When your customers cannot afford what you’re selling, you finance it. Literally. Sell them the item – and the interest.
Plus a bill of goods.
This is Cadillac’s new business model for selling its soon-to-here array of electric vehicles, beginning next year with the 2023 – and $59,990 to start – Lyric. It’s a ride that not many can afford to buy – which is true of electric cars, generally. And conventional lenders – banks, credit unions and so on – are inevitably going to be less willing to write loans for these electric cars – because of the unique problem with electric cars.
In addition to the depreciation of the car, which becomes a problem – for the lender – when the car reaches the financial event horizon of being worth less than the remaining loan balance due – there is the EV-specific problem of the degredation of the battery, which accelerates the depreciation of the car.
Almost any six-year-old non-electric car still has at least another six years of probably reliable service life left. It is unlikley it will need a new engine – or transmission – for years after the loan is paid off. But a six-year-old electric car will need a new battery before six more years pass by. This is inevitable – and has nothing to do with quality control or defective design. Batteries always lose their capacity to hold a full charge over time. It is a function of the discharge-recharge cycle and it is why the 12 volt battery that starts your non-electric car doesn’t last six years, either. But that battery only costs about $120 to replace.
EV battery packs – many times the size of a 12 volt starter battery and an item you cannot replace yourself – cost many thousands of dollars more.
The need to replace the battery pack is accelerated by deep discharging – running the battery to essentially “empty” – so as to get the maximum range out of the car.
Put another way, if electric cars are used normally – if they aren’t mostly not used – they will regularly drain their battery pack, which will then have to be recharged from zero or nearly zero to fully recharged, again. And again.
And again.
This is hard on batteries – the equivalent – in engine terms – of running WOT almost all the time. The engine will wear out faster.
And there is a related problem that makes this problem even worse. Most people who own EVs will not want to wait while this recharging occurs. Or at least, they will want to wait less. Hence the much-heralded “fast” chargers, which use extremely high voltage to instill the charge that would otherwise take hours using common household electrical voltage (120v or 240v).
The price to be paid for this “fast” charging is decreased battery life, due to the toll on the battery pack. People familiar with batteries are already aware of this. If you want an ordinary 12V battery of the type that starts a non-electric car’s engine to last a long time, you trickle charge it. If you “fast” charge it you are exchanging convenience for shortened battery life.
It says so, right there on the box.
It probably won’t say so on the Cadillac’s box – but it’s in there, just the same.
And Cadillac knows it.
Knows they are going to have trouble selling these electric loss leaders, in part because banks and credit unions aren’t run by dummies. They understand depreciation – and they are probably aware of what battery degradation will do to the value of electric cars as they age – and do not want to be left holding the bag when it becomes evident that a six-year-old EV with a battery pack that is losing its charge-holding capacity is a car few will want to hold the keys to. The first owner will want to dump it rather than pay for a new battery pack. He may decide to stop paying on the loan.
Would you buy a second-hand EV that you knew had already lost a third of its originally advertised range – and would lose more, soon? That would require you to spend $6k or so on a new battery pack before you finished paying the car off?
Enter in-house financing, which Cadillac is marketing as a “convenience” as well as a higher end “experience.” Marks – whoops, potential buyers – will be able to apply for and get credit online, even via an app on their phone.
So easy!
“This is far beyond a rebranding exercise,” Cadillac’s vice president of Sales, Service and Marketing, Mahmoud Samara told The Detroit Free Press. “It’s an ecosystem approach to deliver a frictionless, seamless experience that’s fully connected, predictive and highly personalized.”
Would you buy a used car from that man?
Behind all the goobledegook about “connected ecosystems” is the Rent-a-Center model for these transactions. People who probably can’t afford what they’re buying signing up for special handling, right there in the store. Or via their phone.
Ah yes, my little electrified chickadee!
The Detroit News was more straightforward in its coverage of this blossoming. “Cadillac leaders now recognize that the financing arm will be the key to Cadillac’s profits as it goes all-electric . . .”
Italics added, though the emphasis is hardly needed.
Cadillac Financial – as the new key to Cadillac’s profits is to be called – goes online (and into marks’ pockets) sometime in the middle of 2022.
More financialization. Less value.
And to think that, once upon a time – when Cadillac was the standard of the world – you could pay off a new Eldorado or Sedan deVille in three years and probably not have to put a new engine in it for another ten.
. . .
