GM Woke

By
eric
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If Bruce can transition into Caitlyn then GM can do basically the same thing – with the difference being Bruce probably paid for his own surgery.

GM is going to want your “help” paying for its transition.

In a few days, you’ll see what you’ll be paying for. The shaved Adam’s apple; the . . . augmentation. And the removal.

Behold!

The electric Hummer.

It is GM’s virtue-signaling plea for forgiveness. The bad ol’ GM wants you to forget all about those “gas guzzling” Hummers it made back in the early 2000s. It will now make a time-guzzling electric version of the same thing. Which is just as wasteful, by the way – but in a way that’s acceptable today.

But far more obnoxious.

The original Hummer never feigned virtue. It was what it was – and didn’t pretend to be something it wasn’t. This electric Hummer? Could the effrontery be more spectacular? It’s just as large, probably much heavier – as all EVs are, due to its massively heavy battery pack. Which is massively heavy because the massive vehicle it’s powering needs probably three times the power necessary to propel a Corolla-sized car.

And to provide five-times Corolla power.

Is power produced without “carbon”? The power used to extract the materials that go into a twice-as-large as necessary – for basic transportation – electric battery? The power generation necessary to feed a battery that’s three times as powerful as necessary . . . for basic transportation?

How much less is the range because of all that weight? How sooner must the massive battery pack be recharged?

How about those massive tires? Twice – probably three times – as much rubber (made from oil and made using power) as is necessary for tires for basic transportation. How much unnecessary metal, plastic and glass goes into the Woke Hummer?

It’s all very unnecessary … and thus, wasteful. The same opprobrium directed at the original – but with an important difference. The original never presented itself as saving anything. Its wastefulness was honest.

The electric Hummer’s is grotesquely the opposite.

It is presented as the antidote to an alleged problem – “climate change” – which is now alleged to be a “crisis” but plainly isn’t. If it were, something like the electric Hummer – and anything like a Tesla – would be prima facie evidence of lunacy or a species of arrogant indifference that makes driving a 9 MPG gas-powered Hummer seem an act almost worthy of beatification in comparison.

Work it out.

If the “climate” is in “crisis” – that being something very serious and imminent – then there can be no allowance of anything more than the minimum necessary in terms of energy used and carbon produced. An electric Hummer guzzles no gas but it consumes a great deal more in energy and raw materials than is necessary – both to make it and to sustain it. This is a fact, inarguable.

And if the “crisis” is real, it is inexcusable.

Also insufferable.

The Wokebots cheering the performance of EVs – “Ludicrous Speed” in the case of cars and herculean (if short-lived) towing grunt in the case of electrified gigantic SUVs and trucks – are cheering an acceleration of the “crisis” . . . if the “crisis” is real. Use their own logic against them since it’s plain they’re cognitively incapable of noticing their own hypocrisy.

Their own wanton profligacy.

If “carbon” is killing the planet then less rather more must be the goal – from everyone. You cannot have your Ludicrous Speed (and 22-inch M/S tires and 6,500 pounds of curb weight) and save the planet, too.

The problem, of course, is that the “crisis” is manufactured . . . a marketing scam designed to restore the status quo ante of mobility unaffordability for the masses, as existed before the equalization of mobility – when cars (as coaches before them) were for the affluent only by dint of the fact that only the affluent could afford them.

Along came people like Henry Ford and Alfred P. Sloan (founder of General Motors) Walter Chrysler and others like that – who made cars for everyone by making cars anyone could afford.

Eventually, almost anyone could afford luxury – and performance – which had been the exclusive pleasure of the affluent.

As this columnist has had the bad manners to mention on prior occasions, ordinary people can buy cars that perform in rough parallel – with exotic cars. Are essentially just as luxurious as half-million-dollar cars… for a fraction of half-a-million.

This is a problem for those who regard themselves as exotic.

The Special People.

The EV was created just for them. No sacrifice of performance; indeed, more performance (even if less enduring). And much more exclusivity – by dint of its much higher cost. Which keeps the cattle away. And thereby restores the status quo ante – while allowing the Special People to preen as virtuous.

It is the same sort of virtue as Divine Right – the doctrine which held in times past that other Special People were ordained to rule – and their opulence merely a reflection of their virtue.

It’s not a coincidence that the electric Hummer is the product of a company run by someone taking home a $22 million paycheck- annually. A sum – adjusted for inflation – that Henry Ford probably never took home or which at least took him more than a year to take home.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a large paycheck – provided it doesn’t require forcible extractions from other people’s pockets.

Hers does.

And her effronterous virtue signaling is cause for ball peens hammers and baseball bats, applied to this electric egregiousness posturing as virtue.

. . .

Got a question about cars, Libertarian politics – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!

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  2. A Cop Who Woke Up (And Becomes a Real Hero)
  3. GM 2008 H3 owner
  4. If “Emissions” Actually Mattered . . .
  5. Tax By Mile Goose Steps Forward

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179 COMMENTS

        • Hi Chuck,

          I have Ben the Computer Guy looking into all of this; I think the Chinese gibberish is excised but the comments on the main page are still offline. We are – as they used to say in the space program – working the problem.

          • I must have not got the whole definition of “clover.” Thought that was pretty much a synonym for incompetent. A clover hacker?

            Hang on…I *am* seeing it now. There *are* massively competent incompetents out there, everywhere.

          • Probably the best you can do and I have no right to complain, but the new comments list with just name and article are pretty worthless. I have no idea if it’s interesting or if I’ve read it already.

            • Hi Anon,

              I know – blame the malware peddlers and hackers. The graffiti artists of the Internet. Sigh. I’m caught in a pincers. A full-time computer guy – and a custom web site – would greatly reduce all these problems… but that gets into money . . . which I haven’t got. I could get the money if I whored the site out to “content” providers and so on. But then I’d no longer want to do this… and you’d no longer want to read this… and they ask my why I drink!

              • Hey Eric, don’t sweat it! It’s the content that’s important. Your message gets through; we can all converse here; it works; it looks good….the rest is just frills.

                Personally, I think “the simpler, the better” (Just like cars!)- Loved the internet back in the 90’s, when every semi-literate with a phone line and a 56K modem had a website. They may’ve been crude and simple…with frames and radio-button navigation….but as long as they worked and had something worthwhile to say, they were great….and they were uncensored and unfettered.

    • Kitty, although there certainly have been legitimate problems to be addressed, the entire environmental movement has been a haven for lying communists, socialists, and various sundry statist control freaks from its inception. In fact, right out of the starting gate the EPA did an unwarranted hatchet job on DDT. This resulted in millions of agonizing deaths due to malaria in turd-world countries who took the American agency on its word, not having the resources to do their own analysis. (Heck, many environmentalists consider the human race to be a plague which needs to be severely curtailed or eliminated. Of course they never volunteer to off themselves in order help to save Mother Earth.)

      The entire “climate change/globull warming” scenario is a sham that turns into a tissue of lies on close examination. It is being aggressively pursued since it gives governments virtually unlimited power and vastly increased ability to impose wealth confiscation. In other words, a politician’s wet dream! Then there is the U.N. which was created to ultimately become the seat of global governance. Clearly they see this as the issue that will propel them into that role. For rank and file useful idiots it has practically become a religion.

    • Hi Kitty,

      Yup – but the trouble is it’s not about “the science.” It is about religion. It is about neurosis. A new End Times cult has been established, very much like Heaven’s Gate – only it’s a mass cult this time. They await their Hale Bopp, which is due to arrive in 2030. When it does not… will they all put on their pajamas and eat yogurt saturated with enough barbiturates to kill a horse… and “shed their containers”?

      Here’s hoping…

      • Mankind has been at war with nature from the beginning. Nature started it. Nature wants to kill mankind. Mankind does what it can to survive. There’s a great old Far Side cartoon where two crocodiles are sitting next to some torn clothing talking. The caption reads something like “Wow, that was great! No claws, no big teeth or hard shells, just soft skin and meat!”

        And once we get a little ahead in the game, we’re somehow preprogrammed to think the good times will come to an end. Because for millions of years it did. Abruptly. Some other creature would get to our food before we did. The ice would be too thick to get through. Or too thin to stand on. Even though every other time it was fine.

        That’s nature.

      • Morning Eric,

        As I’ve said before, there are two groups who push climate hysteria. One, the power elite, is very small and is well aware that it is a false narrative, pushed to achieve a different end: power, wealth and control. The other, much larger group, is made up of useful idiots who genuinely believe the narrative and cannot see that they are being used. You almost have to admire the bastards who created this narrative. I mean, the brazenness and sick humor of it; the most profoundly anti science narrative I’ve ever seen, peddled with religious zeal to those clamoring for a new God (Nietzsche was onto something), is considered disinterested science; those who see through the scam, maligned and “cast from the temple” as heretics and deniers.

