Free Republic

During an interview on Tuesday for Wednesday’s BET News interview special “Black America Votes: The Biden Interview,” President Joe Biden said that his economic policies haven’t resonated with people “because the Republican Party and the MAGA Republicans have been opposed to it, and they’ve been beating up on it.” And because “it’s just taking time for people to see it. And the other thing is, there’s not been a very good job done about saying, this new billion-dollar bridge going over there is brought to you by Joe Biden.” But some of his policy agenda has “resonated for those who...

Suffice to say, all is not well for the Electric Vehicle (EV) industry these days. Despite ample subsidies from the federal government, EV sales are slumping. ... there have been numerous reports of people being trapped inside EVs due to dead batteries. In some of these cases, toddlers have been locked inside of sweltering cars. In one example, on June 20, Renee Sanchez was eager to take her two-year-old granddaughter to the Phoenix Zoo. Early that morning, Sanchez strapped the toddler into the backseat of her Model Y Tesla. After closing the rear door, Sanchez attempted to open the front...

The federal government is spending $1.7 billion to modernize automobile manufacturing facilities, helping the industry compete with foreign subsidies and create and protect jobs.As part of the Automotive Community Benefits Plan, the current administration will extend grants to 11 selected manufacturing plants in eight states, including in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, that have temporarily closed or were at risk of closing.Federal funding, which will come from the Inflation Reduction Act, will be dedicated to retrofitting factories, installing equipment, and bolstering annual production.Grant capital will also allow these at-risk facilities to convert to manufacturing electric vehicles and related components and a...

NASCAR debuted what it claims is the future of racing, its electric ABB NASCAR EV Prototype, at the Chicago Street Race event on Saturday, but fans were not impressed.The vehicle was developed in partnership with Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, and electric vehicle (EV) developer ABB, all in an effort to reach NASCAR’s “sustainability” goals. One of those goals is to reach “net-zero” operating emissions in the next ten years, the racing organization said in its press release:While NASCAR is committed to the historic role of the combustion engine in racing, it is also committed to decarbonizing its operations and reducing its...

The electric vehicle revolution is encountering significant hurdles as consumers grapple with high costs, infrastructure challenges, and geopolitical tensions, potentially slowing the transition from traditional gas-powered cars, according to a report by Fast Company. Fast Company reports the automotive industry has undergone a significant transformation with the push towards electric vehicles in recent years. However, the road to widespread EV adoption is proving to be bumpy, with several obstacles threatening to stall progress.

On July 6, due to an ongoing electric power issue, Amtrak canceled service between Boston and New York City for the remainder of the day. Amtrak is communicating directly with impacted customers about this service interruption and offering options for rebooking their travel plans. Amtrak apologizes for any inconvenience caused by the disruption. Our crews are working hard to correct the issues.

NFL star and his family have survived a house fire that was apparently started by a Tesla charger in their garage. Randall Cobb, 33, escaped from the blaze along with his wife Aiyda and three sons Cade, Caspian and Chance - and even returned to save their pet dog, Louie. No one from the family was injured but the fire caused extensive damage to the property in Nashville, Tennessee. “We are lucky to be alive,” said Aiyda Cobb in an Instagram post on Wednesday. “The Tesla charger caught on fire in the garage late last night and quickly spread. We...

A significant share of Americans who own an electric vehicle have buyer's remorse, according to new data. McKinsey & Co.'s Mobility Consumer Pulse for 2024, released this month, found that 46% of EV owners in the U.S. said they were "very" likely to switch back to owning a gas-powered vehicle in their next purchase. The high percentage of Americans who want to make a switch even surprised the consulting firm. "I didn't expect that," the head of McKinsey's Center for Future Mobility, Philipp Kampshoff, told Automotive News. "I thought, 'Once an EV buyer, always an EV buyer.'" In the poll...

A week ago I wrote about a Hertz President Circle member charged $277 for returning a rented Tesla without filling it with gas. That’s the second-most Hertz thing ever, after getting arrested because the rental company reported the car you rented stolen. And just like getting arrested just for being a Hertz customer – and Hertz refusing to admit its mistake lest the police stop believing them when they file false police reports – appears to be anything but a one-off. Being charged exorbitant rates for not filling up the gas on an electric vehicle seems to be a systemic...