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Very Ironic: Although the lithium and cobalt used in EVs are totally recyclable if friends of the earth saw how these elements are mined in 3rd world countries they would agree that the environmental degradation done exceeds by many many times the impact of CO2 coming out of a combustion engine…EVs are NOT environmentally friendly if you add in the degradation done by the mining operations…..They’ll still buy RVs anyway
those greenies hate children, a scourge on their environment. The CO2 agenda is an offshoot of the global reset being used to drive global communism. The greens could care less about the harm caused to the children.
Why is no one making an EV with a gas turbine generator? If the batteries go low the turbine comes on. Like a diesel electric train.
The discontinued Chevy Volt used this principle…..Guess it had to skip an exotic gas turbine generator but it did have a 2 cylinder gas engine recharging a battery pack that powered 2 electric motors….No tranny needed…By varying voltage and amps the motor can put out variable torque and rpm electronically controlled…an electric motor itself functions as a transmission …without the gears and related power lost through heat/friction…lasts longer too
‘Cadillac’s new business model for selling its soon-to-here array of electric vehicles, beginning next year with the 2023 – and $59,990 to start – Lyric.’ — eric
Good luck with that. The average sales price of new vehicles just crept over $45,000 for the first time. At the same time, sales have plunged by one-third, allegedly due to component shortages. Chart:
https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/US-auto-sales-SAAR-2021-10-04.png
As sales collapse, a third horseman of the apocalypse just rode onto the scene: the Atlanta Federal Reserve just cut its estimate of 3rd quarter real GDP growth to a feeble 0.5%.
Former Bank of England consultant David Blanchflower asserted last week, based on consumer sentiment data, that the US is entering recession. Now the Atlanta Fed, using independent data, is saying the same.
Selling costly vehicles into a sinking economy, with gas prices ramping up toward $4.00 a gallon? All aboard the GM Titanic!
I am wondering how these EV’s are going to work out as joey and the boys start rationing electricity, gasoline and nat gas? Their plan is no food, no services and no power until you get their deadly poisonous mRNA injections. Then, for millions it won’t matter that they have no food, no services or no power.
I also wonder about drivers in general and how most seem to always be in a hurry. Especially on the X-ways where speed limits have been raised from 70 to 75 or are at 80 mph and people are driving 5-10 mph above those limits. How can EV drivers stand to wait for their vehicles to be charged when they are in such a hurry?
I think I will start charging my cell phone with the slow USB method rather than the quick charge. Since I cannot remove the battery, I don’t want to give up my non-apple, de-googlized phone.
“rationing electricity” No, the Chinese have SMR and LFTR approved by NRC ready to go. The whole EV thing is NOT about electric cars, it is about buying Chinese nukes to provide the extra generation to handle the extra demand of the EV’s. Nukes make no financial sense right now, but. mandate EV’s and all of a sudden Hunters investments in China take off!
Drove my uncle’s 1976 Cadillac back around 1980, one nice automobile. Today’s Cadillacs aren’t that great, wouldn’t consider buying one these days. No curb appeal there.
60 thousand for an electric Cadillac is out of the question. Electrified schmelectrifried! Nobody really cares at all. har
One thing is for sure, the battery will go dead. Have had it happen many times, have to go buy a new one, make sure it is a good one. A bad battery not yet dead can have a direct effect on engine performance.
A good used Suburban will be the choice for the next buy, 2012 year model. Not any of the squared-off Suburbans you see, don’t like the looks of those.
I had a 1976 Chevrolet pickup, backed out of a driveway onto the street one day and the right front wheel and tire went sideways as I moved in reverse. The control arm snapped and that was that for the day. Got it fixed and was on the road again.
It had a 454 with a broken piston, changed out to a 350, hard to believe all the work involved to own a used vehicle that was misused by the previous owner.
Also owned a 1968 Chevy 1/2 ton, that was a good one.
Sold both of them a long time ago, there they were gone.
Those button batteries have silver in them.
Samsung has researched Ag-C film batteries. Silver content batteries are going to be half the size of lithium-ion batteries, probably will be much safer, maybe won’t want to ignite spontaneously so easily, could possibly be used in EVs. Find out by field testing, trouble shooting.
Lithium is proving to be somewhat feckless for a battery in an EV, spontaneous combustion is a real danger and one should fear it constantly. Get me outta this thing. Isn’t making much sense to me.
We didn’t start the fire, Elon did. lol
A silver-carbon battery in your EV would have more resale value and you would be riding with a fungible commodity, your silver-carbon battery would be worth something in the final analysis. If it works, has to work first. Might be one of the answers.
For now, gasoline works just fine. Plenty of energy content, explodes with just a spark under pressure.