        It is a narrative tailored perfectly for the liberal progressive, most of whom have responded to the “death of God”, by unconsciously embracing the new God; to it they submit, and see it as the vehicle through which their moral virtue is expressed. These progressives are being manipulated, by the same people, for the same reasons, as conservatives are by the “terrorism” narrative (which includes the false “war on cops” narrative). This, perfectly tailored for the traditional conservative, most of whom accept that the State (but only the US), is ordained by God to enforce his will, submit to this proxy God and often worship its enforcers, cops and soldiers.

        “Climate” hysteria is to the Left, as “Terror” hysteria is to the right.

        Cheers,
        Jeremy

        • Jeremy, well said. If someone denies the climate is changing they would be wrong but not for the political motives it’s pushed off on us. I’d hate to see climate Not change. I take a missive called geoengineering watch and they use real stats.

          When they had the fires a year or two back in Ca. there is a video made by a woman who shows what looks to be some sort of cloud but the wind is very high and it just hangs over the country like fog and shines. It’s aluminum via our govt. ordered to do so by TPTB.

          Yes, the earth is warming. It does that sometimes and it cools sometimes, just ask the 2/3 of the population that died back during the mini-ice age in starting around 1300 AD. At leas it’s going the right direction for most species when it’s warming. But mankind has nothing to do with it. In 2018 we witnessed the largest flare toward the earth in recorded history. Ol Sol can burn you up just doing what is normal for it.

          Politicians think too much of themselves to doubt the narrative fed to them. Cue Forrest’s mother.

    • Sir, you do a disservice to the autistic by that comment. They can’t help it. I presume that she ‘could.’

      Though I don’t disagree with your intent. 😉

    • Some people who seem to be in a position to know say that Greta Twatberg has fetal alcohol syndrome, not any significant degree of autism. They point to her facial features as evidence of FAS.

      Someone with Asperger’s, as she is claimed to have, would not be likely to stand before crowds and give speeches. I’ve worked with Aspies and can vouch for their inability to handle such social interactions.

      What we have here is yet another young person with handicaps that affect their ability to think and reason whom the “watermelons” (green outside, red inside) have mercilessly exploited. The Left targets such children.

      • & the wrong (not right) creates such children. But the wrongs were, & are, similarly created, too.

        Localizing causes & effects – that fundamental attribution error, that cogdis drive — is local anesthesia that interlocks, rolls up, all localities into the one world o’ Hurt.

        Kathleen Turner overdrive.

        Sonic death monkey see\do, hear no speak no go-go-go….

        …but Cheers, where everybody knows your name, is glad you came…

        …& even Costanza – a shower about nada, indeed…

        …& the guy who trained the 1st blooder, then mercy-killed him {in the novel – tsk, tsk, tsk what a sequel wrecker-bummer that was} – it’s “his” “will” that’s been wile’d here…

        …the faces & the names & the words kaleidoscope but the action is the action is the action…

        …problems with the will, indeed; not least of which being the religious instruction-belief that there is such a thing, or more precisely that all Will•iam•s Tell it what to do:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHNj3xJS89o
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJdktl3kWK8 Who kilt Marvin Gaye? Oh yeah, that’s right….

      • Given that the Swedes have among the highest rates of alcoholism in the world…I’d say that’s about right, Ekrampitz.

        I think that’s what half of these modern “diseases” really are- just the effects of degenerate lifestyle/choices, whether of the afflicted, or their ancestors. It used to be “Bubba ain’t quite right, ’cause his mama had a little too much moonshine before she popped him”. Now, instead, Bubba has a gaggle of diseases and “syndromes” and “behavioral problems”, and his drunklen mama can get a check for him while he’s growing up……’cause he’s “disabled”.

        It ain’t just the lefties or the watermelons who work on the kids- all who rule or seek to rule make propagandizing the kids top priority, ’cause if ya get ’em young, they’ll believe whatever crap you indoctrinate them with for the rest of their lives.

        • Hi Nunz,

          Yup! There is a saying attribute to the Jesuit priest Loyola: Give me a child for the first ten years and he is mine for life. Or words to that effect. The concept being to stunt the child’s capacity to reason – in favor of rote (and feeling). Voila – the Social Justice Warrior.

          • AHhh! Thanks, Eric! I knew it was originally a Calf-lick what uttered that quote…but couldn’t remember which one- (I was almost gonna say pope Bonerface :D).

            I believe one’a the old Soviet Rooskies also liked to parrot that quote- methinks either Lenin or Trotsky*?

            [*=born: Lev Davidovich Bronstein…..]

      • They use children in so many ways. This Greta is a human shield. It’s so they can argue their agenda and then say anyone who disagrees is attacking a child. It’s despicable.

        I think coerced collectivism of the left is fundamentally an exploitation of people who aren’t well wired for institutional climbing. The sort of social functioning that often falls away when a person is good at more technical things. Or then again maybe that’s more a modern thing due to modern medical practices damaging certain people but not or more than others. Who knows.

        • Hi Brent,

          I agree, it’s despicable – but it’s also the ineluctable result of “debate” based on feelings. Greta is a child. Precisely. She cries and stamps her feet. She is outraged when she does not get what she wants. She is the living apotheosis of modern leftism.

          • Oh I tease the feelings tune, too. But those ain’t the bathwater & the other the baby, after all. It ain’t fishin’ or cuttin’ bait – it’s both, simultaneously. Take away either & you’re da’fish, & da’bait, no debate.

            Or, like Kilmer’s Holiday way o’ sayin’, “You’re no daisy, no daisy at all.”

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=1gc1ecVy9aI

            Lots of stuntwo\mans gin up concepts that get ‘em injured, maimed, killed even. The notion that some Prussian Pavlovian Skinner can own every kid is itself rote. Countering contra-examples abound. Catholic boy George Carlin, for one. The story arc, imitating life, in Ray Donovan, for another (he killed the priest that sexmolested his brother, & him.)

            A considerable blind(but still felt)spot of the rote•o riders is the garrote•o shadow they know – heart of darkheartness, sub\unconscious, whatever – is always sneaking up on ‘em from behind. That terror’s prolly, almost certainly, the fuel cell o’ their fervor.

            “Charlie don’t surf” but “neither” do insufferable col Kurtz & the boys, incl that napalm sniffer…but Charlie did wind up with the “whole” surf&turf buffet. Little ol’ yeller dingos in Hefner lover\fighter pj’s & sandals…who sez Charlie don’t surf?

            Here’s something interesting, & observational comedy corroborating:

            “Timing Is Everything?”

            “We still need to account for the fact that tameness resulted in all these correlated changes. In what way are tameness & floppy ears connected? To say simply “pleiotropy” is not a sufficient explanation; this particular form of pleiotropy must itself be explained. To better understand this connection, we need to examine how tameness & floppy ears are developmentally linked.

            It is noteworthy that many of these alterations, such as floppy ears & curled tails, are typical traits of fox pups — & wolf pups as well. The same could be said of many of the behavioral alterations. Wild fox pups are more likely to seek human company than are wild fox adults, & not solely for lack of conditioning or learning. Some of the difference between infant & adult foxes can be traced to the physiological maturation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which underlies the stress response. Once the stress response is developed, foxes react to humans — & other foxes – with more fear & aggression. The development of the fear response in particular marks the closure of the socialization window. This is true of other canines as well.

            Several hormones are involved in the stress response; the levels of many of these hormones were altered by selection for tameness in ways that suggest a general dampening of the stress response in domesticated foxes relative to farm foxes. Stress hormones of one type, the glucocorticoids – a family of hormones that includes cortisol – were especially altered by selection for tameness. Tame foxes had substantially lower cortisol levels than did the farm foxes.

            So, many of the adult traits of domestic foxes & dogs may result in changes of the timing of certain key developmental events – a phenomenon known as heterochrony (hetero = “different”; chrony, as in “chronological” = “time”). There are two basic forms of heterochrony; the form observed in the farm fox experiment – which results in retention into adulthood of traits characteristic of earlier developmental stages – is called “paedomorphosis” (“infant form”).

            There are three distinct avenues to paedomorphosis: 1. Postdisplacement: delaying the onset of the trait’s development; 2. Neotent: slowing the rate of the trait’s development; 3. Progenesis: speeding up sexual maturation relative to the trait’s development.

            At least two may have occurred in the farm fox experiment.

