The United Auto Workers (UAW) contract with GM, Ford, and Stellantis will expire on September 14. The UAW demands are outright ludicrous. A strike appears likely.
UAW Demands
- 32-hour workweek
- 46 percent pay raise over 4 years
- Right to strike over plant closures
- Increased retiree benefits
- Defined pension plan for all workers
- Cost of living adjustments
UAW Declares War Against Corporations
Automotive News (paywalled) reports UAW President Shawn Fain readies membership for ‘war’ against corporations.
UAW Demands Would Add $80 Billion to US Carmaker Labor Costs
Bloomberg reports UAW Demands Would Add $80 Billion to US Carmaker Labor Costs
New contract demands made by the United Auto Workers union would add more than $80 billion to each of the biggest US automakers’ labor costs, according to people familiar with the companies’ estimates.
It would increase hourly labor costs to more than $150 per hour at Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co., including wages and benefits, up from the $64 an hour GM, Ford and Stellantis NV workers make currently, the people said.
‘A Slap in the Face’
Fain lashed out against Stellantis for its starting proposal in labor negotiations, calling it a “slap in the face” during a livestream on Facebook and accusing the owner of the Jeep and Ram brands of lying to its workers about how aggressive its asks are.
The negotiations come as US automakers are pouring tens of billions into designing and building EVs, while trying boost profits on conventional gas-fuel vehicles to pay for it. Fain has accused them of engaging in a “race to the bottom” in the transition to electric vehicles, with factories that will employ fewer workers making lower wages.
Into the Ash Can
Militant Unions
If GM, Ford, and Stellantis agreed to those demands, they would soon be headed for bankruptcy.
A 46 percent pay raise, increased benefits and a reduced workweek would be more like a 100% pay raise, if not more.
The union also wants guaranteed jobs despite the fact that EVs will be easier to manufacture, requiring fewer people. This is what’s behind the demand for a right to strike over plant closures.
Biden Urges UAW and Big Three Automakers to Reach Deal
CNN reports Biden Urges UAW and Big Three Automakers to Reach Deal
“As the Big Three auto companies and the United Auto Workers come together — one month before the expiration of their contract — to negotiate a new agreement, I want to be clear about where I stand. I’m asking all sides to work together to forge a fair agreement,” Biden said in a new statement Monday.
The White House has been closely monitoring the talks as the two sides appear far apart. The union is demanding significant pay raises of 40% or more for members to match increases in CEO pay at the companies over the last four years and a reversal of past concessions by the union.
The three contracts between the UAW and General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, which sells cars and trucks under the Dodge, Ram and Chrysler brands, are due to expire September 14.
Traditionally the UAW will select one of the three companies to go first and have the other two put on hold while it concentrates on reaching a deal, then the union will push for similar from the other two automakers as part of a “pattern.”
The UAW is pushing for an aggressive set of demands at the negotiating table, and has been critical of the Biden administration’s financial support for the transition to electric vehicles, arguing that the Biden administration has been overly supportive of automakers’ plans for EV battery plants that are expected to pay far less than union wages. Fain has publicly warned that UAW is prepared to strike, saying nearly 150,000 members will strike if the three automakers do not meet their demands.
In a nod to the UAW’s demands, Biden used the union’s “fair transition” to clean energy language.
“I support a fair transition to a clean energy future. That means ensuring that Big Three auto jobs are good jobs that can support a family; that auto companies should honor the right to organize; take every possible step to avoid painful plant closings; and ensure that when transitions are needed, the transitions are fair and look to retool, reboot, and rehire in the same factories and communities at comparable wages, while giving existing workers the first shot to fill those jobs,” Biden said in the statement.
The union is concerned about the plans by all three automakers to convert from traditional gasoline powered vehicles to EVs in the coming decades. it takes an estimated one third less hours of work to assemble an EV than a car with an internal combustion engine, since that engine and the transmission that goes with it has so many moving parts missing from an EV.
Fair Transition Hoot of the Day
What a hoot.
Biden crammed down highly inflationary regulations in an ill-advised push for EVs with no appreciation of either the costs or the benefits.