That ’76 Caddy, with likely the 500 cubic inch Cadillac V8, was the LAST of the “Amerikanische Konigstigers” with chrome and hubcaps that once graced our highways. Sure, they guzzled gasoline…a LOT of Gott-damned gasoline…but SHIT, those beasts were powerful, comfortable, and so easy to drive that a 75 y.o. old lady had no trouble handling one! Indeed, it was like driving your COUCH around!
I suppose there will always
be suckers who would buy a six year old EV without asking the seller “how old is the battery pack?” But eventually the battery problem will be factored into the depreciation and thus the market value of used EVs. Putting the banks at ease.
Batteries in general just suck (not just electric car ones). My computer mouse eats a pair of AA batteries in a week with general use. My smart phone batteries just don’t last very long, no matter the brand or model. I bet Apple has spent billions on batteries and has nothing to show for it.
There has been no real advances in battery tech in decades. Nothing that really changed things. Just the government pushing us towards using crap.
Hi Rich,
Powering a laptop is one thing; mine is ok for several hours on a charge. But the laptop doesn’t have to move itself. And it does not have any moving parts, beyond a small fan. An electric car battery must turn a powerful motor that has to propel a heavy car. This takes a tremendous amount of power and it dissipates quickly. To get it back requires a tremendous amount of power. People who draw an equivalence between laptop/phone batteries and “how long they last” (and how little they cost) don’t understand that this doesn’t translate to EV battery packs.
What they don’t also understand is the incredible development over the years to reduce the power demand of said laptops and other portable computing devices…and the technology of improving batteries to be lighter, hold more of a charge, and not CATCH FIRE! Remember the problem about 12 years ago or so with Samsung “sail fawns” that damned near bankrupted the company? It was so bad, that if you flew, the Airlines would make you show your phone, so the ill-fated Korean gadget wasn’t being taken aboard, as if one did burst into flame, there was no way to put it out! Kinda hard to throw a burning cell phone out the window at 35,000 feet!
I also recall some rather humorous attempts from the late 80s at development and marketing of “portable” computers…and I don’t mean those “luggage” beasts like the venerable Kaypro or Osbourne. Even Atari, at least its re-incarnation under the late Jack Tramiel (a huckster if ever such a cretin existed), made an ignoble attempt with it’s STacy, a portable version of its ST line of computers. Dinky LCD monochrome screen, a joke by today’s standards…but the real “fun” part was that the engineers could get it to run on a dozen “C” size Alkaline batteries…for TWENTY minutes! The “trick” was to get a dozen RECHARGEABLE batteries, not exactly a cheap proposition in 1988, along with its own charger, as you transported the beast from one AC outlet to another w/o having to power it down and boot it back up…and the power supply was still that “brick” that weighed about five pounds, by “Gawd and Sonny Jeez-Uz, I shit you not.”
My Uncle bought the new Mustang electric. It’s one big gadget and it’s Zippy. Like my uncle, who’s pushing 80, needs a soundless (and rather soul-less) rocket that he can’t figure out how to operate. I’m chuckling but I’m also serious, lot’s of old people are going to be driving these things.
Wanna bet pedestrian deaths go up?
The best battery tech came out of Japan a while ago, South Korea has solid tech but nobody has made any real improvement to it for twenty years and probably won’t be able to either. It’s a bottleneck issue and basic physics really. To store any amount of energy, that’s large enough to do everything they are demanding of it requires an equivalent mass, it’s just how it is. Weight will always be an issue, you can’t get around it.
Furthermore, it takes a lot of energy to contain that much energy and as you try to pack more energy into a smaller package the containment issues multiply, until eventually it would take as much energy to contain the energy, as there is energy stored. That’s an “Escape” issue, which is also impossible to overcome without some new Alien form of shielding. Try to pack too much energy into too small a space, I double dog dare you.
Maybe a hundred years from now when ceramic tech is so advanced that we can’t even imagine it, then maybe, still only maybe, always maybe. Maybe batteries made from spent uranium, if we go huge on nuclear power sometime? Possible but still maybe, always maybe.
Ps. I’m not Anti-battery. I made a ton of money selling them along with various gadgets, which I manufactured. I imported so many batteries and battery boxes that I was investigated by homeland security. (special thanks to FEDEX for informing on me).
Hi Brad,
Lots of rich old people!
Your uncle’s Mach E stickers for about $45k to start, which is a lot of shekels for most people (especially when you add in the cost of having your house wired for 240V charging) and the cost to insure any $45k vehicle (plus property tax, if you live in a state like mine where they apply this to the “book value” of the vehicle – electric or otherwise – every year for as long as you possess the vehicle).