            The tame foxes reached sexual maturity about a month before the farm-reared foxes did (progenesis). At the same time, the development of the HPA axis was retarded or decelerated in tame foxes relative to farm foxes (neoteny &/or postdisplacement). A similar retardation occurred in ear, tail, & skeletal development. Even the seemingly uncanny ability to read human intentions may simply manifest another retained juvenile trait: the close attention fox pups pay to their mother’s behavior.

            It seems, then, that general physical & psychological development of silver foxes was significantly slowed, & reproductive development accelerated, by selection for tameness. As a result, the adult tame foxes came to resemble the early developmental stage of their untamed ancestors. The genetic changes may have involved just a few genes, regulating a few key hormones that affect developmental rate.

            The search for candidate genes commenced only recently. Of particular interest will be genes & nongenic DNA sequences that influence the regulation of stress-related hormones. Glucocorticoids, for example, influence every physiological system in the body, from blood to bones. The pituitary precursor peptide for corticotrophin, which regulates the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands, also affects many types of cells during development, including melanocytes, which are responsible for dark pigmentation. Here then is a possible link between tameness & hair color. Lyudmila Trut, who took over supervision of the fox project after Belyaev died, proposed that glucocorticoid levels influence the development of many other traits as well, through their coordinating effects on the timing of multiple developmental processes.

            Belyaev had the foresight to create a complementary line of foxes in which he selected for an intolerance of human proximity, the opposite of tameness. Over the years, these foxes became increasingly hostile to humans, growling, snarling, & lunging when humans approached. In essence, they became wilder than wild foxes. But the wilder-than-wild foxes showed none of the correlated changes in behavior, physiology, & anatomy associated with the selection for tameness.

            It is worth emphasizing that all this evolutionary change probably occurred in the absence of new mutations. Rather, successful selection for tameness was achieved solely with what evolutionists call standing genetic variation – that is, the genetic variation already existing in the population of foxes at the outset. But prior to selection, much of this genetic variation was cryptic, invisible to natural selection. In Belyaev’s view, this cryptic genetic variation, which accumulated because of previous stabilizing natural selection, was subsequently exposed by destabilizing artificial selection. This newly exposed genetic variation is why selection for tameness was successful absent any mutations.” ~~ Domesticated – Evolution In A Man-Made World, Richard Francis

        • There’d be no institutions to climb were it not for the hordes of well-wired not to climb. The scum’s gotta’ be floated up by somebody. Lots & lots of en-we’d somebody’s.

  8. Electric hummer got me to humming:

    I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road
    Searchin’ in the sun for another overload
    I hear you singin’ in the wire, I can hear you through the whine
    And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

    Which flashes – arcs – to “…for 15,000 years fraud & short-sighted thinking have never, ever, worked. Not once…”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpCb3xjh-Kk The Big Short, indeed.

    Here’s what the Baum character missed, his – even someone portrayed as being as hardboiled as him – “founding father” (“we were better”) routine :

    The primary purpose of language is deception.

    In the jungles, other wilds, other animals lean on all kinds of camouflaging & mimicry to gain whatever advantage.

    In humannimal, it is language that serves those camouflage & mimicry functions.

    But the kicker is the ordering. Self-deception comes first. Not willfully, but naturally.

    Takes a heluva reproduction rate to overcome that design hobble, & the self\other-sacrificial cannibalism it gins up.

      • Could say that parallels the continued “rewarding” of not shunning all the fraud. Like the guy said, “15,000 years.”

        This present to that past does indeed also include every bit of american history.

        What the repetition compulsion to defraud seems to hinge on is most believing they’ll be seated when, each time, the music stops. That belief seems to be borne out in spades.

        Question is is the deck, once again, getting too many – stacked – spades in it? That happens, too, & it prolly shocks hell outta’ them that just know “real estate’s rock steady & never goes down,” to put it one way…or that the guillotiners can’t ever become the guillotined, to put it another.

  9. This EV Hummer is as you suggest, just a PR gimmick. Few will be sold, mainly to Hollywood virtue signalers and similar others elsewhere. Where are you going to recharge those batteries off road? Or near wilderness? If not driving there, why have a Hummer (other than to intimidate other gangsters?)

    Like Teslas, a lot of things being sold these days are for too-affluent consumers who want to display their love of Nature, etc. Facts are not important to these purchases. No matter how expensive.

    Joaquin Phoenix brags about saving the planet when he re-wears his (given to him for advertising) tuxedo worn at various award shows. Oh, and don’t fly your private jet 150 miles to Palm Springs! Tokenism is all the rage. Too much money and too little knowledge. Not new, just in different forms. That Trump stock market bonanza has fueled consumerism but not raised anyone’s IQ.

  10. Eric,
    Speaking of GM. (long post incoming)
    I was on the lot over the weekend of the local Chevy dealer to buy an oem replacement door handle for my 13′ truck. I tried the chinese $13 handle from Rock Auto and it didn’t line up correctly so I gave in and went to get the real thing. Previous rock auto handles worked fine, but I noticed had more plastic. I purchased the handle for $98 (another chevy dealer wanted $128…) and went home. I had the rock auto handle on half way for two days to manage for the wife to get the kids in and out and was taking it off that day. I pulled the OEM replacement out and low and behold, it was entirely plastic too, just like the chinese knock off. I was floored, but not shocked. The original broken handle that I tossed earlier had metal parts and arms for the door lift. The replacement GM one had all plastic, nearly identical to the chinese one. It had “gm authentic parts” stamped on it though so that is where the markup came from. I returned the part the next day back to the dealer. I figured out my installation error and got the chinese handle to work, for $13 compared to GM’s $98. But while I was there returning the part I went and took Brazos jr to ogle at the new “angry grill” 2500’s.

    This is a fairly large chevy dealer, probably in top 5 in Houston for volume size I figure. I got one of the low brain salesmen to open a LTZ 2500 for me to look around. Sticker price $75k for a diesel and all it had was some vinyl leather seats and a bed liner, nothing fancy to justify the price. But oh God did it have cameras and all kinds of electronic features on it. the salesman showed me how it has a back up alert system now that blinks your tail lights 3 times if the radar detects approaching cars while the truck backs up. Wonder how many developers with master’s degrees it took to come up with that in Detroit? I said the prices are way inflated compared to older vehicles and he agreed. While standing around with this guy a car hauler pulled up to dump off 8 more 1500 silverados. The salesmen put on a greasy smile to impress me with some facts. “We have over 1400 trucks for sale on our books and the car hauler comes everyday to drop off more. We have 2 overflow lots (points down the street, and then behind the dealer).” One of these lots is an abandoned strip center with a new fence installed by the dealership where new cars sit in overflow, probably 300 or so. Then another lot is 1 mile from the dealer on an access road that is an abandoned office park or something with a big parking lot. I suppressed the urge in me to tell the salesman he had a f-ing problem then if they needed overflow lots to store new vehicles that no one is buying. A similar dealership 4 miles from there (chevy) has a similar problem and has had the same demo crew cab truck up on their spinning podium for 7 months, listed at $27k* in giant stickers. Apparently no one wanted it. It brought to mind channel stuffing. It seems GM is exploding at the seems in new products THEY are super hyped about but not the consumer. This is even for their best selling truck lines and not even their garbage EV programs. If channel stuffing is this bad now, what will it be like when the God-Child EV truck/car arrives on the lot ready for suburban boob mom/man to buy it? Even the lowest American luddite hasn’t latched onto the EV teet otherwise they would be flying out the door right? On top of that, new cars aren’t selling for some reason. Price, too much debt, consumer preference. Media and Nomenklatura can scream and howl all they want about the future being adopted today but they haven’t reached a point to force us at gun point to buy the garbage yet. (i personally think the new silverados are shit cans). A massive lack in demand in CARS altogether will take the wind out of the sails of the EV push also. Like a fever killing off the cold virus in your head, it is painful but needed. It will kill regular cars too, painful but needed. GM and other virtue signalers have bet the farm on EV adoption with the rough nudging of uncle Scam and company but the bridge product between here and there is collapsing fast and hard. You have written many times before the sales of current ICE’s are paying for the loss generating EV’s of tomorrow. What happens when the ICE’s don’t sell and your Moody’s debt rating starts to crumble? That reality is playing out before us as Carmageddon 2.0 happens again. So much in loans and credit was taken out for GM’s new products and redesigns. But what happens when GM can’t repay those loans? Massive cuts and gutting. Other than the robotic fan boys cheering on ASS being in their car and some 10 speed tranny and the C8 vette, Johhny American ain’t buying it anymore. Long story short, I witnessed first hand that channel stuffing is happening in real time. We all know what happened last time that happened in 2008.