Now it seems that push will cost union jobs, so Biden and the unions want those jobs guaranteed whether they are needed or not.
This is despite the huge costs the auto manufacturers face to be part of this fool’s mission.
China Abandons Clean Energy Goals Making U.S. Efforts Painful and Pointless
This entire setup screams inflation in every corner.
Meanwhile, China Abandons Clean Energy Goals Making U.S. Efforts Painful and Pointless
Electric Vehicles for Everyone?
On July 19, I asked Electric Vehicles for Everyone? If the Dream Was Met, Would it Help the Environment?
My follow-up post was What Do MishTalk Readers Think About “Electric Vehicles for Everyone?”
A reader ignorantly commented “My Tesla S can easily over a hundred miles per gallon equivalent. As utilities get cleaner so does my car. ”
I replied: Well la de da.
Where did the minerals come from for your battery?
At what cost if everyone stupidly did the same?
At what environmental cost to extract the minerals?
At what cost to build the infrastructure so everyone can plug in?
A Word About Scaling
No one has ever scaled EVs to estimate the mining costs and infrastructure costs if everyone did the same thing.
Now we have a proposal to pay UAW members $150 an hour for doing nothing because these EVs will require fewer workers.
This is inflationary and environmental madness in every corner, from every angle.
Note about EVs… I have long thought that EVs (cars, trucks, etc.), not to mention smartphones, should have standardized and modular replaceable batteries, to allow background charging, longer ranges, no long waits at charging stations, etc. They should be easily swapped (like at a truck stop). And I just realized another benefit — they should be easily ejected — like if the battery catches fire, which happens too often, and could save the rest of the car, and likely be easier for firefighters to manage as well. Also new and better battery technologies could improve the car’s performance and range/longevity.
Sadly, all automakers are building disposable EVs that will clog junkyards.
Nah, EVs catch on fire an order of magnitude less frequently, than ICE vehicles per miles driven. (Obviously there’s less EVs, so in absolute terms they also rarely catch on fire compared to ICE.) Over 100,000 ICE vehicles catch on fire EVERY single year…why aren’t we yelling about that??? Because Internal COMBUSTION Engines are designed to have fire and heat around them…when they catch on fire…even if it burns that vehicle to the frame, it’s been happening for 100 years…no big news flash.
The ICE vehicles catch on fire ALL THE TIME…so much so it rarely makes the news, except your local evening news…but somehow a very few number of EV fires are INTERNATIONAL news. Nah, this is BIG OIL FUD. And now that more and more EVs are LFP chemistry…they have way more stable chemistry will do so even less frequently and last longer.
I agree that I DO think that it would be great if they could make modular batteries…but the Tech is probably changing (improving) too quickly to standardize for a durable good like that until they can come to some stability on battery size and type. Not likely to happen for the rest of the decade, although maybe China will continue to lead in that.
EV Batteries materials are over 90% recyclable and won’t be in junkyards. Too valuable per battery and Redwood Materials and others are already recycling Lithium based batteries.
I wonder what the energy and environmental impacts of such battery recycling are. And is it more or less economical than mining lithium, etc., and if so, how much so?
Lithium batteries for other applications have been around for many years, and I still haven’t heard much good news about their recycling being cost effective or popular; it has been hard to find any place that will even accept them for recycling. At least that’s my experience.
US auto manufacturers need to file an anti-trust suit against the UAW because their practice of negotiating with one company to establish a wage standard for negotiating contracts with the other two companies is monopolistic / anti-competitive. The fact the UAW straddles all three US car manufacturers with no competition is a de-facto monopoly.
Do the math on 10% inflation and 4 years of 6% inflation and you get 40% increase in prices and a 40% need for an increase in wages. Not to mention a few decades of wage suppression.
The 32 day work week will go. They had to ask for more and that was it. I don’t think defined pensions will make the cut either in this day and age.
The union knows workers are going to be replaced by robots, so go for what you deserve now.
KIAs are very popular in Chicago –
link to cwbchicago.com
Bicycles are the future.
