The woke have a longer lifespan in the UK, so he’s got that going for his job lifespan. Still, there is a saying that it only takes one rat turd to spoil a whole gallon of ice cream.
How did their CFO or CMO ever let this out the door? Did they not see that Woke just died a resounding death with the elections in America? Did they not witness the Bud Light debacle? The woke and especially the perverts can’t help themselves from preening though.
The mastermind behind Jaguar’s disastrous woke rebrand is a BLM-supporting LGBT activist who pledged to enhance the car company’s commitment to ‘diversity and inclusivity’.
Now it makes perfect sense.
Jaguar was vehemently ridiculed for releasing a new commercial as part of this rebrand that featured a group of androgynous individuals in bright clothing prancing around while glib messages that said “break moulds” and “copy nothing” flashed up on screen.
The advert contained no video footage or images of a car whatsoever.
It now emerges that the man leading the rebrand is designer and marketing guru Santino Pietrosanti, who bragged during an awards dinner that Jaguar had established over 15 DEI groups as part of the company’s “transformative journey.”
You’d think they’d learn, but some companies just can’t help themselves from ruining a good thing.
Here we go….
British sports car manufacturer Jaguar, one of the most celebrated motorsport brands, first gained prominence in the 1950s with its iconic C-Type and D-Type sports cars, securing seven victories at the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans. Jag launched the iconic E-Type at the 1961 Geneva Motor Show and has since produced stylish vehicles for the general public and racing teams.
Given Jaguar’s legacy of racing excellence, their marketing team has just nuked the brand in a manner reminiscent of Bud Light’s controversial ad featuring Dylan Mulvaney, a man who identifies as a woman.
Jag’s new ad, published on X on Tuesday morning, is titled “Copy nothing.”
Here is the link to the ad but trust me, it’s a turd
Yet it looks like their marketing team copied a scene from the movie Zoolander.
The X post was heavily ratio’d, and many people were utterly baffled by how tone-deaf Jaguar’s marketing team has become in an era increasingly shifting away from toxic woke ideology.
“Umm where are the cars in this ad? Is this for fashion?” X user Pixel Prett asked.
Jag’s social media team responded: “Think of this as a declaration of intent.”
Jag’s inability to read the room as the wokeism tide in corporate America goes out is troubling for the brand…
In early 2022, Porsche said electric vehicles would account for more than 80% of total annual sales by the decade’s end. That goal is still in place, although the company added an asterisk next to 2030, saying it will depend on how customers react to EVs. In a Q&A session with the press during the conference call pretraining to Q3 2024 sales, the German brand admitted things aren’t going as planned.
Chief Financial Officer Lutz Meschke said the situation in China is “challenging” for Porsche and all the European luxury brands. In the United States and Europe, Porsche sees a “slowdown in the BEV transition and the customer demand is not satisfying overall.” He mentioned that “a lot of customers in the premium/luxury segment are looking in the direction of combustion engine cars. There’s a clear trend in this direction.”
A recent report in the Daily Mail shows that while electric vehicle owners may virtue-signal by crowing about their green credentials, especially wealthy elites and celebrities, their carbon dioxide footprints are larger than those of most average folks who still drive vehicles that use gasoline and diesel for fuel. The Daily Mail reports:
Researchers from the University of Turku, Finland, found that on average EV drivers actually have a bigger carbon footprint than drivers who own petrol or diesel cars.
While their cars might cut down on emissions, the researchers say that EV owners’ glitzier lifestyles mean they contribute more to climate change overall.
The average EV owner churns out half a tonne more CO2 per year with owners of the sportiest models producing almost two tonnes more pollution.
The researchers surveyed almost 4,000 Finnish people about their car ownership, background and lifestyle.
The participants also provided answers about their housing, transport, and purchasing habits to estimate their carbon footprint.
Overall, someone who owned an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) which runs on petrol or diesel created 8.05 tonnes of CO2 or equivalent greenhouse gases per year.
Considering that environmental concerns are a major reason for purchasing an electric vehicle you might expect EV owners’ emissions to be lower.
However, the average EV driver actually has a slightly larger carbon footprint than those who opt for cars powered by fossil fuels, producing 8.66 tonnes of emissions per year.
Back in 2022, I reported that Toyota Motor chief Akio Toyoda remains skeptical of moving to only producing electric vehicles (EVs). Toyoda also indicated that most people who work in the auto industry agree with him.
“People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority,” Toyoda said. “That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend so they can’t speak out loudly.”
BMW wants Europe to relax its plan to ban new petrol and diesel-powered cars from 2035 onward, in an effort to reduce the region’s reliance on batteries from China. While many automakers have fully embraced electrification, BMW is opting for a more diversified strategy.
In addition to battery electric vehicles (BEVs), the company is investing in alternative technologies such as e-fuels and hydrogen fuel cells, betting that the future of mobility won’t be driven by batteries alone.
They just want to force their climate nonsense on us when in fact it’s a control issue by the Climate wienees. They tried making us act like sheep during Covid and we’re not going to do it again. This level of technology of battery-powered cars is not the answer, especially when they can turn them off for social non-compliance.
The electric vehicle (EV) is heralded as a cornerstone of the fight against climate change, with promises of a cleaner, greener future. As recently as July, the Biden-Harris administration announced billions of dollars of government support for EV manufacturing.
However, a growing concern lies beneath the shiny surface of electric cars and bikes: the safety risks of lithium-ion batteries, particularly their propensity to catch fire.
The rosy image of EVs as environmental saviors doesn’t align with their increasing reputation as flammable hazards.
Lithium batteries are designed to store a significant amount of energy in a compact space, which increases not only their efficiency but also their risk profile. When these batteries overheat, short-circuit or suffer physical damage, they can ignite and burn with alarming intensity.
New York is particularly notorious for the large number of E-bike fires. Entire shipments of cars on cargo ships have been burnt up in the middle of the ocean due to fires from EV batteries.
Recently, containers holding 33,000 pounds of lithium batteries at Canada’s port of Montreal caught fire, prompting city authorities to warn residents to remain indoors. The fire, which occurred around 2:45 p.m. on September 23, was not extinguished until 3 a.m. the next day!
“Due to the amount of energy that these batteries store, it took us quite a while to extinguish the fire,” said the fire department chief.
The moonbats at Phys.org had almost caught up to Scientific American when it comes to subordinating science to wokeness. Then they went and admitted that EV owners sin against their own godless religion by having larger carbon footprints:
A pair of psychologists and an economist at the University of Turku, in Finland, have found that because the average electric vehicle (EV) owner is wealthier than the average person, they still have a bigger than average carbon footprint.
So it is not transportation that offends the weather but wealth. Don’t worry, leftist politicians have a cure for that.
Despite EV owners being wealthy enough to waste money on expensive green posturing, their playthings are heavily subsidized by those of us who do not. EV manufacturers naturally raise their prices to match the subsidies.
It was a loser who tried to force a bad solution that didn’t work on people who didn’t want them. Good riddance.
The House passed a bill Friday that would overturn the Biden-Harris administration’s de facto electric vehicle mandate if it becomes law.
By a 215-191 vote, the House approved H.J. Res. 136, a bill that would vacate the Environmental Protection Agency’s tailpipe emissions standards for light-duty vehicles if it passes the Senate and is signed into law by President Joe Biden. Eight House Democrats crossed the aisle to side with Republicans in favoring the bill, while one GOP lawmaker—Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick—voted against the legislation.
First, we have this: EV Dealers Are So Desperate to Offload Stock That They’re Offering Lease Deals For $20 a Month.
How soft is the new EV car market? Some EV vehicles have been on their lots for so long that they’re offering lease terms so generous, they may as well be giving them away.
A Kia dealer in Virginia only gets a couple of inquiries a month for EVs. The price tag of new vehicles scares them off, says Finance Director Ramon Nawabi. He’s got a few EV 6 SUVs that have been on the lot for six months that Kia is now offering discounted leases on top of the $7,500 EV tax credit “just to move the car,” he says. “In a sense, we’re giving them away.”
That $7500 tax credit helped dealers sell a million EVs in 2022. However, the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act severely limited how that $7500 tax credit could be applied. There are now price caps for EVs ($80,000 for SUVs and trucks; $55,000 for cars), and the batteries must be American-made. Also, the vehicles must be assembled in the U.S. There’s also a cap on the net income of the potential buyer.