      • Several years ago I went pickup hunting, not for a new one but a low mileage used one. It became obvious the home computer and a phone would reduce my time and price trying to find a long bed. I found a few used ones, beat to shit for the most part and appeared every mile had pulled a gooseneck. Probably a good one or two in the ones I found but WHICH one or two? Besides, none had gold plating nor Cordova leather…..but some, by the price, should have.

  11. This is beyond silly.
    But. most people who buy “pickups” today don’t really need one, and many (or most) 4WDs never leave the pavement. What’s next? EV charging stations in wilderness areas?
    Can’t exactly tote a few Jerry cans full of electrons if you decide to explore the outback.
    I still drive my 1989 F150, bought brand new for cash.
    300cid straight six, Botg-Warner T18 (3 + granny).
    Single cab, long bed.
    Sides of the bed on my ’89 are nearly a foot lower than those on a new Ford.
    Makes a big difference if you use your pickup truck as a pickup truck.

    • And that 300/6 will still be purring happily when the EV built today is on the scrap heap.

      Sad thing is, they no longer make such real trucks, for actual work and off-pavement driving….rather, just big expensive toys, which even if ya could afford, you wouldn’t DARE use for such service, lest the delicate electronics, complicated mechanical doo-hickies or jewel-like finishes get destroyed!

      Haha! Late model Ford pick-ups nowe even have ELECTRIC tailgate latches…and they are randomly openiong as people drive down the road. Not too cool if you’ve got a bed full of stuff. (Even less cool if you’re behind the guy with the bed full of stuff)

      Why have a simple mechanical latch and cable…when you can have some Rube-Goldbergesque electrical contraption?

      • Dad’s old 92′ F150 had too many problems and he sold it and got one of the mighty Navistar 7.3 duramax F250!

        Another worthless invention is the slow drop down tail gate, the tail gate granny step (Ford/GM), and all the other ridiculous things on tail gates active today.

        • I suspect the issues with slow dropping automatic tailgates is legal liability. Anything mechanical that can pinch, cut or drop can (and will) hurt people if these things move too quickly. This is an issue with a lot of heavy equipment/manufacturing equipment but all sorts of safety features, warnings, etc. are normally required for even experienced users.
          With a truck gate, how many children, cell addicted teens, inattentive adults, drunks/druggies would get hurt if those things didn’t move slowly? Getting hurt, no matter whose fault, is Lawsuit City. So truck makers play it safe.

          • I see yall are not properly informed about tailgates. The new GM’s open a button on the remote and close the same way. I’m dying to have one. Out here in the sand and dirt and cowshit it should be a real boon. GM does have a cut-out in the bumper for a step and that would be good for most people and probably me too if I had one since the sensors on the rear don’t work well with non-standard bumpers.

            I’ll stick with using light, 3.5″ drill pipe that will knock things down instead of bending.

  12. ”But think about when you don’t need a steering wheel and pedals, [the car can become] a more productive space. We are imagining that right now, and that’s really exciting” Bara says.

    and this:

    “We are working hard for zero crashes, because safety is a priority. Zero emissions because we do believe we need to have that impact from an environmental perspective. And zero congestion, because for many people, the most important currency is time”

    zero congestion??? Barra is clearly delusional.

    https://www.secondwavemedia.com/metromode/features/mary-barra-future-gm-electric-citylabdetroit.aspx

    • Zero crashes…and unsinkable ships; kissing cousins. (Seeing the idiotic decisions this Barra bitch makes, and the abhorrent quality of GM products, I’ll assume that “zero crashes” was her shot at trying to elicit laughter?)

      [Where’s Vonu Bill? I seem to be filling-in for him]

      • Hey, Greta just said we have to stop all emissions. Not reduce, eliminate entirely.

        I eagerly await the webcast where she ties a (recycled) plastic bag around her head to stop her own emissions.

        • Greta is just a dumbass, brainwashed kid being used and taken advantage of by the power elites to further their fraudulent doomsday agenda. There’s nothing so low these people won’t stoop to it.

          • The despicable use of a child as a human shield in the political debate. Have adults use a child as a puppet to advance a political agenda and then when someone dares challenge that agenda then accuse that person of attacking a child.

    • Zero freedom, zero control, zero expression proletariat mobiles.
      Grand scheme is to sell air time for advertisements or have people diddling on their phones and connected to 5G while sitting in their proletarian pods going to mega corp burger chain or bread and circus City Name Sports Team event.

      • brazos, I can barely stand to look at YT on the phone. It seems Ford has nearly a lock on ads on anything remotely involving vehicles. I esp. like the one where the guys says in a very serious voice “The new Ford F 150, a highly complex vehicle”. Oh boy, just what I wanted.

    • its a crazy article. Barra is full on woke communist.

      “The single-ownership model that has become a way of life for so many Americans over the past century will evolve dramatically, with the potential to impact many cities across the globe within “single digit years, not decades,” says Barra.”

      And a ton of other insanity.

    • The CEO of GM “Barra explained to a collection of global city leaders-…….companies like GM have a responsibility to advance autonomous technologies that remove the human from the mobility equation.”

      Cant wait for my pod Corvette

      • Hmmmm….just who determined that such a need exists, and appointed “companies” as having the responsibility of fulfilling it?

        I was thinking it might be nicer if some entity decreed the need to remove human leadership from multinational corporations and assumed the responsibility to to achieve that.

        Of course, Barra would be safe, as she is too far removed from the definition of the species to qualify.

        • Morning, Nunz!

          El problemo here is that corporations are increasingly divorced from market forces. GM’s bailout back in ’08 being an obvious example. Market forces were suppressed. A failed business was propped up with money it had not earned – taken from unwilling “buyers.” Result? An arrogant business that felt immune to the market. Which saw its new “market” as the government. This explains the electric Hummer and much else besides.

          But it’s not just GM, unfortunately. Many other companies now see their “market” as complying with government mandates – basing what they sell on what the government decrees – and never mind whether the market wants it. Their unspoken assumption is that the market will be forced to pay for it… somehow.

          • Exactly, Eric!

            It’s no longer about the product or the customer- it’s about manipulating appearances for Wall St. (Whose investors no longer care about the actual business either- but rather just the artificial life of the stock certificates- and not because they represent a portion of a profit earned, but rather just as something to be traded, like a baseball card among 10 year-olds); it’s about social engineering, political-correctness, and compliance; It’s about practicing busy-ness philosophies acquired from some leftist loons who spent their lives in ivory towers and who have never so much as ran a lemonade stand; and who despise the very idea of profits, but whom none-the-less are regarded as experts and have tenure…..

            If Joe Blow goes and applies for a job at such a corp, to push a broom on the second floor, they’ll reject him if his prior experience wasn’t specific enough- such as if he used to push a broom on the third floor where he used to work…..but to run the place and direct the course of BILLIONS in assets? Ha! You could have ran an unsuccessful retail empire…..but as long as you espouse the proper social and political philosophies….no problemo, now you can run a manufacturing corp in a field in which you know nothing about, because hey, it’s all just about stats and corporate structure….who cares about the product? “We have guys for that”.

            And the more so if you have a vaj, or are a guy who likes taking it up the wazoo!

            These are amazing times in which to be living! We are witnessing the swift destruction of the culmination of thousands of years of progress. It’s happening in one generation (Just as the Bible said it would!)

            It truly is astounding, to see this occurring on all levels simultaneously- i.e. busy-ness, social, cultural, academic, scientific….no matter where you look, the rot is evident, and you can see that it will only get worse- and given the equal rot of everything else, there is no hope of staunching the decay and averting the crash, because it’s not as if just one or two things are out of place and can be fixed by those around it; Everyone is facing the same decay in their own circumstances…..the medic can’t rescue you, ’cause his own leg is broken.

  13. And there is the relatively short economic life of battery EVs.
    These things will be replaced much more often and already are due to the expense of repair and battery replacement.

    • And thus there massive depreciation. Which brings up another thing I hadn’t thought of: Since these “cars” depreciate faster, and don’t last as long, no financial institution is going to be willing to finance them for the massively long periods which have become so common these days; and creditworthiness will be much more of an issue- thus making these already unaffordable-to-the-masses vehicles even more unaffordable!

      Either these things are being done on-purpose, to further an agenda….or the collective powers that be have gone collectively insane and stupid, and have not thought these things through very well, because when one looks at all of these sdchemes with even the slightest logic, it is pretty apparent that entropy will be be the obvious result.