A fool’s mission for sure. But, in their defense, these fools would not go gangbusters for EV’s if not for an implicit guarantee from the government. Customers are already being bailed out in the form of tax rebates. It won’t be long before the likes of GM and Ford will be recipients of government bailouts as well. Conceding to union demands will only speed up the process.
Can’t the corporate executives and UAW simply agree to sit around and do nothing in anticipation of more inevitable government (taxpayer) bailouts?
Doing stupid things will get them to the bailout much quicker than doing nothing. How else can you explain the behavior of US automakers?
There is a benefit to all this, corporations have become ridiculously greedy the last couple decades. It’s time to take the money out of the shareholder’s pocket and put it back into the peoples pocket.
Failure to comply = people being at work and not giving a shit. The worst and scariest attribute a person or population can have is “I don’t give a f**k”. Once you hit that, it’s game over. And the way the population is being treated, we are nearing that.
The only hope for the US auto industry is to spin off their EV divisions into their own companies. Don’t use union workers and not have dealerships. Let the old gas divisions go bankrupt.
What’s more likely to happen is they’ll let Chinese companies build their EVs for them. Won’t be nearly as profitable, but the alternative is certain doom. VW is going to do this. Ford just sold a big manufacturing plant in England and one in Brazil to BYD. BYD is going to make EVs at the plants. Fords plan is to fall back on selling pickups in the US, but that plan will fail. They can’t survive only selling pickups in the US.
The unions are going to grab what they can now, knowing in 5 years they all may be unemployed.
US Auto industry will be bailed out as many times as necessary by the Federal government until such time as they get EVs or whatever vehicle dominates the next 10 years correct.
2008 proved this with GM. They are ‘too important to fail’ in the same way that chip makers and Boeing etc are bailed out. They are too important technology wise to be allowed to fail.
Nah, “The US Auto Industry” is no longer the same as “The Big Three”.
Only Two of the “Big Three” are even US anymore. Stellantis owns Jeep / Ram and is a huge Global company.
Tesla and the other newer EV makers are growing fast and making EV’s which are growing fast.
Only GM and Ford are the ones that can’t seem to get their shite together.
GM used to sell 10 MILLION Vehicles per year only 6 or 7 years ago. Now they’re down by 40% Globally. As they continue to lose market share to Tesla, the New EV makers and foreign companies building Factories in the US, they will continue to shrink unless they get their stuff together.
At some point, GE, Sears, Motorola, Kodak, Xerox, IBM etc. all fade away as they’re replaced by better performing companies, who actually make use of new technology. There’s a reason that Apple is Bigger and More Profitable than IBM or any of the other computer makers. There’s a reason Amazon is dominating e-Commerce and Sears, K-Mart and almost every other retailer is down.
GM will either change or die out. Ford too. I have my guess that Ford will succeed, if they don’t screw up the Software part. But both of them could continue to shrink over the rest of the decade.
The secret recipe for Amazon, Tesla o Microsoft success is that their owners are the boss.
Who owns Ford or GM? Pension funds, some arab billionaires, investment banks from Swiss or Japan… The CEO, CFO and the rest are playing with another’s toy. They don’t care if all goes down the sink.
“…significant pay raises of 40% or more for members to match increases in CEO pay at the companies…”
This little discussed and not at all criticized detail explains what is happening in my opinion. The same thing is happening in France, with spectacular increases in the income of high-income senior executives, not at all justified by the results obtained. Moreover, in the event of poor results, it is never the fault of these leaders. We have even seen some of them obtain significant rewards for having betrayed their country, by actively participating in the desindustrialization of the country.
This is why car payments are $1000/month now.
I say replace them all with non-union robots.
You can’t blame workers when they have seen CEO pay skyrocket in recent years. You can’t.
Having have owned nothing but old beaters bought super cheap for cash all my life, I really know how vehicles work. In my various careers I have driven all kinds and sizes of machines too, often professionally.
I dread what the next generation of used car buyers is going to have to deal with. Fortunately, I know I can manage for myself.