Originally, Ford had said in 2021 that it would start production in 2025. Full production at a Ford EV factory in west Tennessee that was to deliver the company’s F150 Lightning electric pickup truck is being delayed. State Sen. Page Walley, a Republican, told the "Tennessee Outlook" full production of the vehicle line was being pushed back by nine months as a result of a “read on the economy.” Ford said in 2021 that it would start production in 2025. Now the electric pickup trucks aren’t expected to be delivered to dealerships until 2026, according to the "Outlook." Ford lost...

Study reveals nearly half of US EV drivers want to return to ICE cars and nearly one-third, globally. The media is baffled.

General Motors is trimming its expected sales and production of all-electric vehicles this year, as U.S. adoption of EVs occurs slower than expected. GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said the company now expects production of 200,000 to 250,000 EVs this year, down from a previously announced range of 200,000 to 300,000. ... Jacobson said GM expects EVs to make up 8% of U.S. sales industrywide this year. That’s lower than many other auto analyst forecasts, which expect EVs to represent around 10% of industry sales in 2024.

... Forty-six percent of Americans say they are "not too likely or not at all likely to purchase" an EV, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press -NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. Earlier this year, luxury German automaker Mercedes delayed its electrification plans by five years, with CEO Ola Kaellenius telling investors the company was still committed to producing combustion engine cars. Last month, Toyota executives announced its engineers were developing smaller, next-gen engines that can run on alternative fuels like liquid hydrogen. Industry insiders are calling...

New vehicles sold in the US will have to average about 38 miles per gallon of gasoline in 2031 in real-world driving, up from about 29 mpg this year, under new federal rules unveiled Friday by the Biden administration. The final rule will increase fuel economy by 2% per year for model years 2027 to 2031 for passenger cars, while SUVs and other light trucks will increase by 2% per year for model years 2029 to 2031, according to requirements released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The final figures are below a proposal released last year. Administration officials...

25 refrigerators. That’s how much the additional electricity consumption per household would be if the average US home adopted electric vehicles (EVs). (Article cross-posted from International Man.) Congressman Thomas Massie—an electrical engineer—revealed this information while discussing with Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, President Biden’s plan to have 50% of cars sold in the US be electric by 2030. The current and future grid in most places will not be able to support each home running 25 refrigerators—not even close. Just look at California, where the grid is already buckling under the existing load. Massie claims, correctly, in my view,...

25 refrigerators. That’s how much the additional electricity consumption per household would be if the average US home adopted electric vehicles (EVs). Congressman Thomas Massie—an electrical engineer—revealed this information while discussing with Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, President Biden’s plan to have 50% of cars sold in the US be electric by 2030. The current and future grid in most places will not be able to support each home running 25 refrigerators—not even close. Just look at California, where the grid is already buckling under the existing load. Massie claims, correctly, in my view, that the notion of widespread...

Spirit Airlines Inc. is losing its chief financial officer to another troubled company — Hertz Global Holdings Inc. — as the carrier works to restructure a crushing debt load and the car rental company reboots after a failed bet on electric vehicles. Hertz is rebuilding after acquiring a fleet of mostly Tesla EV models that renters didn’t want and that cost more to repair than the company anticipated. Hertz also has been hurt by plummeting values for the EVs it bought after Tesla cut prices, resulting in higher-than-expected first-quarter losses of $392 million.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was asked on CBS News' "Face the Nation" about the $7.5 billion taxpayers have been levied for a nationwide EV charging station network. In the over two years since the funding was announced, the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) has managed to produce only seven, despite the announced plans call for a half million stations being built six years from now by 2030. Buttigieg was unfazed when asked about the numbers.

Czech company UDX is flying scale prototypes of a tandem 2-up eVTOL it calls Airwolf. With individually-tilting ducted fan propulsion, it's got enough wing surface for efficient cruise flight as well as agile movement from a hover. Imagine waking early Sunday morning to ride the twisty coastal mountains of beautiful southern California. It's going to be a perfect day and you expect exactly zero traffic, because you're leaving the Hayabusa in the garage and taking your UDX Airwolf hoverbike. You don your lid, crank up your favorite tunes, spin up the ducted fans, lift off and hover out of your...

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg struggled Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation to explain why the Biden administration has only manged to build “seven or eight” electric vehicle (EV) charging stations thus far. As Breitbart News has noted, while the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 allocated $7.5 billion for EV stations, as part of building a national EV charging infrastructure, no EV charging stations had been built by the end of 2023.