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Electric Cars Are Bankrupting the Auto Industry...Only a government ban on cars can save them.
Front Page Magazine ^ | March 28, 2023 by Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 03/28/2023 5:40:57 AM PDT by Red Badger

Ford reported that it’s going to lose $3 billion on electric cars in 2023.

Unlike most automakers, Ford reports its electric vehicle numbers separately, but experts estimate that most car companies are losing similar amounts on the dead end business.

Ford’s investment in Rivian’s electric cars can’t be helping. Last year the startup electric pickup truck maker was spending $220,000 to make the electric vehicles that it sells for $81,000.

That’s bad news for George Soros and for CalPERS: California’s massive public employees retirement fund and a ticking time bomb which owns hundreds of thousands of shares in Rivian.

GM and Ford both project that their electric cars will be profitable in a few years. Ford plans to make 2 million electric cars every year by 2025. That would be impressive considering that Ford only sold 61,575 of them in 2022. It sold 3,624 electric vehicles in Feb 2023.

That’s a long way from 2 million.

GM plans to sell 1 million electric cars by 2025. It sold less than 40,000 in 2022.

Projections like these might make sense if GM and Ford had hot products and untapped market demand. Instead there are too many electric car models chasing a tiny market. Electric car sales have yet to break the million mark. Most of the electric car activity continues to be concentrated in the luxury SUV market which only has so many buyers able to afford them.

Even the “affordable” electric cars, like GM’s Bolt, start at $30,000, and lose as much as $9,000 for the company.

The only way to create demand for electric cars is through government mandates.

After 2035, if you want to buy a new car in California, it’s electric cars or it’s nothing. California’s mandates that fined car manufacturers, forcing them to buy credits from electric car makers like Tesla, financed the electric car industry. By 2035, California will simply eliminate the competition.

New York, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington have also moved to ban the sale of new cars. About a dozen Democrat states have similarly decided to prevent residents from buying cars. Virginia’s House voted to drop its car ban, but the state’s Senate Democrats have kept it in place. Biden has proposed a similar ban nationwide following its adoption by the EU.

By 2040, GM expects to stop making and selling cars on the assumption of such a ban.

George Soros has reportedly lost over $1 billion with his Rivian investment, and his other electric car investments may seem shaky, but in the long term the leftist politicians he has backed are expected to eliminate the competition and clear cars off the roads and highways.

Automakers are spending billions to build electric cars that no one wants and no one can afford because governments have assured them of a captive market. And after all that money flushed down the drain, their lobbyists are aggressively pressuring legislators to impose new bans and keep the existing bans in place. They’ve also been seduced with the promise of subsidies and tax credits that will free them from the pedestrian business of actually turning a profit.

Woke pension funds and party donors have kept the pressure on to see that it pays off.

Detroit’s bet that customers will just accept this as the new normal and just pay higher prices for worse performance is a bad one. The electric car mandates are the work of a Democrat party that is closely tied to a wealthy elite even as Republicans are becoming a working class party. Assuming that half the country will just accept being priced out of the car market when car ownership remains the key to economic and social mobility is as arrogant as it is clueless.

Even assuming that Republicans remain too dysfunctional and outmaneuvered to significantly roll back the leftist agenda, the new car market will drastically shrink. Americans, like Cubans, will desperately work to keep old cars going because for much of the country they will be the only option. The number of illegal cars on the road will dramatically increase. But as brownouts and energy shortages continue to hammer California and other blue states that have also gone all-in on solar and wind power, those will be the only cars that can actually remain on the road.

Woke car companies will have their monopoly handed to them only to find that it’s worthless.

Like their former European counterparts, American automakers will become even more deeply entangled with the government. The inverse spiral of subsidies and sales will climax in bankruptcies. Detroit has failed to innovate and electric car theater is no substitute for actually doing the work to make the cars that people want rather than the ones ad agencies try to make them want.

Letting government mandates instead of consumer demand drive sales is embraced by companies that have given up on even trying to make an appealing product. If electric vehicles were legitimately popular, it wouldn’t take a ban on cars to make them economically viable.

American automakers used to be revolutionary, now they’re the regime.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: autoindustry; automotive; bankrupt; bankrupting; electric; electricvehicle; electricvehicles; ev; evs; ford; gowokegobroke; mandates; vehicle; vehicles
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To: Justa

Good, find me some basic 60 watt incandescent bulbs.


81 posted on 03/28/2023 9:57:46 AM PDT by ChildOfThe60s ( If you can remember the 60s.....you weren't really there..)
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To: Red Badger

Subsidizing car sales is a fool’s errand unless the government is going to replace batteries for free.

And pay the owner’s electric bill.

And put charge stations at everyone’s house.....

A certain path to an economic disaster.


82 posted on 03/28/2023 11:05:37 AM PDT by old curmudgeon (There is no situation so bad that the federal government can not make worse.)
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To: hopespringseternal

Tesla, besides being run far better than any legacy American auto maker in terms of costs, also has a reputation for producing an EV. The big 3 have a reputation for screwing up innovation.

Quirky, boutique products (EVs) are a completely different market than what the big 3 are good at.

Maybe Tesla would remember to bolt on the steering wheel, unlike their recent offerings that had no bolts.


83 posted on 03/28/2023 11:47:32 AM PDT by kaktuskid
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To: dangus

No such thing as green energy, climate change “crisis” and CO2 is evil. They are all one big hoax.


84 posted on 03/28/2023 11:59:59 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: dfwgator

I can’t afford a $50K EV and I am too scared to buy a new or slightly uses ICE vehicle due to crazy talk of outlawing them. So my personal fleet of ICE cars will age. So be it.


85 posted on 03/28/2023 12:02:02 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Red Badger
"Last year the startup electric pickup truck maker was spending $220,000 to make the electric vehicles that it sells for $81,000."


