General Motors is pressuring its dealers to “commit” to spending hugs sums of their money on equipment and facilities to make GM’s electric cars more palatable to buyers. Which begs the question almost no one covering electric cars ever brings up.
Probably because of the answer.
If there were buyers for the electric cars GM is making, dealers wouldn’t need to be pressured to invest in such things as fast chargers and other EV-specific equipment, since these things would result in making money.
As opposed to wasting it.
Dealers willingly add additional bays, hire more staff, buy diagnostic equipment, spruce up their showrooms – and so on – when it is in their financial interests to do so. Dealerships being in business . . . as opposed to the political business.
Which is what EVs are all about.
GM – and everyone else, including Tesla – makes electric cars because of politics. Because of political mandates to make them. And to “sell” them – in air quotes to emphasize the fact that all electric cars are given away in that any money made off the transaction is purely the result of various wealth transfer schemes, such as subsidies and “credits” – in quotes to emphasize the fact that they are extortions. Tesla – the greatest practitioner of this art form – uses the political mandates to make EVs to extort money from other car companies that do not make them; they pay Tesla money to get “credit” for making them, which is easier than actually making EVs themselves and then having to figure out how to get rid of them.
If it were profitable to make the EVs themselves, they’d never pay Tesla to do it on their behalf.
It’s noteworthy that every electric car GM has brought out had to be brought back – that is, cancelled – after it became too embarrassing to continue making what couldn’t be sold. This includes the 2013-2016 Cadillac ELR, which needed CPR after not-selling. Or rather, not selling for a profit after three years, during which timespan GM gave away just under 3,000 of them.
For a sense of just how dismal those numbers are, during the infamously afflicted Pontiac Aztek’s seven year run (2000-2007) GM sold almost 120,000 examples. Without a single government bayonet shoved into anyone’s backside.
The only EV GM currently sells – the Chevy Bolt – isn’t doing well, either. Before WuFlu, sales were down 22 percent and are likely to go down more if the federal bribe of $7,500 per car is discontinued – a sword of Damocles hanging over the head of Tesla, too.
Reason being that without the $7,500 bribe, paying full price for an electric car – especially one like the Bolt, which is basically an electric economy car absent the economical cost – isn’t economical.
The base price of this compact-sized “economy” car is $36,000.
It requires innumeracy to purchase such a car – if the object is to save money – given one can buy an otherwise equivalent actually economical non-electric car for about half that sum.
If the object is something else, okay – but there just aren’t that many virtue-signalers with the disposable bucks on hand to pay twice the cost of an actually economical non-electric car for the uneconomical electrical analog.
And yet, GM is doubling down. Making more electric cars, even pricier than the Bolt – because the government says it must and GM hasn’t got the guts to say no, we won’t. Instead, it is telling its dealers to dig deep – into your pocket. Because the dealers aren’t the ones who are going to pay for this.
You will.
If you have a GM car – and take it in for service at one of these dealerships, where the cost of servicing the EV – or adding showroom space for the EV – will be folded into the cost of servicing your non-EV.
Non-electric GM cars will also cost you more, so as to offset the cost of making EVs GM can’t sell without losing money.
They’re all doing this, of course – because the mandates apply to them all. And because they’d rather play political step’n fetchit than challenge the mandates. Just like the businesses who are too afraid to challenge the “guidelines” of the Gesundheitsfuhrers. At least you don’t have to subsidize someone else’s Face Diaper. 
It is all a great greasy scam that almost no one is willing to talk honestly about, because that would result in the scam becoming unpalatable. So instead, everyone in the business pretends – in the manner of almost everyone pretending everyone is sick being the method used to perpetuate the WuFlu scam.
GM political commissar Steve Carlisle said that pressuring dealers to join in the subsidization of EVs is ” . . .a necessary step we need to take to achieve our vision of an electrified future.”
Cuing Tonto voice: Who is “we,” white man?
Not the absence of any claims about a business future. It is instead a vision – as in mirage or hallucination.
“We can communicate what we think is required to create the environment, and we’ve got to work with the dealers, the dealer councils and the associations to arrive at a conclusion,” he added.
Italics added to emphasize the unspoken.
“Create the environment”? Isn’t that like “creating the environment” for wheelchairs by using baseball bats on lots of people who can currently ambulate? And, more pertinently, creating the environment for forced vaccinations by forcing everyone to wear a Face Diaper?