  14. I’ve been saying this for years. Since the object is the reduction of carbon pollutants en gros as z’ French are apt to say, remove three or four fifteen-year old Toyotas and Hondas (like the one I tool around in) and you’ve got your net reduction. Z’ day vill come when z’ rich vill ride and z’ rest ov us vill walk or take the bus if any buses are running. In the hills where I live, there aren’t any. It’s boots or tractors once our cars and trucks have gone the way of the honey bee.

    • People like MaryBerry, Algore, and Hollywood hypocrites who use thousands of times more energy than the average person should not be presuming to dictate how we live and how much energy we use. It will be very sad but very entertaining watching the coming demise of General Motors, formerly my favorite car company. The new GM does not even resemble the old GM even remotely. The old GM was in the business of producing automobiles for sale to customers of all walks of life. I don’t know WHAT business the new GM is in- ask Mary Berry if she does.

      • Amen, Nathan!

        I grew up in a “GM” family; I’ve owned seven GM vehicles myself. GM’s various divisions used to design and build spectacular cars. What’s left of GM today is building social credit and virtue signaling. It’s a measure of how bad it’s gotten that Chevy can’t sell trucks anymore – and has had to stop selling almost all of its cars. It’s because GM stopped caring about cars. Their management got vengeful toward me for criticizing the fact that GM has a “vice president for diversity.” And they hired a guy to run their northeast PR department whose sole credential was that he likes other guys and ran a “gays on wheels” blog no one read.

        Res Ipsa Loquitur

        • I’ve now learned that professor jobs and such are increasingly requiring SJW loyalty oaths and proof of supporting the cause. That this means more than well knowing the subject matter. And it’s going into the sciences. The example was a job posting for an astronomy professor.

        • eric, it does speak for itself. It certainly doesn’t speak for 99% of people. Gays want to be acknowledged as if they represented half the population and nothing could be further from the truth.

          Homosexuality is natural so to speak, in nature, yet it’s less than 10%, not the norm as they want you to believe. I’ll give anyone the same respect they give me on a chance meeting. I can be insulted but evidently, not nearly as easily as they can which doesn’t make a lot of sense.

          • I mentioned I’ve been dropping into Cheer (on netflix).

            Navarro (junior) College is, apparently, center of the world for that sport.

            The woman who runs\coaches the program had her sights set on Wall Street, but marriage & babies changed her focus closer to home.

            She’s no pushover. She does have southron religion in her veins, but she’s gotta’ a lotta’ gay black boys on her team, throwing & catching the little, mostly, white girls – & she won’t toe the baptist-methodist (whatever) line on “that” & “them.”

            Some gays want the “safety in numbers” thing just as much as others do. So they emulate those others. Ain’t political animalia, & democracy, grand?

        • GM was among those who begged for Uncle’s help back in ’08. Ever since then, GM et al have been obligated to catering to the elites desires while kicking the rest of us (sane) proles to the curb, lest they risk “sleeping with the fishes.”

          There’s a reason why some of us now refer to them as “Government Motors”.

          • The year before Ford was bailed out. The difference was the media.

            Ford took federal loan money…..and paid it back. GM took federal loan money….and paid it back. You simply weren’t paying attention.

            • Oh, so they did pay it back? Well, in that case, I stand corrected. I always assumed that the bailouts were just another form of “contributions”, courtesy of us taxpayers.

  15. You sir have hit the nail on the head with this article. The EV Hummer will suck and fail to deliver to any metric. I work here and the business case for all the EV platforms make zero sense. But we must push on never mind what people really want and can afford. Good luck.

    • Thanks, Big… I know some people who must remain anonymous within GM… also some execs from the ’90s. Everyone’s appalled. The maniacs run the asylum now…

    • I keep thinking the future is rigged. Once EV’s start stacking up on lots from many manufactures is probably the time the a huge tax is put on ICE cars to force the issue. Only the big boys/girl know.

  16. GM…the next Kmart. There is no such thing as special people. That is an idea assumed that a title explains who a person is. Total rubbish. Now if GM wanted to make a decent vehicle, it would take that Hummer P/U and put a strong 6 banger in it and sell it as a utility vehicle. You see it everywhere as the climate change and carbon morons live their lives outside of the dictates for the rest of us. Climate change is always real and man hasn’t one iota of influence on it. The earth and the solar system work their own magic without interference from anyone. Besides, the new Corona-virus panic now sweeping the globe is likely to cause more havoc than fake man-made climate altercations.

    • Tom, if it were just GM then the market would take care of that. Obviously GM’s not doing anything the other companies haven’t already done. The problem is “we the people” have to vote for the lesser of two evils or it would seem so. Nobody is willing to “give away” their vote for an independent and that’s just plain stupid.

      • Hi Eight.
        “The problem is “we the people” HAVE to vote for the lesser of two evils or it would seem so. ”

        I discovered out you didn’t HAVE to. I was voting because I heard some say “if you didn’t vote then your to blame” Eventually I figured out that it WAS my voting these yahoos in / out that and thus I was part of the blame. (Voting for the lesser evil) Then I learned that voting was ones acceptance of the present government to rule over you,,, that you agree with their policies. Basically the old “consent of the governed thing”. So I decided to no longer participate until their policies change and people of a decent moral compass are given as choices in elections. Given those parameters I doubt I’ll ever vote again.

        • Hi Ken,

          Given the oft repeated mantra that not voting is actually a vote for whoever is deemed bad by one side, and vice versa, it seems that not voting is the most powerful thing you can do, as your non vote, is actually two votes!

          Cheers,
          Jeremy

              • Yes. Motion is constant, & sleight of hand is quicker than the eye that periscopes out from the brain – or too many brains, anyway — & so motion becomes, gets called, “change” (the added freight of “progress” & “regress” has much to do with the hype of “hope & change”…).

                (how much of a person is) Water sloshing in the bounded humanimal bucket, or in an animal spirits soundstage tank, or on this people-cluttered planet, is just sloshing, just ebbing & flowing, is not change.

                Water compressed & “stilled” in a swung bucket tribe\country\whatever is just centrifuged – no matter what cetri-fugitives decide to name-call it.

                But the way out is very often in & the molecules that use that swun•g•force weight to go with the adversary, use its weight against it – it’s just a ride — & find the seams & pinholes at the bucket bottom so as to get squeezed out & off the bucket list roll, well…

                …many are called but few are frozen Chosin unfrozen from the “safer” color of law of larger numbers codependent Koreality.

                “Daddy, who never went anywhere hisownself, sez I gotta’ go stop the Korean domino from fallin’, so here I go…cuz I’m a good little boy & obedient to the fathermotherland what begot me.”

                Hook. Line & sinker is got those s\he’s. Some go through all that & learn – but not many.

                Snopes says no, to all attributions. Idk, or care, if snopes knows or no’s. Who a bit of pith is attributed to ain’t the point. The pith’s the point.

                So, “another” one was Emma Goldman. “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

                “Goldman viewed the state as essentially and inevitably a tool of control and domination. As a result, Goldman believed that voting was useless at best and dangerous at worst. Voting, she wrote, provided an illusion of participation while masking the true structures of decision-making. Instead, Goldman advocated targeted resistance in the form of strikes, protests, and “direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code”.[170] She maintained an anti-voting position even when many anarcho-syndicalists in 1930s Spain voted for the formation of a liberal republic. Goldman wrote that any power anarchists wielded as a voting bloc should instead be used to strike across the country.[171] She disagreed with the movement for women’s suffrage, which demanded the right of women to vote. In her essay “Woman Suffrage”, she ridicules the idea that women’s involvement would infuse the democratic state with a more just orientation: “As if women have not sold their votes, as if women politicians cannot be bought!”[172] She agreed with the suffragists’ assertion that women are equal to men, but disagreed that their participation alone would make the state more just. “To assume, therefore, that she would succeed in purifying something which is not susceptible of purification, is to credit her with supernatural powers.”[173] ”
                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman

    • Hi Fred,

      GM was a great company, once. Today, all of GM’s remaining divisions sell fewer cars and GM has less market share than Chevrolet had in 1970.

      This electric Hummer is one reason why that happened. GM cares more about “diversity” and virtue-signaling than offering great cars for regular people, which it used to do routinely. Even Chevy’s trucks suck – which is why Chevy trucks have fallen to third place behind Ford and Ram trucks.

      It would have been healthy to let nature take its course – and let GM go bankrupt back in ’08. The healthy pieces would have re-assembled and a human resources virtue signaler would not be leading the company today.

      • Hi Eric, thanks for the comeback. I know it wasn’t always that way for GM. Their smallblock 350 was perfect for a high school tinkerer like me. But they seemed to lose the plot in the late 80s. Quality went downhill, many friend complaining of electrical and fuel system problems.