“The EU is in a crisis caused by low consumer demand for EVs and unfair competition from third country EV manufacturers, meaning that the EU industry will not be able to meet these reduction targets. EU industry will have little choice but to significantly cut production, which threatens millions of jobs in the EU, harms consumers, and adversely impacts the EU’s competitiveness and economic security.”
The quote above is an excerpt from a draft European Automobile Manufacturer’s Association (EAMA) document made public this week in a story by Bloomberg. The report was prepared by EAMA in preparation for formally requesting a 2-year delay in EU emissions goals set to take effect in 2025. EU EV makers say they will not be able to meet the idiotic mandate set by the EU’s authoritarian central planners, citing low consumer desire to buy the damn things and “unfair” competition from China.
It’s a reality that should come as no real surprise to anyone, especially since critics of the EU’s central planning literally predicted this very outcome a thousand times.
It’s because people bought them because there was a subsidy. Then they found out that the current technology of an EV is flashy, but not good. It sucks in hot or cold weather and takes too long to charge.
It’s not the panacea that was promised, just another government program, nee mandate that is a failure.
There is not enough electricity nor the grid to support people driving EV’s. They are 3-5 iterations of technology away from being efficient and desirable. They are wealthy peoples salve at feeling good about themselves for the made-up environmental crisis going on.
Let’s also not ignore the fires that they cause and the inability to put them out. They just burn to the ground (or 57,000 gallons of water for the enviro-weenies trying to save the planet – irony and sarcasm there).
So unless they bribe the buyers to get a technology worse than a petroleum powered car, people don’t want them.
Let’s not ignore that the manufacturers lose 10’s of thousands on every car they build (to the tune of a billion and a half loss for Ford alone this year).
So other than to make someone feel good because they are a greentard, there is no reason to buy one, yet. There may be a better iteration in the future, but it isn’t now.
For the record, I drove last weekend for 4 hours in my diesel truck and got 36 MPG. I didn’t hurt a plant or a tree.
Economics and technology say it’s a loser. It’s just another idea by the Enviro-nuts to try and make us do something because they hate petroleum.
EU Mandate here:
The mandate is so utterly unattainable that EAMA makes this projection as part of its application for a delay:
EU rules targeting a CO2 fleet emission of about 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer per vehicle would require automakers to either halt production of about 2 million cars or be exposed to fines that could reach €13 billion ($14.3 billion) for passenger cars, according to estimates by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association contained in the draft and seen by Bloomberg.
Van manufacturers could also face paying an additional €3 billion for falling short of targets, said the group that’s currently headed by Renault SA Chief Executive Officer Luca de Meo.
“The EU is in a crisis caused by low consumer demand for EVs and unfair competition from third country EV manufacturers, meaning that the EU industry
“… the ideological vision has failed. We need to acknowledge that …”
Italy Seeks Reversal of EU’s 2035 Combustion Engine Ban
By Alberto BrambillaSeptember 07, 2024 at 11:45AM EDT
Bloomberg) — Italian officials said the European Union’s plan to ban sales of new internal combustion engines from 2035 should be reviewed.
“The ban must be changed,” Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como, on Saturday.
Pichetto Fratin called the decision by the EU “absurd,” and dictated by an “ideological vision” along with a state-controlled approach to policy-making within the bloc. The plan needs changing in order to reflect different market realities amid the European auto industry’s slowdown, he added.
Industry Minister Adolfo Urso also backed a change, urging the incoming European Commission to anticipate the review of the plan to early 2025, from 2026. “In an uncertain landscape which is affecting German automotive industry, clarity is needed to not let the European industry collapse,” Urso said in Cernobbio.
These greentards are delusional. Carbon and petroleum are not the danger they claim, nor is electricity the panacea they propose
Volvo has announced it will be getting rid of its plan to sell only fully electric cars by 2030.
The auto manufacturer announced on Wednesday, that it is now aiming for 90-100% of its global sales to be either pure electric or plug-in hybrid at that point.
The Swedish company said this will “allow for a limited number of mild hybrid models to be sold, if needed.”
The latest move by Volvo comes after Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have both previously announced a shift in their respective EV strategies.
“An electric car provides a superior driving experience and increases possibilities for using advanced technologies that improve the overall customer experience,” Jim Rowan, CEO of Volvo Cars, said on Wednesday in the written statement.
“However, it is clear that the transition to electrification will not be linear, and customers and markets are moving at different speeds of adoption,” he continued.
Ford Motor Co. has joined the ranks of companies that have pulled back on diversity, equity and inclusion policies while facing pressure from conservative groups.
CEO Jim Farley sent a memo to all employees early Wednesday outlining the changes, including a decision to stop taking part in external culture surveys and an annual survey by the Human Rights Campaign that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees.
“We will continue to put our effort and resources into taking care of our customers, our team, and our communities versus publicly commenting on the many polarizing issues of the day,” the memo said. “There will of course be times when we will speak out on core issues if we believe our voice can make a positive difference.”
Farley wrote that Ford is mindful that employees and customers have a wide range of beliefs “and the external and legal environment related to political and social issues continues to evolve.” The company, he wrote, has been looking at its policies during the past year.
I don’t know why these companies thought it was a good idea to go woke and against their customer base, but dollars matter, and dumping this nonsense is the best business decision.
Maybe their quality will come back now that meritocracy is back in charge.
DEI and Woke have destroyed everything they touched. It’s about time to get rid of this kowtowing to race hustlers
Fires in EVs are particularly dangerous because they burn at very high temperatures, usually emit toxic gases and are difficult to extinguish. EV drivers and passengers have been killed in such fires. [Sources: multiple media reports and video recordings of incidents]
Most instrumentation in EVs is via large touch-screen systems that are not in the driver’s eye line (i.e. they must look sideways). Many are also touchscreens, which means that certain information must be read and then a hand taken off the steering wheel to select some option. These are a serious distraction for drivers. [Source: Advertising for certain EVs]
Driver stress in EVs is far higher than ICE cars. Will they reach their target recharging station? Will it be operating when they arrive? Maybe they’ll even put themselves in discomfort by turning off the air-conditioning to try to get to the recharge point, but that might threaten their health on very cold or very hot days. [Source: Logical consequence of other points mentioned below.]
Public recharging stations are often not manned and even a fast charge typically takes around 40 minutes. This situation can put personal safety at risk, especially if recharging late at night. [Source: personal experience provides anecdotal evidence]
EV owners can have little confidence that their vehicle will be available to respond to an emergency at any time of day even over a relatively short distance. [Source: logical consequence of battery drainage and patterns of recharging.]
Most EVs can accelerate much faster than ICE cars. This is a threat to the safety of drivers and the public. [Source: data on EV performance]
The greater acceleration and greater mass mean greater tyre wear. EVs don’t emit CO2 but they cause much greater emission of rubber particulates, which are dangerous to human health. [Source: anecdotal evidence of tyre degradation]
The greater mass of EVs compared to ICE vehicles means that in a collision between the two types of vehicles, the ICE vehicle is going to suffer more damage, which means an increased safety risk for ICE drivers. [Source: Logical consequence based on physics]
The cars are very quiet, which poses a problem for the blind or visually impaired who rely on vehicle noise, or more correctly its absence, to indicate when it’s safe to cross a road. [Source: Logical consequence of cars being very quiet.]
Tests in the USA have shown that conventional guard rails along road sides will not stop an EV because these cars have greater mass than ICE cars and therefore greater momentum. EVs with batteries position very low tend to spear under the guard rail while EVs with higher batteries just push through the rail.
Financial, Fire, Weight, Insurance, and a bunch of other issues for Owners
OAK BROOK, Ill.—An Oscar Mayer Wienermobile got into a pickle on a Chicago highway.
The hot-dog shaped Wienermobile hit a car Monday morning along Interstate 294 and its driver lost control and overcorrected, causing it to roll onto its side near the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, Illinois State Police said.
No injuries were reported after the crash, which prompted the closure of the right lane of northbound I-294 for more than an hour, officials said.
A spokesperson for the Oscar Mayer brand, which has several Wienermobiles, told the Chicago Sun-Times it’s “grateful that everybody involved is safe and there were no injuries.”
Video from the crash scene shows that the yellow and orange Wienermobile was later hauled away on a flatbed truck with apparent damage visible on part of the vehicle.