GM is “asking” its dealers to spend between $120,000 and $200,000 each to “ready their facilities” for the EVs GM intends to build because the government says it must. But it does not say people must buy them. Not yet – though that is likely coming and may be what GM is banking on.
Still, most of GM’s dealers have “balked” – note the gaslighting – at the prospect of shelling out six figures to service cars that will cost them six figures.
No one is supposed to ask questions about this because it is done for the sake of a cause – “climate change,” the religion being displaced by the new religion (“stopping the spread”).
And that’s the answer no one wants to hear.
Which is why the question is almost never asked.
. . .
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Go ahead and throw me off. I contribute and never asked for a clover magnet even if I had gone a penny more.
I have lost it with the virus junk and want to break out. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen for my outbursts.
One other thing is that bird dogs in the right seat do not like A/C and want to have the windows down. It is not as good for them in a hardtop as was with the ragtop. They don’t give a damn if it is freezing and their flapping ears and their peeled back eyelids are in danger of frostbite. They are true car people.
Have another gripe. Crude and RBOB has been dropping like a cement guppy. Why is regular gas going down and premium does not? You diesel drivers should look at the futures on Heating Oil. Just add som fish fry oil to it to make it palatable to your car. Everyone will look around to see if there is a lesbian parade.
Commie rats are behind this conspiracy
I was considering an EV but I had some problems.
My wife has the garage full of the usual female purchases and she parks in the driveway.
The insurance company said that they would not insure it as the cord to the kerb is a tripping hazard and will ruin a snowblower chewing it up on the sidewalk.
When they come up with a decent friction car I might gain more interest. I did show interest on a low miles Chebby Volt at a good price, but alas I missed out on it so I bought a somewhat used Cadillac CTS-V as I still am dumb enough to like manuals. I like shifting and downshifting, but even the wife is flummoxed by all of the electronic crap.
What stinks is when one gets old the eyes do not focus well from watching the road to fiddling with asshole millenial instrument panels. Does anyone know how to rip out half of the wiring harness and keep it running? What basement wanker came up with a clutch pedal sensor that when fails disables the car? The door sills are uncomfortably high for old folks that use arm signals for turning.
Speaking of electric gaslighting, a firm called Hindenburg Research alleges that Nikola’s electric semi truck demo was a scam:
“Our investigation of the site and text messages from a former employee reveal that the video was an elaborate ruse — $NKLA had the truck towed to the top of a hill on a remote stretch of road and simply filmed it rolling down the hill.”
https://twitter.com/HindenburgRes/status/1304028476383657984
Who needs big batteries when your EV truck can just exploit what Nature gave us for free — GRAVITY?!!
While thats possible, if you look into the background of those involved, you will find the same people who are currently funding Tesla. I’m quite certain they don’t have some conflict of interests, and are merely attempting to “protect” the public from a hoax… Unlike EV’s, hydrogen fueled vehicles have some utility. But they currently lack a wide spread distribution system.
I bought a used 2006 honda suv for 5.5k a year ago. It just hauled me and some stuff from florida to northern new england for around $150 in gas in less than 30 hours. Lets see an EV ever compete with that.
‘Tesla uses political mandates to make EVs to extort money from other car companies that do not make them.’ — EP
But not for long. As dozens of new EVs launch worldwide, other manufacturers no longer will be obliged to pay hush money to Tesla.
Without that politically extorted dirty money, though, Tesla has never made a dime from operations. Which may be why S&P Dow Jones Indices declined last week to include Tesla in its blue-chip S&P 500 index, despite Tesla briefly becoming the seventh largest company in America.
Indeed, precisely at its tippy-top of over $500 a share, both a board member and Elon’s goofball little brother Kimbal (who’s worth a cool $250 million) exercised options to buy shares at a tenth of their market price and then flip them for E-Z millions.
So precise was the timing of this insider selling raid — just before the stock collapsed nearly 30 percent — that S&P Dow Jones may suspect, as I do, that Tesla is engaged in a vast, criminal conspiracy to manipulate its stock price.
Should this be proven, then instead of colonizing Mars with a fleet of a thousand starships, Prophet Elon may find himself earthbound in a federal correctional institution. That’s what I call a giant leap forward for public saaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety!
It’s going to be hard to sell ANY kind of new car in the very near future. What wealth in the nation that hasn’t been destroyed, is fast being transferred to the bank cartel and its minions in governments and corporations. They can print all the “money” they want, but they can’t print wealth. And wealth is what buys cars, and every other commodity. They can subsidize EVs as much as they please, but people are still going to buy groceries first, and housing second, after which they won’t have the wealth required to buy any car, except perhaps a very inexpensive one. Which doesn’t include EVs, regardless how much “money” the state throws at it.