You mean you haven’t bought into the scam of buying/leasing cars every 3 years? And then on top of that complaining that free enterprise is making you poor and that someone else should pay for your brand new Mercedes?
You may laugh, but I have heard this argument before.
I will just build my own car or ride a burro.
Is it unreasonable for workers (union or not) to expect that their pay at least keeps pace with inflation? I guess not.
The average new car price is up 35% in the last 5 years, how much more are the auto workers making? Their last contract had two 3% raises.
UPS workers sold out by agreeing to a contract that not only didn’t make up for the 25% inflation of the last 5 years, but only gives them 3% raises for the next 5 years, when inflation is bound to be higher than that.
Yet, UPS had no problem raising their rates more than inflation since 2018 and I’m sure will continue to do so.
I suspect if you read the fine print of the UPS contract, you’ll find workarounds which will allow them to pay far less than union workers realize. Like hardly anyone working over 30 hours/week.
WHAT?? They didn’t ask for a pink pony too? Man, UAW needs better representation.
What they provided was a list of things they cannot possibly get without bankrupting the auto dealers. The unions bankrupted Yellow. GM and Ford are next. In related news, Tesla goes full price war with more EV price cuts. Tesla has the legs to do it. Others do not.
Tesla has the best auto engineers in the world. They make the best cars and can do it far more efficiently than everyone else.
Their self driving is light years ahead of cruise and waymo. And no absurd looking sensors on the roof. Just normal cameras. They’ll be the first to have driverless taxis and make a fortune from it.
Driverless taxi’s already approved in San Fran and they aren’t Teslas but are in fact Cruise and Waymo – LOL
link to wolfstreet.com
I know and it’s been a disaster. That’s why I said it wouldn’t be them.
Driverless taxi’s already approved in San Fran and they aren’t Teslas but are in fact Cruise and Waymo – LOL
link to wolfstreet.com
There are already “Driverless Taxis” in operation and producing revenue.
But I agree that Tesla’s RT’s will be better responding to Real World Issues and not limited in Geo-Fenced areas that are “Hyper-Mapped”. The problem is less the Streets & Stop Signs and more the people, vehicles and construction, etc. that happens in major cities.
Tesla will continue to improve their Manufacturing Process / Factories at a blazing fast speed, compared to the rest of the Auto Industry though. Software is the Legacy Auto achilles heel, plus very little of the components are made in house, so subject to thousands of suppliers issues.
Same old, same old.
Union asks for the moon and three minor planets, company demands the repeal of the 13th Amendment and Right of the First Night.
Commence the haggling.
Since 2019. House prices are up 40%. Mortgage rates up 80%. Gas prices up 32%. Rent prices up 20%. Food prices up 25%.
Bidenomics
How absurd can things get?
The UAW wants the same conditions, eh, that German autoworkers enjoy. Asking for the same earnings increase that the CEOs enjoyed is propaganda, and persuasive. Except the automakers can’t pay such a raise to the workers. (Lesson to be drawn is that the CEOs work for the workers, not the shareholders, and should get much less pay than they currently do.)
The Environmental organizations’ leadership want an end to fossil fuel use NOW. Shortages and outages are a feature, not a bug. We all should have anticipated and prepared for this decades ago.
The Democrats say they are for the worker, particularly the lowest paid and unionized (or should be unionized) workers. Resort to government force so their constituents get better pay, and the rich must accept less. So must the rest of society.
The Environmentalist leadership anticipate mass unemployment and decreased standard of living. They will advocate for socialist Universal Basic Income, mass redistribution, so that it seems fairer.
We will look more like the U.K. Which is becoming an impoverished nation says ‘The Guardian’. Both our nations could join Cuba in experiencing ‘A Special Period in a Time of Peace’ of economic hardship. (Cuba since the mid-1990s.)
“The Environmental organizations’ leadership want an end to fossil fuel use NOW.”
What they want and reality are 2 different things. They also use what they demand end. It’s like the UK university students who demanded it divest from fossil fuel companies. They were upset when they were told that the heat could be shut of in the dorms in order to accommodate them.