      • eric, car companies used to be led by people who liked cars. The trend began, like other companies, to hire CEO’s based on how they’d done with a company making shower curtains or dog food or the latest gadget.

        Ask yourself, what kind of vehicles would Mickey Thompson be making. Sure, it’s the alphabet agencies that have ruined it to a great deal lest we wouldn’t have sedans….with tiny beds, the very thing light duty pickups have become.

        I noticed GM upsized their SUV’s for 2020. Well, they’re trucks aren’t they? Same everything as a truck except a covered bed with seats. They’re much more profitable because something has to be so they can make shitty little cars people don’t like. They should have done everything they could have(all the companies)to get the congress members voted out that didn’t oppose all the mandatory regulations that have only made cars get worse mileage while mileage edicts get worse and worse. It was plain to see 20 years ago when light trucks had to be “pedestrian friendly” where this would go. Now the first thing people do with a new pickup in this part of the country is install an $1100 Ranch Hand cattle guard since the front bumpers are not good for anything.

        This is also indicative of where the country is headed. City slickers are the norm. Rural people are simply stupid rednecks you talk down to and old Blackface’s minions do that well……behind closed doors.

    • Hi Steve,

      These predictions have been cropping up regularly for decades. I’d take them with a cup of salt. Also, consider that even if the prediction comes true, it would still mean just barely achieving parity with what any IC car can do. The “5 minute to 80 percent” battery would have to cost a fraction of what EV batteries currently cost, such that an EV with such a battery costs the same as an equivalent IC car – otherwise, you’re still paying more for less (including less range – see that part about “80 percent” rather than full.

      Also, these batteries would need to have a service life without degradation of charge capacity of 15-20 years – to last as long as the car, in other words – otherwise what you “save” by not buying gas you will lose when it comes time to buy a new battery for your EV – or a new EV.

      It’s interesting to note that there’s not much effort being put into making EVs affordable. Just faster-charging (and faster). But how are people going to afford all of this? Many people can’t afford a current (new) IC car. How many will be able to afford a new EV that costs 30-plus percent more?

      • Could the reason be why little effort is being made to make EVs affordable is because the car makers need to find ways to pay for all the re-tooling costs to switch production to EVs? Apart from the cost of batteries, one would think making an electric car should be less expensive than making one with an IC engine. How much machining and how many moving parts does an electric motor have? Once re-tooling is complete, the cost of EVs *should* come way down, at least in a free market they should. I’m not holding my breath.

        • The tooling bill for a battery EV isn’t all that much more than any new model car would be. There’s nothing particularly special about them from a tooling standpoint. About all I can think of is new assembly line equipment to lift the battery packs into place. Not particularly expensive.

          Winding motors, making electronic boards, and the whole 9 yards is all mature stuff. There’s nothing there that is going to get cheaper with volume, it’s all been done in volume for various other things for decades.

          The high cost of battery EVs is inherent to what they are. The manufacturing processes and the materials required to make these things. Fundamental breakthroughs are needed to make them significantly cheaper than they are.

          As to price don’t expect any price cuts. Why? They are currently near zero to negative margin products. Any cost cuts manufacturers manage to achieve will go to making these things profitable.

      • That’s where transportation as a “service” comes in. No ownership. Just continual rentals. The problem is, I believe that even that model will collapse eventually as the costs of transportation are largely factored in and will not drop by putting these vehicles in service 24/7.

        Eric wrote an article several years ago on this idea that maintenance costs will go through the roof as components will fail continuously. The plus side of it is that there will be a healthy aftermarket car parts market. The minus side of it is that it may not be cheap as supply and demand may achieve their balance at a higher price than previously. Look at cable TV. Look at internet TV streaming “services.” Their costs are outrageous for the quality.

        Uber and Lyft ride hailing services run fairly well now, but what happens when people adopt them en masse? What happens when the prices go up because of demand exceeding supply?

        No one has even thought of this except for here.

        • “Transportation as a service” has never succeeded, and never will. The current companies who are doing it, aren’t making any money. Mass-transit would be extinct if not for taxpayer-funded subsidies….and transportation as a service is even less economically efficient than mass transit.

          I’m sure that transportation as a service just exists to lull people into a false sense of security and get them used to the idea of not having/needing a car.

          You have to ask yourself why, in this over-regulated world, they magically looked the other way for Uber and Lyft? In places like NYC where a taxi medallion (license needed for every cab) cost a million dollars a few years ago, now can be had for $200K, because any Bozo with a Corolla can now drive you around- which is great for liberty and the free market- but is very uncharacteristic of the tight control lauded over us by the state- and although it was briefly challenged in a few places, it managed to prevail- although previous attempts by everyone else in the past to lift the burdens imposed by the state when it came to providing the simple service of a ride for hire, were always unsuccessful.

          Sure…now it’s different, because transportation as a service is not a business; it’s a political agenda. I’m sure that when it has fulfilled it’s usefulness, it will cease.

    • The five minute charge for a battery EV has another problem besides the cells themselves, it’s getting the energy to the pack in five minutes. This requires very high voltage, very high current, or both. High current requires very thick cables, large contacts, and safety measures. High voltage requires extensive safety measures, RF shielding, and so on. It probably can be done but will be very expensive and don’t expect more that one or two charge stations per location.

      Residential service will not be able to deliver this sort of charging. These will be industrial electric service drops.

      None of it is likely to get much cheaper with volume. It’s just expensive stuff and there is no cutting corners with it.

      • It is always the same from the EV fans. “Tomorrow” all the issues surrounding battery technology will be solved. This always comes with the assumption that they know what the issues are and understand technology better than the current designers. Also ignores the decades of tomorrows already past.

        People who can’t wire a house plug or define a kWh or Ah somehow thinking that engineers and electrical designers are less competent than themselves.

        The looks I get from greenies when I explain that, “no, your car will not charge in five hours, never mind five minutes, on a 120v wall plug”, are priceless. And then they get angry because of course it is your fault, and you are aligned with big oil, and you are just too beholden to the laws of physics. “Someone should change the law”. Yes, I have heard actually that. No, I did not try to explain further.

        • People are very dumbed down and disconnected from practicality today.

          And I just thought of another bottleneck in charging. The pack voltage. The pack defines the highest voltage it can be charged at. Whatever is being delivered to the charger must be stepped down to the pack’s voltage at full charge. (which is usually a tad higher than the pack’s rated voltage)

      • Brent! Don’t you know that the laws of physics, and the logistics of things like infrastructure don’t exist in la-la EV fantasyland?! Just like CO2 produced at the tailpipe is somehow harmful…but perfectly O-K when produced at the smokestack.

      • ding, ding, ding……………yup. Like 800v plus.

        Buyer of a ‘fast re-charge car’: “what do you mean it’s going to cost me $10 grand to power this charger at my house”
        hahahahahahahaaa…..

        • I had a row with the local electric provider about the pot for my house and barn and another for a well and working pens that weren’t yet built. We blew up both and they had to install what I’d told them to begin with. It was a hot day and nobody was happy when the power went out.

          Then the idiot replacing it didn’t put proper drip loops in and the water ruined our 200 amp fuses for the house and barn. I should have made them pay for the fuses but I didn’t have time to go chew their asses.

    • Just how are you going to charge an EV in 5 minutes with the insane amount of current draw that would require? The charger would have to be at an electrical substation to not throw the grid for a loop.

  19. Its funny but if big business in the west wasn’t completely a con, they would have spent a fraction to make cheap small electric cars for short distances like a run around town / school run. The type which are cheap enough to keep as a second car, in place of a scooter. And because they are small and light, the would also be more environmentally sound than a virtue signalling PCd up version of one of the most un-apologetically un green cars ever made….. And because they wont need huge batteries to move them, may even charge faster making electric cars more practical for real people!

  20. For a fraction of the R&D required for this junk, they could have bought more politicians and/or brought a major lawsuit against the various mandates. But as has been mentioned, this is about keeping competition down, so they don’t want to rock the boat.

  21. “It is GM’s virtue-signaling plea for forgiveness.”

    I know one thing: GM sure as hell ain’t asking us for forgiveness.

    “It will now make a time-guzzling electric version of the same thing. Which is just as wasteful, by the way – but in a way that’s acceptable today.”

    Gee, whatever happened to “instant gratification”? lol Most people (including myself) can’t even wait ten seconds for a webpage to load. How TF are we going to cope with spending more than ten minutes to “refuel”?