Hi JWK,
Excellent point in re the distinction between wealth and money. Also, even in good times – like six months ago – most people won’t buy an electric car that costs twice as much as a well-equipped economy car. That simple economical/budgetary fact is perpetually overlooked in almost every discussion about EVs. Instead, we are lectured about how “clean” they are and urged to admire how quick they are and how much “technology” they have – all of which is as immaterial, if you can’t afford the car, as how fast and sexy and cool a Saturn V rocket is if you can’t afford to go for a ride in one.
JWK, lets not like reality get in the way of political agendas! There is always Magic Money Theory (MMT) to fall back on. Ok, I made the Magic up. Its actually called Modern Monetary Theory. ^^ Its yet another example of people not letting details (like real economics… Austrian…) getting in the way of their mad political agendas.
https://www.adamsmith.org/research/the-magic-money-tree-the-case-against-modern-monetary-theory
Why print Trillions, when we can print Quadrillions?…
We’re from the gubmint and we’re here to tell you what to do!
The year-end inventory for Nissan’s Leaf for 2019 is 46.5 percent. Nissan needs some help in the worst way. They’re being EV mandated to death!
There are probably two million combines out there in the fields of Canada and the US harvesting cereal grains all day long these days. Each tank in those combines probably has a 300 gallon capacity for the diesel fuel.
That’s 600 million gallons of diesel fuel being consumed by the gaping maws of industrial farming, those machines can work a good 16 hours each day during harvest. Good old Oklahoma crude to the rescue. Those 180,000 oil wells in Texas pump out some 2.3 million barrels per day, it’s a done deal. You want a fungible commodity, oil trumps electricity for immediate needs by a country mile.
It will take quite a few batteries to provide the oomph needed to combine every field from Texas to Oklahoma to Kansas to Nebraska to Iowas to Illinois to Indiana to Ohio to Minnesota and the Dakotas over to Montana to Washington State and the prairie provinces up in Canada.
You need plenty of power to move a combine and I doubt that batteries will make much of a dent.
Just the way it is.
Without fuel oil for field tractors and combines, the world will be in a world of hurt.
You’re going to go hungry.
Sorry, exaggerated the number of combines for harvesting grains. Total the tractors, farm trucks, and then combines, it’ll be closer to the one million mark or so, probably more. Too much of a wag on my part.
A more accurate statistic, anyhow.
Hi Drump,
Another aspect of this is cost over time. As anyone who knows anything about farm equipment knows, a simple diesel tractor can provide generations of service. Thirty, forty years – easily. Their cost (including any maintenance/rebuilding costs) is amortized multiple times over those decades. Even if an EV cost the same up front, it will never last as long – which means it will always cost more, leaving aside the other costs!
ha, you made me remember something from a while back. In the 90’s when cars were getting smaller, we went to trucks. Then the trucks came under CAFE rules and I said at the time “we’re going to have to drive semi-trucks soon”.
Obviously that didn’t happen, instead the cost of trucks doubled and tripled to make them work for the Gov.
So now you made me think: Maybe we will be driving farm tractors if this EV crap gets mandated??? haha.. I think I could make it work. Or, we could be getting into a scenario where we just buy the off-road ATV and side-x-sides and just drive them on the roads?
I’m seeing a lot of SxS’s running around town (our little county seat of about 2K). Of course they’re all over out here in the country. Not us, though – we have an old XJ we drive around the place.
Farmer friends of mine still have equipment bought by his grandparents in the 1950’s and 60’s still in regular use. There is no way they will be replacing it anytime soon. You can’t just run out and spend 300k everyday.
Hi Drump!
The EV thing – like the WuFlu thing – depends on imbecility. On imbecility made a virtue. People who understand how things work, cause and effect, basic math… the meaning of words, etc. – have trouble understanding this mentality, which is based on a vapid expectation of manna just continuing to rain down from the sky, powered by unicorn farts and good wishes.
End the prohibition on direct sales, and let GM own their dealerships. Then they can install whatever they want — and you can bet there wouldn’t be nearly so many requirements.
Hi Kevin,
Yup. I’ll walk it back a step farther. If GM – and the others currently playing along – would stop playing along and follow the example of Chrysler/Dodge/Ram/Jeep and build what the buyer wants rather than what the government says, this would all fall apart very quickly.
eric,
Yep. It’s as if they are trying to “woke” themselves into insolvency.
