 230 miles range (when charged to 80%), driving it on average 30-40 miles per day gives us many days in a row that we don't have to charge it (thus we can almost always wait until a good solar day to charge it before the EV's charge gets low enough to force us to give up waiting and charge it on a day that would add to our power bill). Think of the EV as an appliance that my home's electrical system has to provide power for like it does my home heat pump and my water heater. The main difference between the EV and other "appliances" is that the EV usually doesn't demand I give it power at specific times or days -- I can usually choose to charge it whenever I have excess free power. That makes the EV and the solar work together in a way that's better than the sum of their parts. With a hybrid car (or truck) getting only 50 miles on electric power, I lose that flexibility on when I charge it. However, since it's a given that at least one of our two cars needs to be an ICE (for the times an EV won't cut it, especially for pickup chores), then having the ICE pickup be a plug-in hybrid will be the best I can probably do at achieving almost energy independence while also not being limited by an EV only fleet.
My ONLY reason to buy a plug in hybrid is that my commute is just under 10 miles each way. I could plug it in at night when I go home and not go to the gas station for months. Currently, I go through about a half a tank/week on the V6 Tacoma.
“battery plant in rural Georgia. I’m beginning to suspect the plant will never actually be completed.”
The chinese are building a bigger one in Michigan.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4147816/posts
Where does one begin with the fraud and corruption of Brian Kemp?
Rivian already had a spot picked out near Savannah, with access to rail, the ports and the infrastructure.
Somehow they decided to move their facility to 2000 acres of farm land, not near anything, that was owned by the chairman of the local Joint Development Authority. Sold the land for $22,000,000.
Land sits on an aquifer.
Rivian sold snake oil to a corrupt group of politicians. Its trucks are beyond useless and very expensive.
The original CEO resigned his position when the first factory, in Illinois, failed to meet its target of 1200 trucks.
Rivian dazzled Kemp and his crew with the promise of 7500 jobs at the plant and another 7500 in peripheral business.
Rivian pushed making 400k trucks a year. Kia makes about 340k vehicles a year at its plant in West Point, Ga employing 2700 people. Someone ain’t telling the truth.
With the Post-9/11 banking laws it wouldn’t be too hard to see where $22,000,00 went and who it was divvied out to.
Kemp is from that area. Probably very friendly with the guy that sold the land. Could make one wonder.
Kemp is doing his level best to destroy this state. That’s why i didn’t vote for him. If you look at what he’s doing and what Abrams wanted to do, other than guns(which he does reluctantly) there is no difference. They both want to throw the state to liberals.
Right now, the state of Georgia….NOT RIVIAN….is appealing a court ruling over who has the authority to give away $702,000,000 in property tax abatement. The state is going against its own citizens who won the case. That should tell you everything.
The $1,500,000,000 that Rivian is/was supposed to get actually pales in comparison to the $1,500,000,000 Hollywood gets EVERY year. There was a question on last years primary ballot about the giveaway. I don’t know anyone that wants Hollywood in Georgia, the liberals that came with it or the money being spent. Yet I’ve not heard the results of that ballot question. I’m betting all the liberals in Atlanta and Dekalb voted for it. Not many others.
On a so
The overall energy project (solar, convert two nat gas appliances to electric, and buy an EV when I had to replace my wife's car anyway), saves us a ton in energy costs. For April it was $781 saved (we put a lot of miles on the EV last month). That savings paid the HELOC payment on the loan I took out to pay for most of the energy conversion project. And as the HELOC is slowly paid down the minimum payment goes down too. Thus, next year it'll cost me less each month (lower HELOC payments) to save more on energy (as energy costs keep rising but I keep avoiding most of them). Then the next year it'll cost me even less to save even more, etc. That kind of throughput doesn't happen unless I'm careful about which cars/appliances I choose to be part of the project, and even then only after analyzing our driving habits and power consumption habits to find components and configurations to best meet our needs and wants with minimal costs to get there and no change in our lifestyle.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-losing-billions-on-electric-vehicles-evs-2023-3?op=1
All while these companies cozy up to China, our enemy.
Translation: Ford wants government help.
I know that one measure failed to advance in this year’s Georgia assembly.
“Supporters of Georgia’s music industry entered this year’s General Assembly session optimistic lawmakers would renew state tax incentives to lure music producers and create a state office dedicated to promoting the industry.
But after a single committee hearing, nothing happened. The House Creative Arts & Entertainment Committee approved the measure to create a statewide music office. But it failed to reach the House floor for a vote, while the tax incentives bill didn’t even get a committee vote.”
https://capitol-beat.org/2023/04/push-to-grow-georgia-music-industry-fizzles-under-gold-dome/
There are other industries we can encourage to expand in Georgia rather that the ones that bring in more progressives in addition to costing Georgian’s tax dollars in support.
And last year a brave state senator(?) drafted a bill to reduce the film $$$ down to $900,000,000 and certain folks damn near had a stroke.
The bill prompted Ralston to say that it was important for Georgia to keep throwing money to Hollywood liberals so kids from Georgia wouldn’t have to move to LA or NYC if they wanted to go into the film industry.
I heard part of a radio broadcast discussing the impact of the Rivian plant on the electrical power grid in that area and there was a lot of concern that enough planning hadn’t been made to adequately provide for the huge impact it would have. Kemp is a snake oil salesman. A true politician in all the bad ways that word conjures up. I hope Georgia can do better - I live here.
Hint: try Mexico.
Oops! Wrong thread.
“Oops! Wrong thread”
Well, your reply might work on this thread just as well.
However, I admit they should look in Mexico since that is probably where he fled to immediately after the crime.
Six months ago, my wife and I moved to my wife's home country, Japan, a nation where electrification of passenger/work transportation is very advanced.
We live in the heart of an 800,000 population city in an elevator-equipped — and earthquake-proofed — apartment building only a quarter mile from the city's busy train station.
Surprisingly, the clickety-clack of the inter-metro trains rolling down the tracks no longer bothers us. In fact, it kind of lulls you to sleep — as it does for the tens of thousands of commuters here who ride the trains (and sleep in their seats). Of course, the bullet trains are very quiet by comparison as they whoosh by in a few seconds.
And Japan is a place where you can get by without a car. The inner cities are safe and there are plenty of public bus and train options. So the only vehicle we now have — and it's essential — is a human-powered shopping trolley that we fold and carry to the local grocers, farmer's market, and department stores.
But life in Japan is not all city: the high rises and multi-story apartment buildings extend to only a 3-mile radius from the city center. Beyond that, the landscape is dominated by single-family homes, two-story apartments — and cars — tons of cars, like American suburbia. But the Japanese suburbs have only tiny yards, their floor space is maybe two-thirds the size, so the homes are more tightly packed.
In fact, the sale of hybrid cars is booming -- no surprise in a country that has no internal supply of petroleum and recently found the need to buy oil from the Russians.
We are getting rides from friends in these cars, and I'm sure FReepers would get a kick out of them. The market is completely different: the designs are quite boxy relatively few SUVs and pickup trucks are sold, but passenger hybrids are comfortable, have lots of head room, and are loaded with electronic. Japan is way past the PRIUS novelty phase. Curiously, I have not seen any Teslas or ads/publicity about them here. So that's a quick update.
Are the hybrids plug-in hybrids? As you say, Japan has no domestic source for petroleum. Thus one would think they'd opt for cars in which some of the miles are all-electric.
How do they generate their power? I don't care much for the left's push for solar and wind because I don't believe we're destroying the world and such. However, I can see Japan welcoming whatever ways they can generate power without depending on imports. If they have a lot of coal deposits that would be attractive IMHO.
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