  22. Ya know what’s interesting too?: Henry Ford realized the value and economy of scale of MASS-production; -not just assembly-line production- but that in conjunction with making something that enough people would want and could afford so that you could MASS produce them in huge quantities- thus amortizing the cost of research and development, tooling, distribution, etc. etc. over such a large number of items that the aggregate cost became very small.

    That was the key to modern industrialization!

    Apparently though, the fools running many of these corps today, including GM, seem to have forgotten this fundamental principle- something which half of the janitors at their facilities probably even recognize as being essential! So here they are, pouring fortunes into designing and producing vehicles which will appeal to, and which can only be afforded by a NICHE market!

    That of itself spells disaster!

    Over across the pond, Morgan is making wooden-bodied cars by hand….and I’ll bet the price difference between those real hand-built cars and this new POS “Hummer” will be negligible. When the cost of mass-produced items starts approaching the price of hand-crafted items….something is very wrong with mass-production, and you can be sure that if not corrected, will signal it’s demise.

    • “Apparently though, the fools running many of these corps today, including GM, seem to have forgotten this fundamental principle- something which half of the janitors at their facilities probably even recognize as being essential!”

      Oh, they haven’t forgotten. They just prefer kicking us to the curb, then using Uncle to force us to pay to build “toys” for the elites. Making a profit is so “old school.”

      • blue, you’re so right. I saw a line somebody had written lately, goes something like this: The US is an oil corporation with the largest military in the world.

        Only someone who’d been asleep their whole life could argue with that.

      • How nice it must be, to be Too Big to Fail! Why not collect a $22 mil salary and risk destroying the company you run by committing it to some deranged progressive plan? This way, at least, you’ll get invited to the really good parties. And if you your stock tanks or you run out of cash, hey, Uncle will pony up. It’s win-win!

        I have a feeling, after the next big crash happens, that it’ll be a looooooooong time before big companies put women in charge again. Business schools will use Barra as the quintessential example of what was wrong with the economy during the Everything Bubble.

        • The Big Short is a movie that gives almost a blow by blow description of the economy implosion in 08. It wasn’t women who caused that.

          • No, Eight, but the rush to put women and minorities in the leadership positions of companies was a reaction to the crash in ’08. And this in when all the wokeness kicked into high gear. Putting social responsibility above obligations to shareholders, etc. I’ve seen this where I work, and in many other big corporations. The result is at least as bad — I’d say it’s worse, because of the foundation of hypocrisy and fairy tales it’s based on — as what we had before.

            • That was an exploitation of a condition for an already existing political ideology.

              Those who claim to put social responsibility first will not even consider getting rid of the engine that creates what they complain about, the federal reserve or central banking in general. That’s because they are not interested in social responsibility they are interested in power over other people.

            • Well, high gear means lower gears. So many “gears” in reality that they can’t be counted let alone shifted. Go to wikid-pedia for an idea of how far back “woke” goes.

              Looking for hard edges, local cause-effect corner pockets, is guaranteed job – or hobby – security. But it’s unproductive makework…& explains nothing.

              Instead of projecting the mortgage-backed security fraud “culmination” (there is no culmination) ‘08 object ball into a corner pocket you may&could just as well project “LBJ’s” guns & buttery civil rights ’64 ball into that pocket.

              Or…or…or…. The lotto balls are infinite, & so ad infinitum-converted into words-stories…fairy-goblin stories.

              That math nerds & those who defer to them take waves apart & plot them along linear axes & say “this is factual, this is true” is true.

              But it’s not true that waves are discontinuous.

              “This is factual this is true” is a game played by hilarious people who believe – need to believe — they are serious. & need to be taken seriously.

              Meanwhile, actual serious people who are also hilarious – but “on purpose” (it’s just as congenital) — poke the quotelocks who will never be “woke,” & pick the polk salad to side the surf & turf.

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3gPsKSMPhE

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KmBME7etEw

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-e2NDSTuE

              “It’s just a ride.”
              Because it’s just a wave.
              Surfing.
              Not 8-ball.

              Tony Joe White’s best, but check out Los Lonely Boys cover for a little sumthin’k sumthin’k different.

  23. If the Auto Industry had any balls, it would invest a fraction of the money they are putting into electric vehicles into a campaign exposing this Man-Made Climate Change scam. Every “fact” used to prove its existence has been discredited or proven to be false, manipulated or made-up. The whole thing would crumble in a matter of months. They have brought this on themselves by dropping to their knees with their mouths open every time the Government has come up with a regulation affecting them.

    • Yes. 100% correct. They should also take a whack at the saaaaaafety and iiinsurance cult. Mobil Corporation actually did influence public opinion through Herbert Schertz’s “advertorials.” Although Schertz was famous for the “50 is Thrifty” gas saving campaign, he also penned many rewritten “fables” about squirrels storing nuts for the winter to gain support for removing price controls on oil and gas during the 1970s.

    • Hi Doug,

      An interesting thing… we’re only nine years away from The End of the World – 2030, the date by which “catastrophic” climate change is supposed to be upon us and irreversible. Well, what if we get there – or even get close – and nothing much happens?

      The scam falls apart. Hence the increasingly fanatic urgency to sell the script – and lock everything down – before the whole thing becomes so palpably ridiculous it can’t be sold anymore.

      • Naw. They’ll just set a new date and conveniently forget about the old one, just as they always have. A leftist narrative is harder to kill than a vampire cockroach.

        • Yeah, Chuck. They recently removed the signs in Glacier National Park in MT. that said that the glaciers would be melted by 2020….. I’ll bet those signs will re-appear with a new date.

          Remember “Save The Whales”?! No…wait! Whales create CO2! Nuke the whales! (That nukular stuff is harmless!)

            • Guys – forget glaciers – last I remember the world itself was going to be un-inhabitable by 2020….

              I guess we are all in some sort of dream now because how could a government report warning of the need for action on climate have possibly been a lie……

          • Road & Track, of all the danged magazines, recently did some BS article on how the glaciers in that exact place were melting because of combustion emissions.

            I used to like Road & Track…

            • R&T was one of my oldest subscriptions. Started with Hot Rod, the Sports Car Graphics, R&T, C&D, and Autoweek till right in the middle of my subscription year it Autoweek changed to AutobiWeek, just not enough news they said.

              Well, hell, when you don’t go looking and your salesmen suck that’s the way it goes. I will admit it was a pretty dismal time automotively, the late 80’s. Corvette’s had over 100 hp or so whether you needed it or not.

            • Hi Chuck,

              And those mags wonder why they are going the way of Time and Newsweek. They used to be about cars – and fun. Now they are about sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssaaaaaaaaaaaaafety – and peddling the latest shibboleths.

              • Not to mention a site loosely based on the word jalopy. My phone force feeds it to me. I viscerally despise that bunch though I read it to keep abreast of the awful aspects of the car industry when Eric is road testing a hybrid.

                • Hi Swamp!

                  That “jalopy” site is a creature of HuffPost, which is a creature of a gold-digging leftist socialite who bought her fame like “von” Ribbentrop bought his nobility!

                  • Learned something new today. I know that they are part of some conglomerate. Ugh. I despise that site. I would never dignify it with a link.

            • I started reading C&D, R&T, and autoweek in the 80s. As the old guard drifted off I read less and less in them.

              It’s getting to the point where the articles are getting annoying. The journalism isn’t up to par. I’ve even resorted to writing the editor! I never had to write the editor of any of these publications before.

              Now they are infecting their articles with climate change nonsense. Unlike other people I’ve read a lot of stuff from before I was born and I know I am being BS’d. 19th century weather was horrific. Why anyone would want to go back to that I don’t know. The climate change people would think the end of the world was here if we had 19th century weather.

              • I got my first subscription to C/D in 1975 at 11. R/T and Motor Trend about the same time. I did have some pre-75 issues gotten from the supermarket. The earliest was 71 or so. The editorial quality of these magazines peaked in the mid 70s and remained very strong until about the mid 2000’s. The best editors and journalists died off or retired. It’s sick what is being put out today. Some article on Michigans 75 mph speed limit killing people appeared in C/D website, something that would never have happened during the 1990s much less than the 70’s or 80’s.

                • We nearly had a divorce when we moved in 1985 and I found out the wife had discarded a huge amount of car mags, mostly C&D, R&T and some really old Hot Rods that would be worth a fortune right now. I was one Mad Mofo.

                  • BWAHAhahaha! No wife=my small stash of 40+ year-old Long Island Fisherman mags are safe!!!!!!

                    If I ever need to know how the fluke were biting in July of ’78 near buoy 32 in the Great South Bay….I’m covered!