86 posted on 03/28/2023 12:31:56 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Red Badger

Wishful thinking on their part. If the product is so great then the democrats would not need to mandate them.

FRA: GM and Ford both project that their electric cars will be profitable in a few years. Ford plans to make 2 million electric cars every year by 2025. That would be impressive considering that Ford only sold 61,575 of them in 2022. It sold 3,624 electric vehicles in Feb 2023.

That’s a long way from 2 million.

GM plans to sell 1 million electric cars by 2025. It sold less than 40,000 in 2022.
-snip-
Detroit’s bet that customers will just accept this as the new normal and just pay higher prices for worse performance is a bad one. The electric car mandates are the work of a Democrat party that is closely tied to a wealthy elite


87 posted on 03/28/2023 1:51:06 PM PDT by minnesota_bound (Need more money to buy everything now)
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To: Red Badger
Gov't designed electric car.
Blnk
88 posted on 03/28/2023 1:58:18 PM PDT by minnesota_bound (Need more money to buy everything now)
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To: rivercat

#49 Elon Musk makes billions selling the carbon credits he gets for Tesla to other car companies. Scam money.


89 posted on 03/28/2023 2:20:15 PM PDT by minnesota_bound (Need more money to buy everything now)
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To: Red Badger

I pretty sure that if this crowd was alive in 1900 they would be whining about automobiles and telling everyone they’ll just stick with their horse and buggies. :D


90 posted on 03/28/2023 2:39:15 PM PDT by rivercat
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To: Marko413

i The original WW II jeep would sell like hotcakes, same for 1964 Corvette StingRay. Might even be a market for some of the old Cadillacs that drove down the highway like a dream. I have a new Highlander that rides like a lumber wagon compared to my 2001 Ford Expedition.


91 posted on 03/28/2023 3:01:09 PM PDT by itsahoot (Many Republicans are secretly Democrats, no Democrats are secretly Republicans. Dan Bongino.)
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To: ChildOfThe60s
I can’t use whatever I want.

Make your own and you can, well maybe if the government will let you.

92 posted on 03/28/2023 3:03:34 PM PDT by itsahoot (Many Republicans are secretly Democrats, no Democrats are secretly Republicans. Dan Bongino.)
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To: rivercat
CFLs sucked because of the color, but LEDs are awesome.

Wasting you breath, most Freepers still fuss about the low water flush toilets that work better than anything in the past because they were forced to redesign the old ones and guess what they actually improved them. I regret that it took government intervention to make it happen but people and companies resist change even if it is an improvement which might explain why my main computer is 14 years old and yes I have modern ones too, just don't like them.

93 posted on 03/28/2023 3:09:01 PM PDT by itsahoot (Many Republicans are secretly Democrats, no Democrats are secretly Republicans. Dan Bongino.)
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To: spokeshave
With all the electrics I guess the range in winter sucks.

All of those features could be added to ICE vehicles as well, may take a little more battery reserve but a few pounds not tons.

94 posted on 03/28/2023 3:12:25 PM PDT by itsahoot (Many Republicans are secretly Democrats, no Democrats are secretly Republicans. Dan Bongino.)
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To: itsahoot

CFLs are/were crappy for multiple reasons. The quality of light was poor among other things.

Now that prices have become more attractive, LEDs are a reasonable, albeit unnecessary, alternative.

What was rarely acknowledged was the whole push to CFLs was because the 2 or 3 mfg of CFLs spent a lot of money lobbying for the legislation. They thought they were in the catbird seat $$$ then the massive drop in price for LEDs basically leapfrogged LEDs over CFLs. They thought they were going to make a crap ton of money for a long time with the CFL market mandated and cornered.

None of the government’s fooking business.


95 posted on 03/28/2023 3:20:08 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s ( If you can remember the 60s.....you weren't really there..)
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To: EVO X
I live in winter climate and have a 15 year old energy sucking plasma TV.

If it is 15 years old you are getting a lousy picture by todays standards. Seventy five inch TVs can be had for $500.00 maybe less since 85 is becoming the new standard. The cheaper ones are the ROKU or other smart TV options but you don't have to let them be smart just don't connect them to the internet. I use them as computer monitors and let the computer handle the smart part.

96 posted on 03/28/2023 3:20:59 PM PDT by itsahoot (Many Republicans are secretly Democrats, no Democrats are secretly Republicans. Dan Bongino.)
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To: itsahoot

It is 720P. I am not missing out on regular broadcasting
and cable channels. 1024 and higher internet video gets chopped somewhat, but I don’t care.


97 posted on 03/28/2023 3:49:04 PM PDT by EVO X ( )
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To: ChildOfThe60s
What was rarely acknowledged was the whole push to CFLs was because the 2 or 3 mfg of CFLs spent a lot of money lobbying for the legislation.

It is always about the Benjamins well at least 95% of the time.

98 posted on 03/28/2023 6:46:53 PM PDT by itsahoot (Many Republicans are secretly Democrats, no Democrats are secretly Republicans. Dan Bongino.)
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To: Red Badger
Check this out. The EU may be doing a 180 on a ban...?

UK plans for net zero ban on petrol cars in chaos after EU's decision to backtrack Germany and the European Union announced on Saturday they have reached an agreement in their dispute over the future of cars with combustion engines.

99 posted on 03/29/2023 2:26:01 AM PDT by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
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To: dfwgator
So basically they will squeeze people into getting EVs.

Most people can't afford an EV. Nor can the supply of electricity in the country accommodate everyone having an EV. What they're really trying to do is squeeze the middle class out of their own personal transportation and onto mass transit. The personal transportation in the form of an EV will only be for the rich (and well connected).

100 posted on 03/29/2023 3:43:25 AM PDT by Locomotive Breath
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