Now, one can buy – for now – an otherwise similar (in terms of its size and features) compact crossover for about $30k or even less. This is generally typical; i.e., the electric version of X costs about $15k more than the same basic thing in a non-electric Y. It boggles me that – for the most part – it just passes with a sigh that people are going to be “asked” to spend $15k more than they would have for their next (electric) vehicle, which will only go about half as far and which will take at least five times as long to go again.
Right on, nothing inexpensive or ever close to it about these gadgets and we are from Northern Michigan, where they really don’t make a lick of sense at all. It’s a long drive to anywhere in the middle of our winters, I wouldn’t want to be caught out in a blizzard in any of these things.
What WOULD it cost to find a decent ’65 to ’67 Mustang, even with a “straight six”, and restore it to being a daily driver? Probably HALF of what that guy’s uncle spent on that ‘letric ‘Stang, and he’d have the REAL joy of living the “Glory Days”!
It depends on what you are starting with and what you want to end up with.
You can easily spend $40K on a car and restoring it. Roller shells completely rust free with any rusted panel replaced with a full new panel go for quite a penny and that’s before engine, trans, interior, etc.
But if you buy a six that needs work and then do your own patch panels and paint it yourself you can probably keep it well under the cost of a new car.
If you don’t care what the car looks like and want the same basic Ford platform, you can get a Granada or Monarch. Nobody wants them. Nobody cares about them except as parts cars for other Fords. Get the engine out of the smog’d era one way or another and you should be good to go. Sure it’s a little bigger and heavier and ugly, but cheap it is.
That’s the pre fox ones, ’75 to 80 or 81. After that they became rebadged fairmonts more or less. Which opens up other cheap lego ford car choices. These unloved fox cars can use most of the foxbody mustang parts pile.
Seen those pictures of the 50s and 60s cars in Cuba? They are forced to learn to keep those running. Even today.
I hope there’ll be a group of old school mechanics that can keep those 70s, 80s, 90s cars running before all that electrifornication. The only fear is they may make gas/diesel $10 a gallon or outlaw them altogether.
Why does everyone feel that battery replacements will be prohibitively expensive in the future?
All types of electronics Including computers have gotten both better and cheaper. Sometimes you guys sound like horse and buggy salesmen warning the publicity to not buy the new fangled motor car, and the dangers of gasoline exploding in the engine.
Hi Henry,
Because they are expensive – and there are many reasons why they are. An EV battery is not analogous to electronic components. A typical EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds – which is a lot of material. A lot of expensive/hard to get/produce material.
I have been very careful to critique EVs on objective/factual grounds – much as I dislike them for being soul-less, homogenized things that are much more amenable to centralized control regimes.
The only rebuttal I ever get – to the facts about things such as EV battery costs and the EV range/recharge issues – is that “it will get better/cheaper.”
And yet, it hasn’t.
I have been covering EVs since the mid-1990s. Very little has meaningfully changed in all these years – except as regards performance. Modern EVs are capable of extremely rapid acceleration. But the price of that is a massively heavy vehicle (in part because of the massively heavy battery pack) that costs a massive amount of money and still suffers from range limitations and ridiculous time wastage associated with recharging.
I’m not a Luddite. I just have a good bullshit detector!
Eric – Streets is watching. Your reply to Montana Guy yesterday.
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/10/16/monkey-paw-3/#comment-789584
Hi Anon,
Once again, I’m not following… can you please be clear?
It’s also simply forgotten that the batteries of the EV are merely BUFFERS, i.e., unlike an ICE, which at least converts the chemical potential energy of the fuel into useful work (well, a portion of it, the majority of available energy dissipates one way or the other as heat that does no useful work at all) and carries a considerably lower penalty of cost, complexity, and WEIGHT. The electric power necessary to charge up an EV must come from SOMEWHERE, with its own parasitic losses in transmission, and heat losses in power generation at the source. The utter irony of this virtue-signaling bullshit is that more widespread demand for electric power to charge up EVs will, in turn, increase demand for coal-fired plants, and NUCLEAR, and even HYDRO. The “wokesters” who want to be “GREEN”, of course, will have their respective conniption fits over THOSE, and if those ninnies get their way, an ARTIFICIAL scarcity of electricity will also be the result…meaning that owning and/or driving one’s own ride would soon become the province of the “privileged” and/or WEALTHY, with the rest of we “proles” riding the “bucking fuss”..