                  • Hi Eight, I can top that, when I left home for college in 1965 I left a huge pile of comic books (so called “graphic novels” today) in my closet. Never really went back home except to visit after that since I had a job, my own place, etc. Years later my mom tossed them all without asking if I wanted them when they were getting ready to sell the house. I was peeved but didn’t give it much thought until the 80’s (I think) when all of a sudden there were auctions where a lot of the comics I formerly owned were going for six figures! I had acquired most of them with money made from my paper route and some hand me downs from older relatives; who knew they were an investment.
                    After that whenever we had a family get together I’d always give mom a good natured zinger about how she kept me from being a millionaire. My mother’s been gone awhile now but my sister and I always share that story when we reminisce about the old homestead

                    • I know what you speak of and had a similar experience and she threw out models I’d built too. It’s a good thing I always carried my trombone and guitars everywhere I went.

                    • Hey Mike!

                      Hey, it seems just about anything ya could buy back in those days is worth a fortune today !

                      I was just talking (via phone) to a friend of mine last night, who is 71- and he was telling me how he bought a brand new ’66 Chevelle(I think it was) with a 4-speed for $2800 with the proceeds from his paper route!

                      I was like: “Holy crud! $2800 today might buy you the OEM radio and a few knobs from the dash for that car!”.

                      And we both agreed, that though they say “Things cost more, but you make more today”- it’s not the same. No one’s buying a new muscle car with the proceeds from their paper route today- and if they could, it certainly ain’t gonna be around 54 years later….much less worth 20-50 times what it cost when it was new!

                      Couild you omagine a 54 year-old 2020 Dodge Charger or Tesla?!

                    • I came home one afternoon when I was 12, and all of my stuffed animals, Matchbox cars and Tonka trucks were gone! I’m STILL traumatized to this day!

                      DON’T EVER mess with a man’s stuffed animals! (One was spared. I still have it.).

                      That probably killed my entertainment career… (I used to put on shows for the stuffed animals…and the parakeet. The parakeet could’ve been my partner- he could talk)

                    • Hope there weren’t any Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in there. I was astounded when I went to Austin with a friend who went to school there and found those mags.
                      I couldn’t find them in Lubbock.

                    • Nunzio, I think all of us “of a certain age” have our stories about the things our parents threw out that are worth a fortune today.

                      Like most kids I had a sizeable collection of baseball cards and comic books that back in the day were just everyday kids’ junk. The ones that have survived to the present day go for stupid money.

                    • what goes for stupid money is the stuff that was never touched or played with generally speaking. Stuff that is perfect. Most kids never had the super rare stuff that brings money in any condition.

                      I still have many of my toys. None of it is worth much because it was all played with. Even the stuff that’s still nice isn’t worth much. $5 here, $10 there. that sort of thing. Now I suppose if I add it all up it might be a meaningful sum. All my matchbox, hotwheels, and ertl cars might be a couple hundred bucks. Although it’s old matchbox and hot wheels that people want to buy and I mostly bought ertl because they were the closest to the real cars.

                    • ‘Zactly, Brent.

                      One’a my nephews used to ponder “the vast fortune” his old baseball cards would have been worth…. Uh, yeah…not quite, considering they dog-eared and mangy, and kept in large stacks held together with rubber bands… Yeah…I’d fall over if that 1980 Reggie Jackson with the splaying corners would bring a dollar.

                      I know my stuff wasn’t worth anything (Well, a few Matchboxes would’ve been $75 each, ‘big whoop) but I just wish I had it for the memories and sentimental value. My actual ones…not someone else’s.

                      Sad thing is, the “collector market” in which people buy stuff that never gets played with- and is kept in sealed packaging….and is supposed to be worth something after some time has passed.

                      Is crap like that ever worth anything?!

                  • I started collecting baseball cards in the early 50’s. To paraphrase Forrest “I guess I had about a million of em”. Those were gone too. Pulled all the Playboy posters off my walls but I expected that.

                • Eight – My collection from 1973(?) to 1999 got burned in a house fire. It was devastating. I largely stopped collecting them after that. 25 years of some of the best automotive journalism. Gone Actually, the magazines suffered smoke damage. Some were burned. I got a divorce after that one.

              • I hear you, man. I started reading C&D in about 70 or 71. Back then, they had the best writing. Same with Playboy. Really. Back to C&D. They had articles by Gordon Baxter of Flying magazine, Jean Shepard, who wrote A Christmas Story, Pat Bedard who aspired to (and did) drive in the Indy 500, Brock Yates, David E. Davis, and others. The old issues were truly collectible.

                • Nathan, they surely were. I got many hours of enjoyment every issue of C&D.

                  My wife wasn’t thrilled I took Playboy and sometimes Hustler. “You just take those because of the naked women”. Well, that certainly doesn’t turn me off but the reason I take them is they’re the only place that doesn’t spout the same old lies.

                  Regardless of what was happening, I could have written every Newsweek. I loved WSJ, typical copy, the sky is falling, get out of the market now, the other page, Great news, the bull market is set to explode. They managed to put more contradictory horseshit in every edition than any other rag on the planet.

          • Me wonders if that’s the reason why the elitist “greenies” are lobbying for more nuclear power? Perhaps, that may be one of their solutions to “overpopulation.”

      • “An interesting thing… we’re only nine years away from The End of the World – 2030, the date by which “catastrophic” climate change is supposed to be upon us and irreversible.”

        Yep, just like it ended in 2012 and many times prior. Oh, wait…

        • Used to be, only the Jehovah’s (false)Witnesses would predict the end of the world every few years- and were laughed at by most people with any sense. Now the overlords make the “preDICKtions”, but few people have any sense anymore- so no one laughs.

          • I can recall a large, hysterical movement as we approached 2000. There was every sign(only seen by some)of the imminent approach of the end of the world and rapture for all mankind. It came, it went, then they recalculated and picked out another date. I hang my head, I hang my head.

            • Ah, yes. The good ‘ol “Y2K bug”! Good times! lol The truth is, nobody really knows (or rather, is supposed to know) when “the end” is supposed to be. All we can do is just enjoy life to the fullest. After all, individual life is already short enough as it is.

              Oh, and by the way, weren’t we also supposed to have “flying cars” by the year 2000?

    • IMO, the big Autos got in bed with gov(s) to massively increase regs and standards because it limited competition coming from the 3rd world. They sell this stuff as better emissions, etc…. but it means nothing them too, it’s just save their ass time. We pay ( a lot ).

  24. And we thought the electric Ford Mustang Electric SUV was stupid………… This is even worse in a lot of ways. Let Hummer RIP.

  26. And for what?! All that weight, and the energy that it takes to propel it….and look at the freakin’ thing!- It can’t even haul any real cargo; can’t really tow anything (Even if it could technically handle a heavy trailer, or had the space to carry a heavy load….just think of what actually using it for that purpose would do to the already-gimped range!)

    The thing isn’t even as useful as the cheapest mid-sized pick-up…..but will sell for many times the price of a mid-sized pick-up, and consume more energy; required more resources to manufacture; will be on the scrap heap long before any real pick-up or real SUV….. Who the hell would buy something like this??!!!!

    This is yet more of the insanity we are constantly seeing in the world around us. A vehicle not designed for efficiency- yet touted as being “green”; A vehicle that is not practical for any real-world task….but is made to appeal to the psyche and ego of the “image conscious”- although I can’t imagine how many people would want to buy into an image of “big and tough” and “faux green” at the same time, while having a vehicle that is essentially useless for anything other than recreation and impractical transportation….and who are also willing and able to pay the exorbitant price to participate in such an absurd facade.

    It’s literal insanity!

    REAL Hummers were pieces of crap- and they couldn’t even sell enough civilian models of those to keep them in production- so they think they’ll do better with this?!!!!!

  27. Good luck getting that Hummer recharged out in the canyon land country of eastern Utah.

    It can be tough enough carrying enough gas to drive some of those back country loops.

  28. There’s a reason they’re known as Government Motors

    Now, again, how can we get rid of Mary Barra and her gang of virtue signaling malcontents who couldn’t change blinker fluid to save their lives?

    • Getting rid of Ms. Barra will depend on stock prices and earnings just like in the past. Unless something is holding her there. I haven’t checked. The other carmakers aren’t any better. I lost respect for the car industry sometime during the 1990’s as the Clean Air Act Part 2 was beginning to be implemented. Not a peep. They completely sold out back then. We are just feeling the aftershock of the great sellout.

      During the 1970s and 1980s, the American car industry learned from it’s high school stunt of hiring prostitutes to hit on Ralph Nader, a man who wouldn’t know what to do with a female if she put it in his face

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