A Tesla has just killed some people in China. Warning: This video is disturbing. Why is this permitted to continue? There are serious defects in these vehicles which seem to be overriding the control of the driver.
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/global-times-tesla-wreck-nanchong-killed-2-has-raised-doubts-over-cars-functions-quality
Why is it allowed? Because it advances several agendas of those who Rule humanity. The Oligarchs have decreed that AI EV’s are the future. That deals with their hysteria about “climate change”, and also starts to limit personal mobility. That will continue under one guise or another. Humanity is to become more and more overtly controlled, as the technology becomes available. The tax farms must be brought under tighter control. Its a matter of Global Security, Citizen… Now that the various War Lords, have had a taste of the tyranny they have always wished to impose, it will be very difficult to prevent further abuse of their authority.
Hi BJ,
Yup. The EV will be part of the control grid. Whether you “own” it or summon it (i.e., ride share it) the thing will be under the control of the government-corporate nexus and will only work so long as you play along, as by wearing your Diaper and getting your shot – etc. Via cashless and real-time tracking, they will be aware of everything you do – or don’t do – and have the power to turn off your access to everything (like “your” car) or the road – or the store – electronically and perhaps even automatically, using some kind of Good Doggie algorithm.
Hi Oskar,
The short answer? Because it suits. The “lockdown” has also caused more damage than the WuFlu – but it suits.
These people – the ones behind it all – don’t give a flip about “safety” or “health.”
They crave one thing: Power.
At this rate, California will be a third world nation/state in just a few more years. Bankrupt, with rolling power black outs, a power grid/generation system thats a bad joke, out of control spending and an ever growing homeless problem. Not to mention that now, their State and City War Lords, have destroyed much of their business and tax base. No wonder so many people, are fleeing the socialist hell hole they voted into existence.
Take a close look. That is what is in store for the rest of the country, if the Progs get their way.
This Spring, the local electric “co-op” in my area changed its pricing schema to variable rates at different times of the day (lower at night) specifically to promote/cater to nighttime charging of electric vehicles. They see big bucks in it for them that won’t go to the oil companies. As such, they constantly propagandize on behalf of electric vehicles that will be as economical as IC engines or even more so as soon as… wait for it… the mid-2030s! LOL. Not making this up.
” They see big bucks in it for them that won’t go to the oil companies.”
That’s called competition.
No, Pat –
It is called rent seeking. These “businesses” use the government to line their pockets using coercion. I’ve explained this before, countless times. You either aren’t honest enough to admit the difference or not intelligent enough to understand it.
Which is it?
Eric, people like the Clover, don’t really understand free enterprise. They are so caught up in their worship of the State and its power, than nothing else makes sense to them. Whats even more tragically funny, is watching vast numbers of people follow Elon the Pied Piper of Musk around. I’m certain a cliff will be provided
for them to jump off, in due time.
Eric- you are exactly right. As a bit of backstory, these rural area electric co-ops are a vestige of 1930s era New Deal legislation. They are entirely creatures of gov’t and are particularly collectivist in their outlook and operation. In NC, the amalgam of co-ops publish a monthly propaganda organ called Carolina Country that is mailed to every co-op member. Within, every leftist gov’t pet issue is pushed hard, including but not limited to “diversity”, climate change, EVs, and of course, diapering. The cover of the most recent issue prominently features a diapered up worker at a farmers market. It’s ALL related.
“It is called rent seeking.”
You really don’t seem to understand what Rent Seeking is.
Clover/Diaperer –
Rent seeking is the use of government force (e.g., regulations, mandates) to compel (via duress) the transfer of wealth from one party to another.
“Rent seeking is the use of government force (e.g., regulations, mandates) to compel (via duress) the transfer of wealth from one party to another”
That sounds like you have confused the definition of taxation.
economic rent is any payment to an owner or factor of production in excess of the costs needed to bring that factor into production. In classical economics, economic rent is any payment made (including imputed value) or benefit received for non-produced inputs such as location (land) and for assets formed by creating official privilege over natural opportunities (e.g., patents). In the moral economy of neoclassical economics, economic rent includes income gained by labor or state beneficiaries of other “contrived” (assuming the market is natural, and does not come about by state and social contrivance) exclusivity, such as labor guilds and unofficial corruption.
Clover – or should I call you Humpty Dumpty? – you don’t get to alter the meaning of words to suit your purpose.
