The increases all started in 2020 when Biden took office and the pandemic shut downs affected food production.
Posted on 06/15/2022 10:59:54 PM PDT by American Number 181269513
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg might have to start biking to work again like a total nerd. That's because the Mexican-made electric SUV he purchased last year for his security detail is being recalled due to a safety defect that "could result in a loss of power [while driving], which could cause a crash," according to Consumer Reports.
Ford announced Tuesday that it was instructing car dealers to stop selling the Mustang Mach-E in response to the safety concern affecting nearly 49,000 of the 100,000 vehicles manufactured at the automaker's Cuautitlan plant in Mexico between 2020 and 2022. The company decided to make the cars in Mexico because it was a lot cheaper than hiring American workers to do it in this country.
The development could undermine Buttigieg's controversial suggestion that hardworking Americans should stop complaining about record gas prices and buy expensive electric cars so that they'll "never have to worry about gas prices again." The Mach-E has a starting price of $43,895, although most new models for sale in the Washington, D.C., area are listed in the $60,000 to $80,000 price range.
Buttigieg, 40, is the former mayor of South Bend, the fourth-largest city in Indiana. He has high, high hopes for his political future. While his presidential campaign in 2020 didn't pan out so well, he did develop a niche fanbase of wealthy white liberals in "boat shoe" strongholds such as Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. His failure to win a statistically significant percentage of black voters in the Democratic primary has not stopped some party officials from floating his name as a potential nominee to replace President Joe Biden on the ticket in 2024.
The Department of Transportation did not return a request for comment about whether Buttigieg's security detail's Mach-E was affected by the recall.
I thought the same thing about them putting the Mustang name on car that looks less like it's made for red-blooded American men, and more like a minivan had a love child with a hatchback.
Then I test drove one. Performance-wise the name fits. Stomping on the accelerator will throw you into the back seat. And I didn't truly test this part, but supposedly having the battery bank at the bottom of the car gives it a low center of gravity and makes it handle curves a lot better. Especially if you get an AWD version.
My wife and I ordered a Hyundai Ioniq 5 because it gets more miles per kWh, charges a lot faster, and has a longer warranty for the battery than the Mach-e. If you want one cheaper but a hair more efficient, get the Kia EV6 (it's a small car, not a "mini-SUV" but EV tech wise it's the same as the Ioniq 5).
No thanks. Too much money for a daily driver with no cross country capability.
Pete is queer.......... that’s all
Why are you invested in the names of a car? The car is a decent BEV, and Ford has a recall on a new model, this is not a surprise and why most experienced people advise never buy the first model year of a car. Yeah it makes a funny headline and Ford should be more careful as they have had too many issues with their new models (also see bronco). I like options and hope ford can pull their sh_t together as I am interested in the Maverick and would get in line tomorrow if they offered a BEV version with 200+ miles of range.
People are strange at the way the associate some of their personal pride in corporate products (see apple) and sports teams.
“Ford Pulls Plug on Pete Buttigieg’s....”
Not touching that with a ten-foot pole.
If, like me, you've driven nothing but used cars for years because you hate car payments, my consideration of buying a new EV isn't compared to new ICE cars, but to my next used ICE car. Basically, I'm looking at replacing my wife's used car in a year with another used car for $10K. If I buy the EV instead it's now a $37K choice to get the EV (the difference between $47K and $10K), not a $47K choice. I'll keep an ICE car so we have the best of both worlds. Truth is, we ordered an EV that's $60K because it's got a handful of luxuries.
Then it's how much do I spend on gas and oil changes per year. For me that's $3,000 per year in gas ($4.50 per gallon at 15mpg because we drive used cars for 10,000 miles per year). And I expect that to go up by 3% inflation each year ($3,090 next year, $3,180 the year after that, etc.). Since I get an oil change every 5K miles and they cost about $65 where I live, that's $130 per year. Again 3% inflation. So with gas that's $3,130 the first year, etc.
One cost about the EV though, at least in my case, is the extra for insurance. I estimate the increase to be $1,000 per year to go from liability to full coverage. So now my EV savings is $2,100 first year. I'm going to ignore repairs -- my old used cars need repairing every now and then, which a new EV will need repairing rarely, but when it does need repairing it'd cost more. So I'll count repair costs as a wash.
Then there's the fact that on average I replace each of mine and my wife's cars every 7 years (as part of us driving used cars). So in the 7th year of owning an EV and inflation has made my savings creep up to about $3,000 per year, on that 7th year I'll save another $10K by not having to buy another used car like I normally would.
By my math, driving on average 10K miles per year makes the EV pay for itself on about the 8th year. And that assumes only a 3% inflation rate of energy costs. Obviously the Dims want the energy costs to keep skyrocketing.
Couple that with the fact that I'm in the process of upgrading my 10kW solar array to 20kW, and my battery storage from 30kWh to 90kWh, and I can soon go into retirement by shifting the future variable energy costs (who knows what the cost of gas, electricity, and natural gas will be in the future?) to a fixed cost: the cost of the monthly payment on the HELOC I took out to do the solar and convert my natural gas appliances to high efficiency electric ones, and the monthly payment of the new EV. Those payments won't go up with inflation. In fact, my HELOC payment goes down as the balance is paid down. Basically next year it'll cost me less money (lower HELOC payments) to save more money (higher energy rates I'm avoiding by having 90% of my power generated by my solar system and buying only 10% of what I need from the grid).