There is only so much crap that people can put up with. Workers no longer believe in the free markets capitalism fable that if you work hard you will get to riches. You can only fool people up to a point, but the fuse eventually blows. Workers are told for decades that they cannot have rises because the company never reaches outsized shareholders returns. In the meantime, they see the pay of CEOs skyrocket. Fool me once …
Guessing you’re young. I watched the unions destroy Pittsburgh and Detroit. They’d be dead now if we taxpayers were not extorted to pay off the UAW under Obama.
You forgot ne Ohio. Take ride to Youngstown but wear Kevlar clothes.
Detroit won’t be missed. I never purchased an American car. I laugh at those who do.
We got us a patriot here!
It was never the auto workers that made the poor executive decisions at Ford, GM and the older Chrysler.
1.Who can ever forget that Demming was a national hero in Japan and an outcast in the USA.
2. Unsafe at any speed
3. The complete underestimation in the 1970s of Japanese autos.
4. Only baby boomers buy GM cars
There was enough blame on all sides … but the unions were far from innocent. And their extortion of the taxpayer thru Biden on EVs is unconscienable: link to pbs.org
This is dated and incorrect. There’s NO Union benefit for EVs. It’s whether it is made and the battery components / materials are made in the US. That Union thing did NOT pass.
Cheers!
Well if you live in another country you probably wouldn’t.
Well, what do you mean by “American car?” Honda, Subaru, and Toyota all build cars in the US, as does BMW.
More importantly, so does Tesla…which has the “Best Selling Vehicle” in the entire World. The Model Y is an “American Car” that’s now made in the US and all over the world.
The Best Selling Vehicle in the WORLD is an “American Car”, the Model Y. It passed the Toyota Corolla as the best selling vehicle this year.
That giant sucking sound is all the union jobs moving to Mexico. $240k/year in total compensation for a part time job in a factory. smh.
Same bs UPS. F & GM dumped inventory on the dealers before the strike.
Pickup trucks rot in the sun. They became bad items, they don’t move…
The average car payment is almost $800/m. F-150 EV for $130,000 plus extras.
Tesla battery is glued to the frame like skis, like snow boards. Any crack boot your Tesla.
It’s probably just helped the Fed decide on whether to pause hikes or not.
F & GM employees worked under an old contract during the high inflation.
UAW demand to be compensated for the lost income — while nonunion workers benefited from higher wages — and to preempt future inflation.
Sorry, I was in Pittsburgh when unions destroyed it. They also destroyed Detroit. They would have been worse had the taxpayer not been forced to bail out the UAW under Obama. Did you look at the numbers in this demand? Do you think there is a hope in he– that the companies can pay this and remain competitive. It only works if they continue to force the taxpayers to pay the unsustainable union demands.
Pitt is not doing too badly today, unions or not 🙂
The unions killed them, they re-invented themselves and rose out of the ashes as a largely non-union city. Any time a person starts a business and then a union comes in and says that the entrepreneur can only hire folks they approve of … that’s extortion.
Musk must be laughing now.
Too busy hiding from Zack.
He is coming to Zuck’s house to call him out so he is not hiding. Zuck just realized that Musk being bigger, stronger and used to fighting will kill him.
Biden could tell the UAW top-to-bottom that he’s living to take them down and they’d still vote Democrat. No sympathy whatsoever for any of the idiots involved.
Problem is the sympathy needs to go to us. What did Obama do when the UAW had contracts that were bankrupting companies … he had the taxpayer bail out the UAW thru several company subsidies and gov’t purchase of GM (Government Motors). So it would be funny and we could say they made their bed now they get to lie in it. Problem is, they made their bed now we get to lie in it. Look at the electric car kickbacks … only to union shops. Think this has to do with the fact that the unions donate only to progressives?
That’s incorrect. Tax credits go to any automaker that uses a certain percentage of the EV materials and battery made in the US. It increases the requirements for US or Friendly country sourcing.
That’s not what I heard from Mr. Musk or Mr. Biden. Even though Tesla sales are the 800 lb gorilla and they have huge US manufacturing plants … they were not eligible for the biggest part of the kickback as there was a union requirement.