Taxation is the direct confiscation of money by the government from the individual. Rent seeking is the use of government power (e.g., regulations, mandates) by a private business or individual to extract money from the economy for private gain.
Pat,
Do you ever tire of displaying your ignorance?
“Rent seeking” is one of the most important insights in the last fifty years of economics and, unfortunately, one of the most inappropriately labeled. Gordon Tullock originated the idea in 1967, and Anne Krueger introduced the label in 1974. The idea is simple but powerful. People are said to seek rents when they try to obtain benefits for themselves through the political arena. They typically do so by getting a subsidy for a good they produce or for being in a particular class of people, by getting a tariff on a good they produce, or by getting a special regulation that hampers their competitors”.
https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/College/governmentfailures.html
“Rent seeking, competition for politically protected transfers of wealth”.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/rent-seeking
You write, “economic rent is any payment to an owner or factor of production in excess of the costs needed to bring that factor into production”. This describes profit, not rent seeking.
But Jeremy, shouldn’t that “excess” go to the workers involved? Other wise you are “exploiting” them… Face palm.
You have demonstrated much more patience with them, than I’m currently in the mood for. Such willful ignorance is really annoying, especially in an age of ready/cheap/easy access to the knowledge to correct that ignorance.
Hey Eric,
If you haven’t already, check out this wonderful old Brit,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1__klB-PdPk
He’s also wonderful on Covid hysteria.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Jeremy, many thanks for the link. I’m always interested in learning about more viewpoints. I especially like his sense of humor. ^^ By the way, here is his personal web site, in case our beloved Google Over Lords. nuke his You Tube channel.
http://www.vernoncoleman.com/
I think it’s only a matter of WHEN, not if, VC’s YT channel is taken down. YT has already removed some of his videos.
Marky he has just posted his last video. He is moving to the other site.
Check here for his new site.
http://www.vernoncoleman.com/
The automakers (not just GM) have really strong armed their dealers into making “investments” that they can’t really make. I know of a number of them locally. This has been going on for the last 25 years or so. It’s despicable because it happens mostly to family owned single dealership type places, not the big dealer groups. Of course the automakers prefer those dealers as they are boring corporate places, not the more colorful local single dealers.
Back when Hummer was a thing, a local dealer wanted to sell them. He had plenty of room for the new (unproven) brand in his existing facility (Buick, Cadillac, GMC), and a market that didn’t support building more space. But no, he had to build new (the building with the big stupid H in the facade). Of course the brand didn’t last leaving him holding a fairly new building (and test track in the back)that he couldn’t use. GM reluctantly “allowed” them to move GMC into the vacant building after lawsuits over the construction of said building would be in favor of the dealer. The dealer installed a giant sign to cover most of the H. At least this dealer survived this “investment”.
A year or two before the recession in 2008, Chrysler forced a 100+ year old family run dealer to build a completely brand new facility (parts of their dealership building dated to the 1930’s, never mind they remodeled at least once a decade or so). The were going to pull their franchise if they didn’t build new (at a new location too). So they reluctantly built it, only to have it open as the economy tanked. They didn’t last a year at the new place. Bankrupt and Chrysler pulled their franchise on them anyway………
This one is happening right now. Longtime family run Chevy dealer recently sold to another family run dealer (so they now have two). The former owners had built a brand new, but boring new car showroom to conform with GM’s new “standards”. That left the former new car showroom (a huge, I really mean huge, beautiful mid century 1960’s gull wing style building) which they made into a used car showroom, spending millions remodeling it just five years ago. But as part of the sale, GM required the former new car showroom had to go. So its being razed as this comment is being made. GM is so lame.
That’s the kind of SHIT big gov’t pulls! Then again, come to think of it, there’s little difference between big gov’t and big corporations…
Exactly Marky. You do know the name of a system that combines government power, and corporations production?… Fascism.
GM is “asking” its dealers to spend between $120,000 and $200,000 each to “ready their facilities” for the EVs GM intends to build because the government says it must.
What’s the stick going to look like? They already have a pretty thin dealer network after 2008, will they risk pulling the franchise of dealers who don’t play ball? Will the dealers moan to Uncle for subsidies? Or will GM just get congress to add a requirement to whatever stimulus bill is next on the docket?
California can’t run AC right now but they expect to be able to charge electric cars ?????
Of course! You didn’t know that EV’s run on unicorn farts?… ^^
Everything said by the Demonrats is a fart.