Now there will be less electricity for cars and other things that shouldn’t be electrified. For the rest of us, we’ll just get a bigger power bill for our houses.
Tech companies are increasingly looking to nuclear energy to meet their evolving power needs, potentially at the expense of grid reliability and ordinary American ratepayers, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The owners of about one in every three American nuclear plants are negotiating with technology firms to reach deals in which the plants would sell tech companies nuclear-generated electricity to operate their power-hungry data centers, key infrastructure that the tech firms need to support the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, according to the WSJ. The trend could divert reliable energy generation away from the rest of the power grid at a time when grid watchdogs are warning of longer-term reliability problems as electricity demand is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years due to the proliferation of data centers, electric vehicles (EVs), advanced manufacturing facilities and more.
For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is close to reaching an agreement with Constellation Energy to buy electricity from an East Coast nuclear plant, and AWS also spent $650 million on a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania earlier this year, according to the WSJ. The Pennsylvania data center can receive enough electricity to keep the lights on in hundreds of thousands of households, and its purchase spurred tech sector interest in similar deals that allow companies to buy power directly from plants without needing to spend much on additional grid infrastructure to access that electricity.
Data centers may end up accounting for as much as 9% of all power consumption in America by 2030, according to the WSJ, and some officials — such as Pennsylvania Consumer Advocate Patrick Cicero — are concerned that the tech sector’s union with nuclear energy could hurt ordinary consumers by driving up prices and commanding a large share of the nation’s reliable carbon-free power.
More sheep have woken up I suppose. There is no good reason or argument for them in their current configuration. They are expensive, hard to charge (compared to an ICE), cost more to insure and are limited in range. I’m not going to get into the socialistic forks in the road like the government kill switch because it just isn’t a very good product yet. There isn’t enough electricity for what they have planned along with AI and all of the restrictions on energy sources
Most buyers thought they were helping the environment or being progressive or tech savvy. I’ve got news for you. This isn’t the answer you were looking for, just money thrown away to feel or look good.
So now we have buyers remorse.
My wife’s nephew in Europe is a big show off with these. For being an engineer, he hasn’t thought this one through, but I’ll always think of him as a jag off. It’s easy to be smart when the pool of people in your country is only 5 million, but then he didn’t think through that either.
Nearly half of American electric vehicle (EV) owners want to buy an internal combustion engine model the next time they buy a car, according to a new study from McKinsey and Company, a leading consulting firm.
Approximately 46% of Americans who own an EV want to go back to a standard vehicle for their next purchase, citing issues like inadequate charging infrastructure and affordability, according to McKinsey’s study, which was obtained and reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The study’s findings further suggest that the Biden administration’s EV push is struggling to land with American consumers, after 46% of respondents indicated that they are unlikely or very unlikely to purchase an EV in a June poll conducted by The Associated Press and the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute.
Moreover, 58% of Americans are very likely to keep their current cars for longer, and 44% are likely to postpone a possible switch to EVs, McKinsey’s study found. Consumers’ concerns about EV charging infrastructure are notable given the slow rollout of the Biden administration’s $7.5 billion public EV charger program, which has so far led to the construction of only a handful of chargers in nearly three years.
In a statement published on the OPEC website Thursday, Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said the concept of “peak oil demand” is nowhere to be seen in the cartel’s projections for future global crude oil demand.
“[A]s we look to the future it is the very versatility of oil that ensures that we do not see peak oil demand on the horizon,” Al Ghais said.
“Just as peak oil supply has never transpired, predictions of peak oil demand are following a similar trend.”
In my own research, I have been able to trace predictions for the world reaching so-called “peak oil” all the way back to the 1880s.
From that distant beginning through around 2010, peak oil theory was always about the world having somehow reached a peak in crude oil supply as all the big reserves had supposedly already been discovered.
For about 125 years, constant advances in technology and a creative and innovative industry invariably proved such pronouncements wrong, often laughably so.
With the ramping-up of the climate alarmist movement in the first decade of this century, narratives surrounding this always-wrong theory began to shift over to the demand side of the equation. Some anti-oil-and-gas activist groups even adopted the theory as a means of promoting the equally silly notion that the world’s remaining oil resources could simply be left in the ground as demand for them would soon be overwhelmed by rising demand for alternatives.
A decade later, that theory has also been proven laughably wrong, despite the “investment” of many trillions of dollars in debt-funded subsidies.
OPEC’s statement stands in stark contrast to the projection by the International Energy Agency that the world will somehow achieve peak oil demand by 2030. Al Ghais alludes to this preposterous notion, calling it a “dangerous commentary, especially for consumers,” that “will only lead to energy volatility on a potentially unprecedented scale.”
Should we worry more about the cost of energy than a very small rise in temperature over 100 years? Yes No
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Al Ghais’ statement comes in the wake of revised oil-demand growth projections from the IEA and OPEC, along with Goldman Sachs and the US Energy Information Administration for the remainder of 2024 and into 2025. Where the IEA revised its 2024 projection downward to 1 million barrels per day for 2024, even it projects a more robust 1.5 million bpd in growth for 2025.
The EIA raised its own growth estimate for 2024 from a very conservative 900,000 bpd to 1.1 million bpd.
Goldman Sachs comes in at a stronger 2024 estimate of 1.25 million bpd, based on strong global economic growth. The bank cites robust growth in jet fuel, petrochemical-driven LPG and naphtha, and gasoline and diesel demand as key drivers of this growth.
Our president and his press secretaries seem to lie with every word they say and deny facts that anyone with a pair of eyes can see for himself.
Scientists and doctors, formerly among the most trusted members of our society, lie to foster popular environmental theories and get government grants, or to promote Big Pharma and deter people from effective treatments.
Our news media no longer report the news; they shape the news as instructed.
Here is just a sample of commonly promoted lies starting in 2020.
The German automaker’s limousine customers care as much about comfort and status as saving the planet
Bloomberg reports on how Volkswagen’s EV fantasy has just collided with reality. Volkswagen walks back EV or bus strategy that rankled rivals. CEO Oliver Blumer is turning to hybrids and striking partnerships as EV sales slow. Volkswagen AG’s all-in on electric vehicle plan is no more. The namesake VW brand, which pitched its ID family of electric cars as central to its future, admitted last week it will need more plug-in hybrids as EV sales decelerate. This marks just the latest adjustment VW has made to its electrification strategy after the company botched several model releases and fell behind in China, where local brands now dominate. The manufacturer has also shelved efforts to seek outside investors for its battery unit and scrapped plans for a 2 billion Euro ($2.2 billion) EV factory in Germany. In fact, the automaker is selling so many cars still running on combustion engines that it’s on track to overshoot its emissions allowance next year, leading Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blumer to ask European regulators for leniency.
And Mercedes has dumped an entire EV platform after a woeful sale of its larger EV models. As Top Gear reports, Mercedes has reportedly cancelled an entire EV platform, and apparently, slow EV sales are to blame. Farewell, MBEA; we hardly knew you. Mercedes is putting the kibosh on the development of its MBEA large electric vehicle platform, having apparently been put off by the EQE and EQS’s slower than expected sales. OD Deia first reported by Handelsblut, the move will supposedly save billions in development costs as Mercedes rethinks its future luxury car strategy.
I’ve already posted today that EV’s are not a solution to anything. My wife’s relatives in a Scandinavian country have them, but they continue be on the side of wrong for just about anything. I’ve learned to go against what they choose and I’m usually on the right side of most things. They are proud of their decisions and have no idea that they are so far from the truth.
(ZeroHedge)—Ten years ago this week, we posted one of out most viral stories, highlighting the over-capacity in the auto industry: “Where the World’s Unsold Cars Go To Die,” which highlighted the ‘endgame’ of automakers’ ‘channel stuffing’ efforts to disguise the sudden lack of demand for all the exciting new models that they had forecast would boom to the moon…
Due to China’s overcapacity in production – as it aims to capture a quarter of the European electric vehicle market – the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge are inundated.
You probably need to see it to appreciate the challenges the automobile industry faces in transitioning to electricity. You also need to come here to understand how the Chinese industry’s overcapacity has flooded the European market. That morning, as the sun unexpectedly lit up the maze of highways leading to this remote arm of the port of Antwerp, Belgium, a huge cargo ship from the Norwegian company Höegh Autoliners unloaded thousands of cars at one of the terminals of International Car Operators (ICO), a subsidiary of the Japanese group Nippon Yusen Kaisha.