Before the solar upgrade and before I'm getting an EV (which I don't have yet), my home energy costs are $300/month. I have a tiny power bill and no nat gas bill, but I do have a HELOC payment. Whenever my HELOC + power bill is above $300, I pull the difference from the HELOC. This is about what it cost to energize my home in 2019 (before covid and before Brandon) on average each month with my power bill + nat gas bill. Even though I pull money from the HELOC on those months (which increases the HELOC balance), the HELOC payment itself pays down the balance more than my withdrawal increases the balance. Thus the HELOC balance is being paid down while I'm living on a home energy budget like it's still 2019 without the past year and a half of Brandon energy inflation. I wish I could do the same with all inflation.
When I get the EV I'll do the same process, but it'll be $450/month instead of $300/month. I put the 26% tax credit for my original solar installation into a simple investment account with mutual funds. (Honestly I'm out of equities right now waiting on the market to crash.) I figured that was better than using that money to pay down on the HELOC with it's 2.85% interest. I'll do the same with the next 26% solar tax credit for my upgrade, as well as the $7,500 EV credit. All of that will help me make the car payments so none of this transition to more energy independence harms my retirement investments.
If my math and assumptions from here on are as correct as they were for my first year of solar, we're looking at the entire project paying for itself on the 9th or 10th year (8 or 9 years from now since I'm 1 year into phase I of the project). And that's with my wife and I getting a more expensive $60K EV with its added luxuries. At that point I'll probably have to spend $10K to replace the EV batteries. But I'll still have years left on my solar panels (25-year warranty guaranteed only a gradual decline in throughput to still be operating at 70% the final year) and home solar batteries (19-year/50%). Obviously, if the Dims keep having their way and energy costs keep going up, the decision to wean myself from their energy polices pays for itself sooner. Also obvious is it would pay for itself sooner if we had gone with a $45K-ish EV instead of a $60K one.
So if you own your home, live in the south (good for solar) and plan to be there for at least 10 years, you ought to at least consider sitting down and doing a little financial planning, studying of your power bills each month, and figuring out if there's something you can do to make yourself a little more energy independent so the Dims have one less way to control you and your family. If I could drill and process my own natural gas I would because that's an energy dense source -- but I can't. Same with oil and coal. At least for now the Dims haven't figured out how to get between me and the sun.
I have heard that production problems have seriously delayed the Ford Lightning truck, also.
Lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries are never going to be the means to kill liquid fuel powered vehicles.
You simply cannot and will not be able to recharge them in a timely fashion. I’m talking from a fully exhausted pack to full charge in less that five minutes. Won’t ever happen and that makes them worthless for longer distances.
Sure for an urban dweller who can do a nightly charge they will work fine, but for most applications they simply wont work.
btw... What ever happened to hydrogen fuel cells?
HAHA. That's a good one!
For those of us who live in the north country where -26 is a not uncommon January temperature, EVs may not be practical unless you live in a city. Imagine driving with traffic backed up during a snow storm in below zero weather and needing your lights, wipers and defroster as well as your heater. Lots of luck finding a charging station or if you are stranded with no charge left.
Mention hydrogen, and some moron will post a picture of an aluminum dust & lacquer fire destroying a German airship.
1. By "live in the north country" are we talking about regular commuting up north or are we talking about people taking long trips across the north? If we're talking about regularly driving, then an EV that has a ~300 mile range in 70F weather from a 75kW to 90kW battery bank ought to be fine for a while even in a snow storm if you left the house with a full charge like most people charge their EV's at home.
2. Did you know that EV's now have built-in heaters to heat up the battery so it can accept a full charge shortly before you head off to work even in cold weather?
3. Have you heard of the opposite happening in the south? When I was young and we'd be stopped in 100F weather, all of us would have our engines running to keep the A/C's running. Which meant we were all inhaling carbon monoxide. And also meant we'd burn up our engines by running them without moving them down the road (to create air intake to help cool the engines). Lots of cars would be stranded from overheating trying to keep the people from overheating.
If you're tying to make an argument against the gubment forcing everybody into EV's, I'm with you. I'm just saying: A) make your argument with relevant information and, B) even if you're against forced EV's don't let being a small-government minded American like me keep you from embracing something that can be liberating if done at the individual level.
I'm not a libertarian in thinking the #1 issue is legalizing pot. I'm libertarian in believing gubment shouldn't control us, even in the name of "helping" us. Few things in my life have been more truly libertarian in my way of doing things than generating most of the power my wife and I need so I depend less on gubment. That's more than just talking about freedom. That's taking steps to remove some of gubment's illegal control over us. Soon I'll extend that to our mobility too -- at least mobility around town where I can have some level of guarantee there will be a charger available with power --- my house. I promise if I could do that with an ICE car I would because gasoline is so much more energy efficient. But I can't drill my own oil and refine my own gas. Nor can I drill my own natural gas or mine my own coal. Those uber efficient energy sources are ones the gubment has placed themselves as arbiters of who gets how much and what price. Well unless Bill Gates gets his wet dream way of blocking our sunlight, at least solar is an energy source the gubment can't limit.
Things to do:
Charge the electric car every single day and worry about a fire that burns your place down or the other cars around you at work. No resale value.
The increases all started in 2020 when Biden took office and the pandemic shut downs affected food production.
Well at least he had the decency to buy it himself.
Many cabinet members would have let the taxpayers fund their security details.
An electric Mustang is a ridiculous concept to begin with.
Of more significance, I suspect: Profits have gone negative on the Mach E.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-mustang-mach-e-profit-170117652.html
I’ll bet the battery costs in particular are killing them (Ford & other makers of “moderate cost” EV’s .)
Truth is, burrow through the corporate double speak and euphemisms in the Yahoo article, and EV’s are a financial disaster for Ford, and, given the likely results of the “re-engineering” to cut costs drastically (more double speak - I’ve been there), a disaster for their customers, too.
“I have heard that production problems have seriously delayed the Ford Lightning truck, also.”
Nope. The only production ‘problem’ is having to double output due to higher than expected demand.
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