Wrong…that didn’t happen.
They changed it to “Materials and components made in the US”. Tesla very eligible for it on most of their vehicles.
Just in case you thought Biden wasn’t extorting taxpayer money to kick back to the unions: link to pbs.org
PBS is not exactly a MAGA news source. They were celebrating the decision
This is OLD and from 2021. This did NOT pass in this form.
ANY vehicle made in the US, with a certain minimum % of US components and materials will be eligible for the EV credits.
Well, if lithium doesn’t destroy Detroit, the unions surely will.
Bankruptcy is indeed the end result for US automakers and inflation in car prices will result.
Maybe this is the US Federal Governments implicit way of forcing everyone into EV vehicles. By having the unions bankrupt the automakers who still build Internal combustion engines.
I think their strategy has been “aim for something ridiculous, then settle for what you can get”
Welcome back 70s. We have inflation, higher interest rates and now unions making crazy demands.
Still waiting for oil embargo and disco revival.
But seriously this could cause enviros to agree to a slower green energy transition. Which maybe everyone secretly wants anyway, or should.
I could do with another decent Star Wars movie.
Stop the nonsense. Nobody’s going back to the 70’s. You gonna get rid of your mobile phone and laptop and start playing your music on vinyl records and carry around a turntable with ya??
Several countries have ALREADY made the transition to EVs…they’re doing fine and they’ve got NO problems with Electricity or charging. The fact that people are acting like this is ALREADY happening and easy to see in Norway and other places is just downright silly. Want to see what the US will look like in 2030…Look at Norway right NOW. 90% New Plug-In Vehicle Sales. About 20% to 25% of their entire fleet is already EVs and by 2030 nobody will even be talking about this. It’s fine to take short term profits in OIL stock now…but make no mistake…this wave is coming…won’t be stopped…and just like dumb mobile phones switched to Smartphones in less than a decade…this switch is happening in the next decade. The US is only behind ALL other Developed Countries because BIG OIL has been greasing the pockets of the Politicians with SuperPAC Money for the last several decades. That’s coming to an abrupt halt because other countries (plus Tesla) have already started making EVs at exponentially increasing scale…while ICE vehicles are falling off a cliff globally.
Lol. Norway’s population is a tiny fraction of the US, and in June alone Toyota produced more vehicles than Tesla has produced in the first half of this year. I agree EVs are the future because they are more efficient mechanically, but whether that happens by 2030 or 2050, whether we will get the holy grail of solid state batteries or not, and whether the electricity used to power the cars will be from green sources or fossil fuels, it’s too early to tell.
But please keep shorting oil and giving the rest of us a higher dividend yield.
Toyota is doomed. As is the entire Japanese auto industry. They still sell the most cars, but they sell far less than they used to. They don’t know how to make an EV and it will take too long for them to figure it out. Solid state batteries are a pipe dream for them as is hydrogen powered cars.
“They don’t know how to make an EV and it will take too long for them to figure it out.”
A high school class of not-unusually-slow kids, know how to make an EV. Doing so, has been trivial since before 1900.
Which is exactly, and exactly only, why the backmarkers, and only those backmarkers, who are too incompetent to have a shot at the much more competence demanding building of competitive real cars, are the only ones promoting, and falling over themselves salivating over, BEVs.
Toyota can build real cars. No need for them to play around with dumb nonsense whose only real purpose is enriching childbrained dilettantes who can’t do anything more than preen around pretending to be some sort of “visionary” “founder” or “investor.” All three, pretty much without fail, nothing but direct synonyms for “idiot” by now, by the way.
“Norway” differentially subsidises BEVs to the tune of up to hundreds of percent. Runs what may well be THE single most intensive national indoctrination operation in all of history. And produces enough oil per miniscule capita to make the Saudis blush. Hence can afford to pay billions upon billions chasing braindead follies, without obvious imediate suffering in absolute terms. It’s a country where effectively everyone is equally Oil Sheik. And equally starry eyed.