Imported vehicles are seriously piling up at European ports, turning them into “car parks.” Automakers are distributors are struggling with a slowdown in car sales as well as logistical bottlenecks that make it hard to alleviate the buildup of new, unsold vehicles.
Some Chinese brand EVs had been sitting in European ports for up to 18 months, while some ports had asked importers to provide proof of onward transport, according to industry executives. One car logistics expert said many of the unloaded vehicles were simply staying in the ports until they were sold to distributors or end users.
“It’s chaos,” said another person who had been briefed on the situation.
If you search the site for EVs or Electric Vehicles, you’ll find every reason not to buy one, and thankfully, we’re not the only ones pointing it out. EV sales are lousy in the US, which has to be why Democrat states are looking to ban gas-powered cars.
They want you on an EV bus, a bicycle, walking, or better yet – living on an urban heat island confined to quarters. If you live under that yoke, here’s a reminder of why you need to make a change politically – if you still can.
EVs have a short shelf life compared to other vehicles. Whatever the battery warranty is, that’s it. It’s over. No one is going to buy it used; it is almost worthless as a trade-in. Given how much shorter this life span can be compared to a more affordable combustion engine vehicle (assuming you didn’t crash your EV and have to scrap it sooner), you will need another car. If you are an EV-tard, that’ll mean another whole-vehicle carbon footprint before its time and a repeat of what you just went through.
If you buy a used EV and the car is over five years old (Don’t do it!), You can expect to spend two to three times its value to replace the battery pack, which has been losing range rapidly since you bought it. You might get a few years out of it.
In other words, never buy a used EV. Just don’t do it. Here’s an example of the problem and why internal combustion engine vehicles are irreplaceable (disregarding the reality that EV trucks, tractors, and other heavy equipment will never be EV on this technology)
It’s a cult purchase for those who are good sheep or socialists that think somehow they are helping the environment while young children are digging up Cobalt for their batteries half way around the world.
Plus, the sound of a V-8 or a V-12 is a dick hardener for those of us who have a pair and know how a car should sound.
Sure, it’s easy to say get woke and go broke, but when you have Bud Light, Target, Disney as real world examples it can ring true. They are all just different flavors of ass tasting ice cream.
Now we have Boeing and Ford.
FORD
Ford loses $132,000 on every electric car it builds, or $5 Billion a year. Henry Ford is turning in his grave.
First published JoNova; Ford CEO Jim Farley still plans to push forward with his loss making electric vehicle strategy. (dumbass)
Ford just reported a massive loss on every electric vehicle it sold
By Chris Isidore, CNN Updated 2:10 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
New YorkCNN —
Ford’s electric vehicle unit reported that losses soared in the first quarter to $1.3 billion, or $132,000 for each of the 10,000 vehicles it sold in the first three months of the year, helping to drag down earnings for the company overall.
Ford, like most automakers, has announced plans to shift from traditional gas-powered vehicles to EVs in coming years. But it is the only traditional automaker to break out results of its retail EV sales. And the results it reported Wednesday show another sign of the profit pressures on the EV business at Ford and other automakers.
The EV unit, which Ford calls Model e, sold 10,000 vehicles in the quarter, down 20% from the number it sold a year earlier. And its revenue plunged 84% to about $100 million, which Ford attributed mostly to price cuts for EVs across the industry. That resulted in the $1.3 billion loss before interest and taxes (EBIT), and the massive per-vehicle loss in the Model e unit.
The losses go far beyond the cost of building and selling those 10,000 cars, according to Ford. Instead the losses include hundreds of millions being spent on research and development of the next generation of EVs for Ford. Those investments are years away from paying off.
And that means this is not the end of the losses in the unit – Ford said it expects Model e will have EBIT losses of $5 billion for the full year.
After stating that DEI/DIE was the most important part of their business, they just burned through $3.3 billion in one quarter cleaning up the mess:
Top jet manufacturer Boeing reported on Wednesday a net loss of $355 million in the first quarter after months of scrutiny over recent safety issues.
Operating revenue declined 8% year over year in the first quarter, from approximately $17.9 billion to $16.6 billion, with the company burning more than $3.9 billion in free cash flow in the time frame compared to $786 million a year ago, according to Boeing’s first quarter earnings report. Recent scrutiny of safety with Boeing products began in January after an Alaska Airlines flight had a door plug fly off mid-air, resulting in an emergency landing and an investigation into the company’s quality assurance.=
“Our first quarter results reflect the immediate actions we’ve taken to slow down 737 production to drive improvements in quality,” Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said in the report. “We will take the time necessary to strengthen our quality and safety management systems and this work will position us for a stronger and more stable future.”
Boeing reported an over $3.3 billion operating cash flow loss in the first quarter, compared to a $318 billion loss at the start of 2023, according to the earnings report. The decline in profits led to a core loss per share of $1.13 for shareholders in the first quarter, lower than the $1.27 loss in the same time frame last year.
E.V.s – even the best ones – have higher maintenance and insurance costs than regular gasoline-powered vehicles, for a number of reasons: more expensive parts, more accidents, fewer qualified mechanics.
E.V.s – even the best ones – take much longer to recharge than regular gasoline-powered vehicles. A fill-up takes two to five minutes; a charge takes fifteen minutes (if all the stars align), but can take much longer, even hours, and that’s if you can find a working charging station when you need one.
E.V.s — even the best ones — pose a higher risk of being totaled by insurance companies, either after accidents, or after all the odd circumstances that cause spontaneous combustion. E.V. fires have destroyed homes, garages, even cargo ships. The battery is usually irreparable. As a result, insurance companies are increasingly determining that the damage threshold between “repair it” and “scrap it” is a lot lower for E.V.s than for other vehicles.
All this isn’t to say that E.V.s shouldn’t be a part of the mix, but they clearly ought to be viewed as another niche segment, at just a few percent, like luxury cars and convertibles….
Though windmills and solar panels get the headlines, the big energy topic in Washington is electric transmission. Whether it is Congress’s newfound interest in permitting reform, the U.S. Department of Energy’s new Grid Deployment Office, or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) upcoming final rule on transmission planning and cost allocation, how to build and pay for long-range transmission to connect generators to customers is considered the final piece in the quest to meet net-zero goals.
Like so many issues in Washington, the need for more transmission lines is accepted without question and the costs are not considered. But for American consumers, especially low-income and elderly, as well as small businesses and energy intense manufacturers, building new transmission lines could result in much higher monthly bills and leave them on the hook for stranded assets.
Traditionally, high-voltage transmission lines, consisting of 150-foot lattice towers crossing the landscape for hundreds of miles, were planned for by local utilities to meet their customers’ energy needs and subject to approval by state public utility commissions. But public policy goals to promote renewables are changing how the grid is being developed.
Over the past few years, States established renewable energy mandates; Congress enacted over $1 trillion in taxpayer subsidies for renewable energy; and President Biden issued an executive order setting net-zero goals for electricity generation by 2035. To fulfill these policies, the grid needs new high-voltage transmission lines—lots of them—and they will be expensive.
According to the “Net-Zero America” analysis published by Princeton researchers, achieving net zero goals with 100% wind and solar by 2050 will require an additional $3.5 trillion in capital spending for new transmission lines. If net-zero goals are pursued with a mix of renewables, nuclear, and natural gas generation (which may include carbon capture), then a significant portion of this transmission investment would be unnecessary. Furthermore, a balanced resource mix of dispatchable and renewable resources would enhance grid reliability without overbuilding renewables or transmission.
As you read the proof that renewables is a farce, make sure to keep in mind the cost of EV’s.
American Experiment’s Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling tell you what you need to know to respond to ill-informed advocates for “green” energy. There is much more at the link, but here is an overview:
1. Renewables can’t survive on their own
The renewable energy industry is a subsidy-based industry, as wind and solar are largely dependent on lucrative state and federal subsidies. However, renewable advocates justify these perpetual subsidies by claiming thermal generators receive more subsidies than wind and solar. This assertion is not based on reality…. *** In 2022, wind and solar generators received three and eighteen times more subsidies per MWh, respectively, than natural gas, coal, and nuclear generators combined. Solar is the clear leader, receiving anywhere from $50 to $80 per MWh over the last five years, whereas wind is a distant second at $8 to $10 per MWh.
