Free Republic

A survey conducted by Santander Holdings USA, attempting to probe the status of middle-class households over the last twelve months, has reported that over half are actively delaying new-vehicle purchases. While the study is broad in scope, encompassing some similarly bleak news about home buying, the two issues seem closely related as rising costs don’t appear to be doing the economy any favors. With 77 percent of the middle-class respondents saying they need a vehicle in order to get to work, one would assume that the demographic is one the automotive sector can rely on for business. However, 52 percent...

Secondhand electric cars are now cheaper than their gas counterparts for the first time - and the gap is widening quickly. This is according to a new study from comparison site iSeeCars, which found the cost of an average used EV dropped $265 below a typical gas car in February. This marked the beginning of the trend - and the price gap has grown to $2,657 as of latest data from May. In the last year, average used car values have dropped between 3 and 7 percent, the report found, while used EV values have plummeted between 29 and 39...

Fisker Group Inc., the EV startup founded by famed designer Henrik Fisker, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — a capstone to months of problems with its Ocean SUV that included recalls and dozens of lemon law lawsuits. The California-based company, which filed for bankruptcy in Delaware District Court, had been seeking a deal with another automaker in a last-ditch effort to rescue the enterprise. The company estimated assets of $500 to $1 billion and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million, according to the filing. Fisker reported between 200 and 999 creditors, including SAP, Adobe, Salesforce and Ansys,...

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...

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.

WASHINGTON (7News) — An investigation is underway after a man died in a crash near the White House on Saturday evening, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. At around 10:45 p.m., D.C. police said they responded to the intersection of 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in Northwest, D.C. for reports of a crash. When they arrived, they located a man and pronounced him dead on the scene.

Ford’s electric vehicle (EV) division lost $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2024, which adds up to a $132,000 loss for each of the 10,000 EVs sold. Sales of Ford EVs also plunged by 20 percent compared to last year, and “its revenue plunged 84% to about $100 million, which Ford attributed mostly to price cuts for EVs across the industry.” Ford expects losses on its Model e to hit $5 billion by the end of the year. More: The losses go far beyond the cost of building and selling those 10,000 cars, according to Ford. Instead the losses...

As John Adams said:Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.Now, if Stephen Scherr had taken Adams’s observation into consideration, he might still have a job. (However, no sympathy from me; he’ll be employed in no time at all, making more bad decisions that inevitably cost me money, in one way or another.) From a report at the New York Post this afternoon:Hertz, one of the four largest car rental companies in the world, is replacing its CEO after the company...

Electric vehicle start-up Fisker is exploring bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reported this week. Fisker’s stock plunged this week as investors worry about the company’s ability to survive amid a cash crunch. The auto company also said it would slash 15% of its workforce. The Wall Street Journal reported: Electric-vehicle startup Fisker FSR -55.88%decrease; red down pointing triangle has hired restructuring advisers to assist with a possible bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter. Fisker, which recently warned that it risked running out of cash this year, hired financial adviser FTI Consulting and the law firm Davis Polk...

Automakers from Ford Motor and General Motors to Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans.. consumer demand for EVs hasn’t shown up in the way executives had expected ... The buzz around electric vehicles is wearing off. For years, the automotive industry has been in a state of EV euphoria. Automakers trotted out optimistic sales forecasts for electric models and announced ambitious targets for EV growth. Wall Street boosted valuations for legacy automakers and startup entrants alike, based in part on their visions for an EV future. Now the hype...

Powering the nation’s long-haul trucks with electricity would require the same amount of electricity for more than 46 million homes every year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In 2022, California adopted regulations that required all new cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the state to be zero emissions by 2035. Immediately, 17 states eyed the electric vehicle mandates and started considering their own. That was on top of the Biden administration’s own tailpipe standards, which many say function as a federal EV mandate. The vision of a forced electric vehicle transition hasn't quite gone as California and the Biden administration have hoped. But in...