Over there, a lowly V6 Camry costs $50K more than a Tesla. If Americans could pick up a Tesla for $50K less than what a Camry costs in the US, Americans would buy Teslas like Norwegians as well. Heck, some may even accept having to eat lutefisk as part of the deal.
But in ANY country without such differential subsidies, general-use BEVs don’t sell to anyone who cares even one iota about what they get in return for their money. There may be some sales to the fashionably stupid, but when that niche is sated, fat chance.
No different from any other “field”: Batteries for energy storage, only makes sense at small scales. They sure beat gas engines for powering cell phones. As well as kickscooters/birds. And Pedelecs. Probably, by now, golf cars. As well as, quite possibly (hard to tell due to the distortions imposed by the illiterate idiots cheering BEV, BEV!!!), for dedicated, urban, shorter range cars. While for long range, high energy draw vehicles like OTR trucks, they’d need oil prices in the thousands per barrel, to have even half a shot at viability.
But, as noted above, the sole and only reason they even exist in any numbers, is that they allow incompetents; who are far too dumb to hack it at competitively producing anything hard, but who are on the Fed/Junta’s connected list; to pretend they are some sort of useful life form. Endless reams of retards “investing” in one trivially obvious idiocy after another; then made whole, or more, by subsidies and mandates 100% stolen from their infinite betters.
The guys at Toyota can mostly read. Even count. And noone, nowhere, who can both read AND count (gasp!!!) would ever fall for the nonsense that batteries, of all silly things, will ever be some sort of viable substitute for hydrocarbons across the lot of the transportation infrastructure.
Oh brother. EVs way outperform gas cars. It’s not even close. Tesla Model S plaid is the fastest production car today and only costs $110k.
And if they’re so easy to make, how come only Tesla and BYD make a profit off them?
US is 90/10 ICE. The US auto industry would be out of business without ICE vehicles funding the EV transition. A transition to 90/10 EV would require Ford and GM to cut production of highly profitable ICE vehicles in favoring of building highly unprofitable EVs. You won’t find a CEO in American who is willing to do that.
I hope the Norwegians build good cars because the US auto industry will be shut down under the 90/10 scenario.
If the US auto industry doesn’t figure out how to make EVs for a profit and sell them worldwide, they’ll be done. ICE cars are like VCRs when DVDs came out.
Correct.
Although Tesla is part of the US Auto Industry. So is Rivian and has Bezos Money backing them.
They need to speed it up but both of these will do / are doing well.
Ford has fewer models…so SHOULD be able to make the changes, if they don’t screw up the F-150 Lightning and can get a couple of their SUVs that are solid BEVs.
Although ICE cars are more like Dumb Mobile Phones when Smartphones came out. They were better and you could use them immediately. By the end of the decade, ICE won’t be asked for anymore, except for a few diehards. The OIL Companies and OPEC+ will keep trying to stifle the amount of OIL being pumped and delivered and keep the Gas Prices High…which will continue to drive more people to EVs.
The cost of materials for EV vehicles is huge. So is their price. If the EV vehicles are so great why do they need subsidies? Let the market decide, not the government. The problem of our time is not left vs.right, is government paws into everything. Every time government intervenes in the market something bad happens. The task of the next president (hopefully Trump ) is to SHRINK THE GOVERNMENT! and stop every three letter agency regulating every little minutiae of our lives.
My parents bought a ford escort new in 1987, 8 thousand dollar, now the rebate is that. Government might be going for broke.
Nobody cares about 1987 prices. Most things cost more now compared to then by a good margin.
You are wrong, there is no ‘wave’ just government mandates, not the market. Is the soviet politburo deciding how many cars to produce, communism in disguise.
It is not Voluntarism pushing EVs in Norway or anywhere else: it it purely, verifiably, the Globalists’ hatred of human “mobility” to blame, with every single global-level automaker onboard so as not to anger their nefarious masters. The marxists @ the UAW, et al., are just making useless noise: they are not on the side of the schmucks building conventional means of transportation, and never have been.
You can only force companies to pay sandbag workers for so long. Eventually they’ll find a way to run out of money.