Poor solar energy! No matter how many billions the government pours down the solar rathole, no one has figured out a way to generate solar power after the sun goes down.
2. Renewables increase the cost of electricity
Renewable advocates often claim that the adoption of more wind and solar will lead to lower electricity costs, but the opposite is true. In a previous Substack, we wrote in detail about how utility companies with the largest rate increase requests in the country admit the energy transition is a major reason behind increasing electricity prices for families and businesses.
“Green” advocates fake the numbers for wind and solar by the simple expedient of only counting a fraction of their costs. This chart shows the actual cost of the various energy systems if all costs are included:
Color us not surprised, but another one of the Biden administration’s “visions” for forcing people to own electric vehicles isn’t working out exactly as planned.
This time it deals with supply chain logistics, with Bloomberg reporting this week that in the year and a half since passing the Inflation Reduction Act, automakers are finding out the hard way that the rigorous criteria for manufacturing batteries using materials from the United States and its free-trade allies could render them cost-inefficient compared to global competitors.
Companies like Tesla are instead taking advantage of a temporary shift in the rules to stock up with cheaper batteries from countries like China.
The Biden administration’s new rules will all but cut out China from the supply chain, however, which will make it tougher to find affordable metal suppliers.
This, in turn, will threaten President Biden’s goal to boost the domestic electric vehicle market. Bloomberg writes that mining companies and labor unions insist that without curtailing the influx of cheaper, Chinese-subsidized materials, the U.S. can’t develop a competitive EV market.
Meanwhile, the higher costs are driving automakers away from EVs. And as battery material requirements are set to double by 2027, fulfilling these mandates will be increasingly difficult, putting Biden’s ambitious EV strategy at risk.
Mercedes-Benz on Thursday walked back plans to have an all-electric line-up by 2030 as consumers decline to adopt electric vehicles (EV) at the rate automakers expected.
The company has changed its expectations to have only 50% of its sales be EVs by 2030, announcing that it will be updating its current line-up featuring the internal combustion engine into the next decade, according to Mercedes-Benz in its fourth quarter report. EV sales grew 21% year-over-year in 2023, but total car sales remained relatively the same, bucking hopes that EVs would fuel growth as the automaker pushes electric models.
Give me a deep throated V-8 or the scream of a V-12 ICE any day.
I worked in this industry and it’s been one lie after another since it began
Led by an elderly man experiencing cognitive decline, the Biden administration has launched a strident effort to promote electric vehicle (E.V.) sales. This push is part of a globalist climate change agenda that ignores the unreliability of renewable energy during winter storms and heat waves. The unreliability of green energy sources was illustrated by the 2021 winter storm in Texas, which paralyzed the state’s wind energy system — the second largest energy source — leaving some Texans unable to flush their toilets or power their electric vehicles. Now E.V. sales, for a variety of reasons, are deservedly losing momentum among U.S. buyers.
The decline in sales persists despite three critical factors favoring non–fossil fuel energy generation: (1) the world’s rising investment of billions of dollars in E.V. technology; (2) rising tailpipe emissions regulations; (3) apocalyptic claims tied to climate change that are part of the Western world’s war on fossil fuels, gas stoves, and homes heated by natural gas. While American electric vehicle sales rose rapidly during the first eleven months of 2023, they plateaued in November.
In other words, even though E.V. sales initially cannibalized the market for gas and diesel vehicles during 2022 and 2023 as financial analysts promoted exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in E.V.s as part of an investment scheme to transform both the economy and energy production, these speculative chickens have now come home to roost.
Two statistics highlight this outcome. First, the empirical evidence shows that luxury E.V.s depreciate faster than vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. Second, Ford Motor Company recently revealed that it incurred a loss of $4.7 billion on its electric vehicles.
Is it time to start asking whether electric vehicles have any redeeming value in 2024? Given the recent spate of bad news surrounding them, the answer to that question is becoming clearer.
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As RedState reported, Ford has cut the production of its “Lightning” electric pickup truck in half. Why? Mainly because no one wants to buy them. Why do they not want to buy them? Because they are overpriced, unreliable, and impractical.
Who could have guessed that paying $55,000 (and that’s with EV subsidies) for a stripped-down, base-level truck that overheats when you tow things and can’t drive over 300 miles on a single charge wouldn’t appeal to the average F-150 buyer? Certainly, people who use their trucks for work have found little to no use for such a pointless monstrosity.
It’s not just the Lightning, though. The entire EV industry is getting hit by reality right now.
There is no better example of government idiocy than the top-down push for electric vehicles, which at this point has cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. They were a solution to a problem that didn’t exist, and even then, they turned out to not be a solution at all. It’s not just about cost either. How useful is a car that loses most of its range when it gets below freezing? How useful is a car that can’t be driven for more than a few hours in a row, even in perfect conditions?
Burn baby burn, disco inferno. The arctic freeze proves that they can’t hold a charge in the cold. Ford lost 4.4 billion on EV production because no one wanted them, or could afford them.
Now, we know why we can’t afford to own them.
Electric vehicles (EVs) appear to have caused multiple fires at manufacturing factories in recent months, sparking a reminder about EV safety.
Most recently, the Detroit Fire Department responded to a three-alarm fire involving lithium-ion batteries at General Motors’ Factory Zero last month, according to Detroit Free Press.
“Our initial investigation indicates a forklift accidentally punctured a container with battery materials, causing the fire,” Tara Stewart Kuhnen, GM spokeswoman, said in an email Wednesday.
The newspaper also reported another fire at the property in October that involved an autonomous electric car. It states the fire department’s report mentions a battery fire.
However, Kuhnen told the newspaper that a non-battery-related component caused the second fire.
Outside Detroit, the Auburn Hills Fire Department responded to a November fire at Chrysler’s Tech Center.
Multiple media reports say Chrysler’s fire involved an EV as well.
“If you want to know how dumb the West has become, people have been arguing about how many genders there are, and if it’s FAIR to allow males to compete against females in competitive sports… For 8 YEARS! No wonder no real progress is being made on anything important.” — Zuby
I swear, as soon as I cross the state line, the driving gets worse immediately. The minute I see a Florida plate in my state, it’s a bad driver about to do something stupid.
They are so afraid of someone else getting 1 inch ahead of them that they do everything they can to screw you from getting in the lane.
I’ve been playing with ChatGPT looking to find either holes in the system or it going woke on me. It looks like I found both.
It’s still GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). The stuff I asked it is readily available online so I knew the answers before I asked it. I do this to try and catch it and the biased people behind it.
I’d had it with NASCAR for being woke and chasing away its’ fanbase. First it was banning the Confederate Flag, then country music and then DEI. So I asked it some questions. It wouldn’t even try to answer the obvious.
Me: how much did NASCAR TV ratings go down after banning the confederate flag?
ChatGPT
As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, I don’t have specific data on the long-term impact of NASCAR’s decision to ban the Confederate flag on TV ratings. NASCAR announced the ban on displaying the Confederate flag at its events in June 2020, as part of its commitment to fostering an inclusive and welcoming environment.
It’s important to note that accurately attributing changes in TV ratings to a specific event or policy decision can be challenging due to the influence of various factors. TV ratings can be affected by race outcomes, changes in the competitive landscape, economic conditions, overall interest in the sport, and other variables.
For the most up-to-date information on NASCAR TV ratings and any potential trends related to the ban on the Confederate flag or other factors, it’s recommended to check recent reports from reliable sources, including sports media outlets and television rating agencies. The impact of such decisions on viewership can also be subjective, and opinions on these matters may vary.
Me: how much did NASCAR TV ratings go down when they went woke?
ChatGPT
As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, I don’t have specific data on NASCAR TV ratings related to any perceived shift in the organization’s approach or actions being characterized as “going woke.” It’s important to note that discussions around sports organizations and their viewership ratings can be complex, influenced by various factors, and opinions on the reasons for changes in ratings can differ.
The term “going woke” generally refers to actions taken by organizations to address social justice issues or adopt more inclusive policies. However, the impact on TV ratings can be influenced by a range of factors, including changes in the competitive landscape, viewer demographics, overall interest in the sport, economic conditions, and more.
For the most up-to-date and accurate information on NASCAR TV ratings, especially any changes associated with specific initiatives or shifts in approach, it’s recommended to check recent reports from reliable sources, including sports media outlets, NASCAR itself, or television rating agencies.