A green nonprofit that is indirectly funded by a foreign billionaire is pressuring broadcasters to drop advertisements that criticize the Biden administration’s massive electric vehicle (EV) agenda. Climate Power wrote to numerous broadcasters this week demanding that they stop airing American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers (AFPM)-funded advertisements in swing state markets that rail against President Joe Biden’s plans to impose widespread EV adoption in the coming years. The charitable organization affiliated with Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss health care mogul and billionaire philanthropist, donates millions of dollars to the Fund for a Better Future, which was the fiscal sponsor for Climate...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- A well-known restaurant in downtown Colorado Springs is picking up the pieces from an overnight crash. It began as a domestic disturbance that led to a string of alleged crimes resulting in extensive damage to multiple businesses downtown. "That is just awful because I know it's a big part of the community," says Ryder Ernewein. A Colorado Springs man is now under arrest after a domestic altercation dramatically escalated, leading to a serious downtown car crash. Colorado Springs Police (CSPD) arrested 24-year-old Fidencio Meza-Pelayo following the Sunday incident. According to CSPD, the overnight series of...

There's a reason very few new automakers have been launched over the past 40 or so years. Building and selling cars takes a tremendous amount of infrastructure. When you add in having to create not just a new design, but a new method of powering your car, you see why big auto has generally been a closed club. Tesla (TSLA) , of course, has crashed that party, becoming the first startup electric vehicle manufacturer to operate at scale. You can credit that to the genius and drive of Elon Musk. It may have been lost in his recent conversion to...

The Joe Biden regime has classified elite getaways, including Martha’s Vineyard, as “low-income” in an effort to qualify them for an electric vehicle (EV) charger subsidy program under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The EV charger tax credit program was supposed to allocate subsidies to “low-income” or “non-urban” areas. An examination of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) eligibility map identified several upscale areas deemed “low-income” by the regime, allowing them to receive EV charger subsidies. To be seen as “low-income,” areas must either have a poverty rate of over 20 percent, a median income beneath 80 percent of their wider...

Motor vehicle thefts up, arrests down in Chicago... Nearly 30,000 cars were taken from their owners in Chicago last year, yet police efforts to catch the bandits reached record lows... The number of vehicle thefts reported last year is the highest in 23 years..Not only did the arrest rate for car theft fall to 2.6%, but data collected through the Chicago Data Portal showed that it was the lowest level since the city started tracking crime online in 2001. The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the 29,063 motor vehicle thefts reported in...

The 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV is an early step in General Motors' promise of an electric vehicle future. "Our early experience in a Chevy Blazer EV has been anything but positive, sadly," said Alistair Weaver, editor-in-chief of Edmunds.com. *snip* "We took it into a Chevy dealer, asked them to have a look at it, and they came back with nothing short of 23 different error codes, which frankly is almost unheard of," said Weaver.

Shocking video shows the moment three gunmen ambushed a vehicle in Queens Tuesday night, killing a mother who was sitting in the front passenger seat and wounding the driver. Clarisa Burgos, 28, was in a black Honda sedan that was pulled over near 127th Street and Liberty Avenue in Richmond Hill when she and the 39-year-old male driver came under fire just before midnight. Burgos was shot once in the head and died on the spot, police said. “We’ve raised her in a good way, with love,” her aunt told The Post before closing the door Wednesday.

The Biden administration is more interested in pet projects, unsustainable green schemes, and ideological revenue redistribution than in the core functions of government.. The Biden administration is so obsessed with making electric vehicles (EVs) work as part of its green agenda that it’s taking money away from seniors — namely, drug savings under Medicare. Unsurprisingly, it has also failed to advertise that fact. The news of EV and green energy subsidies flew under the radar until a poll conducted in Arizona alerted voters there to the scheme. Fully three-quarters of Arizona voters polled (76 percent) said they didn’t know the...

The White House issued new guidance requiring federal government employees to prioritize using electric vehicles (EV), trains and public transportation options when conducting official business. The actions, which the White House said fulfilled President Biden's promise to "lead by example" on tackling climate change, seek to take advantage of the federal government's annual business travel purchasing power of $2.8 billion and status as the nation's largest employer. Overall, government employees on official business took more than 2.8 million flights, made 2.3 million vehicle rentals and took 33,000 rail trips last year. "These operational changes will accelerate the clean transportation transformation,...