Please note that opinions on the relationship between sports organizations addressing social issues and changes in TV ratings can vary, and discussions on this topic can be nuanced and subjective.
Me: how much did NASCAR TV ratings go down from the Bubba Wallace issue (I already looked up that it did go down a lot)
ChatGPT
As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, I don’t have specific data on the long-term impact of the Bubba Wallace incident on NASCAR TV ratings. The incident in question refers to the discovery of a noose in Bubba Wallace’s garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway in June 2020. It was initially investigated as a potential hate crime but later determined to be a garage door pull rope.
The incident received significant media attention and sparked discussions about race and diversity within the sport. However, accurately measuring the impact on TV ratings is complex, as multiple factors can influence viewership.
NASCAR experienced a mix of challenges and opportunities during the 2020 season, including the COVID-19 pandemic, schedule changes, and efforts to address racial and social justice issues. While there were reports of increased interest and attention to NASCAR during certain periods of the season, the long-term impact on TV ratings can be influenced by various factors.
For the most up-to-date information on NASCAR TV ratings and any potential trends related to the Bubba Wallace incident or other factors, it is recommended to check recent reports from reliable sources, including sports media outlets and television rating agencies. Keep in mind that assessing the impact of specific events on TV ratings can be subjective and may involve analyzing data over time.
2023 marked Disney’s 100th anniversary of making movie magic.
It also marked a disastrous year at the box office.
Out of eight major theatrical releases from Disney this year, seven of them significantly underperformed with audiences not just in the U.S. but overseas as well.
A look back at the rough year for the House of Mouse:
Superhero slump
One of the most popular film franchises in the 21st century has been the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ever since 2008’s “Iron Man,” Disney’s catalog of superheroes and the stars that play them drove tens of millions of Americans into theaters. That wasn’t the case with two out of the three Marvel flicks released in 2023.
The first was in February with “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Despite an all-star cast including Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer and Bill Murray, the $200 million-priced film earned only $215 million domestically and $476 million worldwide, far short of the $600 million it needed to break even on its theatrical run, according to Variety. That’s less than the $519 million worldwide earnings from the first “Ant-Man” film in 2015 and the $623 million the second installment earned in 2018 (not adjusted for inflation).
“The Marvels,” however, opened to just $46 million and may not even reach $100 million domestically (its total gross so far is less than $90 million domestically and roughly $200 million worldwide), making it the lowest-grossing Marvel film in the entire franchise and putting it in box office disaster territory, given its reported $274 million budget.
I was a super hero fan and a Star Wars fan. Disney, courtesy of Kathleen Kennedy made them woke and terrible. Ultimately, the are all but unwatchable. It’s going to be a long time before I can see good movies again. Men, and white’s are not the villains every time. Captain America was a hero since WWII, even he is going woke in the new rendition.
I will probably see Ferrari though. I’d own one if I had some F/U money come my way.
This is somewhat of a predictably tragic outcome all things considered. I remember a previous conversation on these pages when GM moved massive investment into China to build their mid-size SUV brand, Encore.
Continuing the U.S. decline of the brand, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that approximately half of all Buick dealership in the U.S. have opted to take a buyout from GM, as opposed to spending millions in retooling, restructuring and retraining their staff to accommodate the EV influx.
Most of the EV’s shoved onto the dealer lots sit idle without customers to purchase them.
When the temperature drops below 40 degrees, which occurs over 200 days per year in Eau Claire, electric vehicles experience a reduction in range and efficiency, with losses of up to 40% when the heating system is in use.
While the truck was up on the lift, Liz Fox, a service adviser at the shop, told me that while not many electric vehicles come in for repairs, when they do, repairs typically take longer and are more expensive than repairing internal-combustion engine vehicles.
“Switching to EVs is really costly, and it’s going to be really time-consuming.” Fox told me. She cited a recent case where nearly two months were spent troubleshooting and sourcing components on a broken EV, despite having a certified electric vehicle technician.
EAU CLAIRE, Wis.—Here in Wisconsin, where fewer than one-tenth of 1% of vehicles are fully electric, it’s rare to see an EV outside the city.
That’s why the latest international climate conference, Conference of the Parties (COP28), which advocated widespread adoption of electric vehicles, should have Wisconsinites concerned.
When the temperature drops below 40 degrees, which occurs over 200 days per year in Eau Claire, electric vehicles experience a reduction in range and efficiency, with losses of up to 40% when the heating system is in use.
My visit to my local automotive shop to have the tires rotated on the family Ram truck was unaffected by the 13-degree Fahrenheit weather.
While the truck was up on the lift, Liz Fox, a service adviser at the shop, told me that while not many electric vehicles come in for repairs, when they do, repairs typically take longer and are more expensive than repairing internal-combustion engine vehicles.
“Switching to EVs is really costly, and it’s going to be really time-consuming.” Fox told me. She cited a recent case where nearly two months were spent troubleshooting and sourcing components on a broken EV, despite having a certified electric vehicle technician.
She’s not alone. A recent report shows that repair costs for EVs are 56% more expensive than traditional vehicles—and purchase costs are often 50% higher.
A new special report by The Heritage Foundation, “Powering Human Advancement,” shows how access to affordable, abundant energy is essential to living. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“Depriving people in any society of reliable and affordable energy denies them access to clean water, adequate medical care, affordable transportation, and economic opportunities, which will limit any human advancement, especially in the most vulnerable of countries,” the report states.
Governments and international organizations cannot force renewable energy and electric vehicles before people are ready. That’s a recipe for crisis.
Construction sites in Eau Claire feature battered pickup trucks and SUVs driven by construction workers, who can’t afford EVs. There is no subway in Eau Claire, bus service is limited, and people can’t rely on bicycles due to snowy weather and long distances.
Affordable transportation provides a means to a job, a ride to school, and to take weekend trips and vacations with the family.
In contrast, EVs are popular as second cars with upper-income individuals who have short commutes. Americans value the freedom to choose gasoline-only, hybrid, or electric vehicles, and for that freedom, it’s crucial to have alternative choices. But the organizers of COP28, supported by President Joe Biden, don’t want Americans or residents of other countries to choose which vehicles to buy.
This erosion of choice is not only detrimental to consumer freedom, but also to the livelihood of auto producers and car dealers. Look no further than last month’s letter to Biden signed by about 4,000 auto dealers, who were disturbed at the surging supply of unsold electric vehicles on their lots.
Even with subsidies to car manufacturers and tax credits for buyers, only 7% of new-vehicle sales are electric, well below Biden’s 2030 goal of 60%.
Codifying the recommendations of COP28 would require that America generate an additional costly 1.4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, or 30% of current output, to support the charging needs of a full fleet of electric vehicles.
Over the past two decades, nearly $7 trillion has been spent globally on subsidies for wind and solar energy. Despite this substantial investment, these sources contribute only 2.3% to the global supply of energy. Pairing fully electric vehicles with costly and unreliable electricity is a recipe for disaster.
Wisconsinites appreciate the benefits of affordable energy and the mobility of gasoline-powered cars. As a cold Christmas approaches, they know that COP28 recommendations won’t fly here in the Badger State.
I’m not going to get into the Ford/Chevy debate. This is about ICE (internal combustion engine) vs EV’s. A 7.3 liter V8 monster.
I’m old school and like to hear the growl of a powerful engine. EV’s are fast, but lack the sensory overload you get with the sound and smell of a powerful ICE.
What is best about this is the manufacturers play follow the leader. If one makes something people like, they all will build one. Then you can argue about manufacturer.
Just like I was against the jab because the government jammed it down most peoples throats (not me), trying force EV’s on the population smells of the same rat (again, not me).
My daughter borrowed my truck with flowmaster exhaust just to show off the sound in high school. They sat in the parking lot and revved through a half a tank of gas just to listen to it. No one is going to be that cool with an EV.
Back in September 2022, Ford Authority reported that The Blue Oval had filed to trademark “Megazilla” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which seemingly previewed the arrival of a new, more potent version of the existing 7.3L V8 Godzilla powerplant. A few months later, that’s precisely what happened when Ford officially revealed the new Megazilla crate engine, but in the year since then, the automaker has remained radio silent on that particular offering, even as other engines have been added. Now, however, Ford has officially revealed the pricing of the new 7.3L V8 Megazilla powerplant, even if it still isn’t yet available to order.
Listed in the Ford Performance catalog under part number M-6007-MZ73, the Megazilla retails for $22,995, which is a relatively hefty sum. However, buyers get a fairly complete package when they order one, as the Megazilla comes as a long block with coils, plug wires, spark plugs, an oil pan, and an engine wiring harness, all in a special shipping and storage crate. However, things like the control pack, a custom calibration, a starter, and accessory components are sold separately or otherwise required for installation.
What buyers do get is a cast iron block filled with a performance camshaft, a steel crank, Mahle forged 10.5:1 compression pistons, and Callies H-beam forged connecting rods, along with CNC ported aluminum cylinder heads, a low profile intake manifold, and a 92mm throttle body, all of which results in an output of 615 horsepower and 638 pound-feet of torque on pump gas.
As for fitment, installing a Megazilla should prove relatively straightforward in a wide array of applications thanks to the fact that it utilizes the same bellhousing bolt pattern as the 5.0L V8 Coyote, 4.6L V8, and 5.4L V8. It remains to be seen when the Megazilla will be available to order, but it was previously slated to launch in Q2 of this year.
(Natural News)—Electric vehicles are failing to live up to their promise, with a new report from Consumer Reports showing that they have an incredible 79 percent more problems than their conventional counterparts, in addition to being less reliable.
Plug-in hybrids fared even worse, registering 146 percent more problems than vehicles with traditional internal combustion engines.
According to Consumer Reports, the least reliable type of vehicle overall was electric pickup trucks.
They reached this conclusion based on a survey they conducted among members about issues they have had with their vehicles during the past year. Data from more than 330,000 vehicles with model years from 2000 onward was included in the assessment.
Their study involved 20 types of issues that range from minor nuisances like squeaky brakes to significant issues such as battery and charging problems and transmission issues, which were given a greater weight than minor issues. Consumer Reports noted that the charging problems they considered were those related to the vehicles themselves rather than public or home chargers.
“As more EVs hit the marketplace and automakers build each model in greater numbers, we are seeing that some of them have problems with the EV drive system motors, EV charging systems, and EV batteries (which are different from the low-power 12-volt batteries that power accessories),” Consumer Reports noted.
I’m still back and forth between states on the East Coast. I observe the driving habits and various machinery I encounter.
The quick one first. If you are going to drive a piece of crap, get it checked before a long drive. It’s always those cars on the side of the road. It’s like they are gambling to see if they can make it. Getting stuck on the side of the road with no town in sight makes for a terrible day and a very expensive fix. Please make your car road worthy. Show some sense of responsibility.
The thing I fear the most now is a car with a Florida license plate. As they escape the tourists and the heat, they bring their form of driving to torture those of us who know how to do it. It’s hot for the entire year except for 2 weeks in either December or January.
I first noticed it when I had to go there for family. The minute I crossed the Georgia / Florida border, traffic was a free for all.
Fortunately, I don’t go to that hell hole anymore (because of the heat and northerners who invaded and turned driving into a contact sport). The family that I visited are gone now. I have no desire to ever go back there.
They change lanes, the old people are what my friend Rick called them are nesters. They get into the fast lane and drive slow.
They are starting bad driving early now.
Orange County Florida Sheriff’s Deputy catches teen going 132 mph in a Supra and makes his parents come pick him up . You think the Deputy handled it appropriately? pic.twitter.com/NfmpbhMCmx
Whenever I see a Florida license plate now, I know to avoid it. I’m programmed to expect poor driving or road rage and am rarely disappointed.
It’s not limited to the highway where the behavior is exacerbated by speed. I’m in a mountain town that the reverse snow birds come to for getting out of the oven that is Florida weather.
At the only Publix in probably 75 miles, entire rows are cars with Florida plates. The locals dread this time of year and roll their eyes when someone says they live here part time. Almost to a person, they say are you from Florida.
Hell, people from Florida don’t like each other. When I lived on the coast, they called people from Orlando O-villes because they’d come to the coast and ruin the lives of sleepy beach towns.
I have to do the drive soon. I’m hoping to stay in my lane and hope for no Florida drivers.
The believers in climate change worship it as their religion. They are a bunch of sheep who bought the global warming lie. Even Greta was buffaloed and thinks it’s true.
Stop right here if you don’t believe me, here is what a Nobel winning scientist said:
A renowned Nobel Prize-winning scientist has spoken out to warn the public that the “climate crisis” narrative being pushed by the global elite and their allies in the corporate media is a hoax.
Dr. John Clauser, the co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Physics prize and one the world’s leading authorities on quantum mechanics, blasted “climate emergency” claims as a “dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people.”
Clauser, who was also awarded the 2010 Wolf Prize in Physics, the second most prestigious physics award after the Nobel, warns that misguided climate science is a hoax that is being driven by “massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience.”
Here’s the truth that both the Climate leaders and those of us who are wise to them (conspiracy theorists, flat earther’s or what ever name’s they call us) know. It’s a lie.
Climate change is about money transfer to the wealthy. It’s why they all fly to the conferences on private jets and have yachts. They know the sheep (liberals) buy their bullshit and can be counted on for support. It’s why Al Gore, John Kerry, Leo DiCaprio are all rich and have huge carbon footprints. They know there is nothing bad about C02. It’s just their whipping boy.
It’s the sheep that we should make fun of. They are driving EV’s which cause more environmental damage than gas powered cars. They recycle and all the other good socialist things they are told to do. They march in line like they are told to. I bet they all got their jab too, like good little soldiers.
Anyway, steal the meme’s and enjoy.
1.
2
3
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5
6
7. Save the planet, drive an EV
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10.
11. Not a damn one of these came true. The world didn’t end in July did it Greta?
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And finally Greta/John Kerry/Biden, these minerals are what you build an EV battery with
I’ve been driving between states and have noticed some trends.
Mostly, people are childish in their cars. They might be decent people, but as soon as they get behind the wheel, they revert to the playground.
It’s like they think they own the road.
Here is what I noticed.
I was merging onto a highway in a lane that had to go from two to one. I generally will let at least one car in and absolutely let a truck in to be decent. It used to be that way in the South. Yesterday, a Ford Escort sped up to try and not let me in. Little children are spiteful and try to have all the toys just to not let you have one.
I’ve written about how to merge in traffic so don’t mess with me. I also drive a truck. When I saw she was trying to be an asshole, I just kept merging and got in easily, but this is just where it started. She never had a chance as I just kept coming. The lane was ending and I didn’t have a choice. Of course I got in, but give me a break. Is it too much to ask to be nice?
I’ve learned that holding your speed and lane is generally just as fast as lane jumping. A few miles later, there were lane darters jumping across two lanes at a time on both sides just to get a few cars ahead. It’s just like children cutting in line just to be ahead of you, even if just by a place or two.
The problems with this are that it screws up traffic and caused a lot of people to hit the brakes. That is a traffic killer every time. I’ll give the Europeans this one. They know how to pass. It’s always on the left and if they are not fast, they drive in the right lanes.
The next childish behavior was people who don’t think the rules belong to them. The speed limit at the time was 70 and I get 75 MPH, but I was getting passed by people going at least 90. I have a brother in law that does this and I think that he’s a dick for being this impatient.
It’s proven that your probability of a crash or death goes up exponentially with speed above the limit.
I settled back to let them get away from me, half expecting them to be ticketed ahead or in a crash. I made good time and got to where I was going safely. I was glad to be done with it.
I could go on, but I’m sure everyone sees what I do and are either like me or like a child.
Give me a V-8 and some good regular gas any day. Read below that they are blowing up while being shipped.
In reality, they are battery powered. All the electricity is produces by oil and coal anyway. They aren’t fooling anybody but themselves. I guess they feel better about the environment by driving one, but then the climatards have been wrong all along. It’s just more bullshit they are trying to shove down our throats to make people comply. Well, we are not the borg, at least some of us.
In a tragic incident in Naples, Italy, a fatal explosion occurred involving an experimental hybrid electric car.
The vehicle was a Volkswagen Polo, a prototype used as part of a project called “Life-Save,” testing the possibility of combining an electric motor with batteries powered by solar panels in cars, a translated version of the Today Chronicle reported.
According to a report from Newsweek, the tragic accident claimed the life of researcher Maria Vittoria Prati and left trainee student Fulvio Filace with severe burns.
Both individuals were associated with the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche research institute and were traveling on the Naples ring road when the explosion took place.
Following the blast, the victims were rushed to the Antonio Cardarelli Hospital in critical condition.
Tragically, Maria Vittoria Prati succumbed to her injuries — burns that covered 90 percent of her body — on Monday.
The car involved in this incident was part of an ongoing research project on engine hybridization, undertaken by the Motor Institute of the CNR in collaboration with the University of Salerno.
Some have theorized that the explosion was due to some type of flammable material contained in the cylinders igniting; however, that has not been confirmed at this time.
Although the exact cause of the explosion has yet to be determined, hybrid and fully electric vehicles have faced safety concerns in the past, including instances of fires and explosions.
Such incidents have been observed with electric and hybrid cars, including certain Tesla models.
The incidents are becoming so common that some shipping companies are refusing to transport electric vehicles.
The dangers associated with EVs have also led to some governments taking actions to protect the public. It was reported last year that a state-owned public transport operator in Paris, France, the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens, pulled out 149 electric buses from its fleet after two of them spontaneously exploded within the same month.
The Public Prosecutor of Naples has initiated an investigation to shed light on the circumstances surrounding Friday’s explosion, Newsweek reported.
Meanwhile, Fabio Corsaro, cousin of Filace, expressed gratitude for the support provided by the medical team and questioned the decision to expose a trainee about to graduate in mechanical engineering to potential risks.
“I believe it is essential that it be clarified why a trainee close to graduation had been designated for that position to transport evidently dangerous material together with a researcher. What is the added value for an internship offered by such an activity remains a mystery,” he said.
Corsaro emphasized the need for a comprehensive understanding of the incident and its implications, as it remains a tragic event that has disrupted the dreams and aspirations of a young individual.
While disasters like these are disheartening, they serve as reminders of the challenges that come with new technology and innovation.
Why would you want to ride in a Ferrari when you can command such a beast around the roads? It would be like having the most beautiful girl in the world and not sleep with her.
At least the company headquartered in Maranello announced they won’t pollute the sanctity of their driving machines with this feature.
They caved to e-fuels, but the essence of the prancing horse will stay intact.
Self-driving Ferraris are not for us, Ferrari chief executive Ferrari Benedetto Vigna said Monday. “Lifestyle business is immportant for us,” Vigna said. “It allows us to expand links with our community.”
Vigna also welcomed plans to exempt cars that run on e-fuels from the European Union’s planned 2035 phase-out of new combustion engine vehicles as they will give the luxury carmaker “greater freedom” on its power systems.
COMBUSTION ENGINE EXCEPTION
The European Union and Germany have reached a deal allowing new cars powered by combustion engines (ICE) to be sold beyond the 2035 deadline, or 2036 for so-called small volume manufacturers like Ferrari, if they run on carbon-neutral e-fuels.
“The good news for us as a company is that on top of electric cars, we’ll also be able to go on with our internal combustion engines ones,” Vigna told a Reuters Newsmaker event.
“This decision is very interesting for us because it allows ICEs to go beyond 2036,” he added.
Ferrari, which is renowned for its powerful petrol engines, is already producing plug-in hybrid cars and has promised its first full-electric vehicle for 2025.
However, Ferrari, which sold over 13,200 cars in 2022, has never provided a roadmap for going all electric.
Presenting its new business plan last year, Ferrari said fully electric and hybrid models would make up 80% of those in its range by 2030, while 20% would still be powered by internal combustion engines.
“This does not change,” Vigna said. “We don’t want to tell clients which car to use. We want to make three kinds of propulsion available for them – hybrid, electric and ICE – and they will chose.”
SPENDING UNCHANGED
Vigna reassured investors that the company’s investment plans would not be affected by combustion engines getting an extended life, as Ferrari had already “embedded” this scenario in its business plan.
“The figure I gave (last year) – 4.4 billion euros ($4.7 billion) for capex in the 2022-2026 period – it’s enough for us to go ahead with electrification and also with ICEs which are compatible with e-fuels,” he said.
Vigna said Ferrari’s upcoming electric model would be “a unique car” but would not be drawn on details, adding that “keeping secret is part of the recipe.”
He added it was wrong to assume that specific forms of propulsion would match specific models in the future. Fuels are a mean to provide the performance expected from a Ferrari car, he said.
He said that the price of e-fuels, or synthetic fuels, was likely to come down as they are developed in coming years.
“They’re a new technology, and like for all new technologies they have time to become cheaper,” he said. ($1 = 0.9279 euros)
General Motors has announced the end of production for the sixth-generation Chevrolet Camaro for the 2024 model year. Another American muscle icon bites the dust — but Chevy says this isn’t the end of the road for the vehicle as we know it; we just have no idea what’s coming next. The final car will roll off the production line at the Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant in January of next year.
In the manufacturer battle, I never once pulled for a Camaro in Trans-Am, NASCAR, IMSA or any other series. I’d never buy one either. It doesn’t lower my respect for it as a good car, except for the gas war years when all cars got neutered.
I’ve followed them since 1968 because of Roger Penske and Mark Donohue. Those pony car days made for great auto’s and brand marketing. This includes the Mach 1 which I think is going away also.
One of my friends in college had the bad ass Z-28, sort of like this one.
He’s lucky he didn’t get killed on the run from Orlando to Haines City at over 100 MPH.
Not being a GM fan doesn’t mean I don’t respect it as a good car.
It’s a shame for GM to kill off such an iconic brand. Not one of the major manufacturer’s are making money on EV’s (other than Tesla) and they keep cutting their own throats with moves like this.
I’d never buy one, but you need good competitors to have a race. Chevy just took that away.
I find this interesting because part of the thrill of one of these ultimate driving machines is the sensory overload. The sounds and smells are as much a part of the thrill as is the rush of being pushed back into the seat when you push down the loud pedal (accelerator for the under educated).
I’ve been to races for 6 decades now. You can smell the exhaust, tires and hear it before you get to the track. You don’t get that from a station wagon or an SUV.
Even if I lost my vision, I’d only not be able to see how sleek and fast they look. My other senses would say it’s a real car.
Fortunately, even though it is ridiculous E-Fuels, at least they aren’t going to plug in a 911.
I still open the window of my car just to hear them drive away.
With many automakers transitioning from petrol-powered vehicles to electrified ones, Porsche and Ferrari are pursuing a new strategy by concentrating on the advancement of eFuels to preserve gas-powered engines. This decision follows the European Commission’s delay last week of the proposed 2035 ban on new internal combustion engine vehicles as the commission prepares to carve out a role for eFuels after 2035.
“Porsche and Ferrari’s status as national icons was enough to move their governments to challenge the EU plan last week just days before a scheduled vote,” Bloomberg wrote.
Germany’s Transport Minister Volker Wissing told the European Commission that he would withhold support for the approval of the new engine standards to end the sale of new combustion engine cars unless there were a plan for eFuels post-2035. Italy also threatened to fight the reforms.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday, discussing a comprise that would likely involve eFuels.
Germany and Italy are home to the world’s top sportscar manufacturers. There has been growing opposition against Brussels’ plan to ban petrol-powered engines. That’s because who in their right mind would purchase an all-electric Porsche 911?
The alternative route, mainly for sportscar brands, is the development of eFuels as a climate-neutral way to preserve combustion engines—just something about the sound of a twin-turbo V-8 or V-6 that captivates motorheads.
While most carmakers are pouring tens of billions into the EV shift, Porsche has also invested in an e-fuel plant in Chile, partly because the manufacturer doesn’t plan to make its 911 sports car with a plug. Operating combustion-engine vehicles in a climate-neutral way could also help speed up the decarbonization of the transport sector, according to a Porsche spokesman. Existing vehicle stock should be included in the push to lower CO2 emissions faster, he added. Ferrari has said it’s pursuing alternative fuels to keep making combustion-engine cars that preserve its heritage.
Proponents of e-fuels, say they’re essentially renewable electricity that’s been converted into a combustible, liquid fuel. To make it, scientists combine captured carbon dioxide with hydrogen that was split from water in a process powered by renewable energy, creating a synthetic hydrocarbon fuel. When burned in a combustion engine, the e-fuels create carbon dioxide. But since it was made from previously captured CO2, they argue it’s climate neutral.
We’ve outlined the growing resistance among vehicle brands and motorsport organizations that are firm in their belief the combustion engine will be sticking around for years to come.
Delusions of Adequacy 