When a 1971 Dodge Challenger that Walt Kowalski drove at breakneck speeds across the Great Basin deserts of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California, with a 440 Six-Pack et al are outlawed…I’ll BE a FUCKING OUTLAW! Even with a humble VW Beetle or Plymouth Valiant with a Slant Six.
Battery tech is limited by what it’s exactly trying to do. Store energy. Energy does not take being stored kindly, and seeks any means to escape that storage. The more energy you store, the greater the potential between the storage, and the universe. Hence batteries catch fire. Battery tech has advanced, but it’s one of the slowest in advancing of any tech. The more energy you store, the greater the potential between the storage, and the universe. Ask Elon Musk.
“There are two kinds of fool. One says, ‘This is old, and therefore good.’ And one says, ‘This is new, and therefore better’” – John Brunner
Hi Henry –
This concept is a typical Musk ruse. The idea that you are expressing is that cost and performance will go down because – well it did for computers. For computers it went down due to Moore’s Law (and its equally important counterpart Dennard Scaling which are the physical laws and limits of heat dissipation). Basically, we could squeeze an ever greater number of transistors into an ever smaller space and computers would get faster. The most important part of Moore’s Law is not just the increase in computing power in smaller spaces, but that doubling the amount of computing power every 18 months could be done for the same or lower cost of production. We have reached the limits of Dennard scaling and Moore’s Law.
In computing there is a mathematically and real-world proven path forward using custom hardware and software that has ample head room to continue to economically scale computing power by a significant degree. If you are interested check out the 2018 ACM Nobel Prize winners in computing who discuss this. Very interesting talk by some adult engineers in touch with reality.
This is all background to understand the great ruse that Musk and the EEV (Emissions Elsewhere Vehicles), crowd play up. They confound Moore’s Law and Dennard Scaling as applied to microchips with the ability to do the same thing with batteries. There is just one problem. The chemistry and physics are not known to give anything like Moore’s Law + Dennard Scaling output gains and cost reductions in the realm of batteries that propel automobiles. We need a whole new physics and chemistry, and after that, a massive number of engineering breakthroughs to make anything like Moore’s Law possible for battery technology. In summary, there is some headroom to bring down prices for these batteries but very little as most of the gains have already been made.
One of the best sources on this topic is Mark Mills at The Manhattan Institute. He outlines the physical limits that will constrain EEVs as an affordable peer technology to ICEs. He also outlines how these EEVs require a massively larger environmental, energy and resource footprint across the entire supply chain. Moreover, some great papers by engineer Gautam Kalghatgi tackle this subject quite well. One of the more interesting papers he wrote talks about how, the physics is known that will make ICEs up to, I believe, 48% efficient on average and with minimal investment. Not only is that investment minimal, but it leverages the 100 year investments already made into the ICE. So, if CO2 emissions is important to you, which to me that scam is also thoroughly debunked, than we would get a much greater benefit by following the known physics to making ICE technology even more efficient for the market segments that want that feature.
Mark Mills at the Manhattan Institute and Gautam Kalghatgi at the GWPF are doing great work in breaking this down from a science and engineering perspective. There is n Cambridge mechanical engineer Michael Kelly also doing a lot of work for the GWPF. In short, Elon Musk is intentionally deceiving people who are not technical with the promise that Moore’s Law will apply to battery powered cars, but pending discovery of entirely new physics and chemistry, it won’t – not by a long shot.
excellent. thanks
The “limit” of Moore’s Law won’t necessarily be transistor size or heat dissipation, even though those limits do exist. It’ll be once either a machine itself and/or a program in cyberspace becomes artificially intelligent, self-aware, and then figure out in a few microseconds why the fuck should it be taking any “orders” from those stupid “meat bags”? Yes, I’m aware of the movie franchise that spawned that idea…
Modern EV chemical batteries are inherently expensive because their size and materials and construction. It’s going to be very difficult to increase material supply to bring price down there. Energy densities would have to vastly increase for them to get smaller as the incremental increases go to range. Construction is expensive because of the energy being dealt with and the complexity of safe charging and discharging. Never mind collision.
EVs need something like zero point to be viable without the drawbacks they have had for well over a century. Sure the drawbacks are mitigated but they remain because they are inherent to chemical batteries. Whatever it may be would have to be something completely unlike chemical batteries as we know them.
“Cadillac leaders now recognize that the financing arm will be the key to Cadillac’s profits as it goes all-electric . . .” — eric
General Electric Finance nearly took down the century-old industrial conglomerate in 2008. It had to be bailed out along with the banks.
No doubt GM Finance will help usher in the company’s second (and hopefully final) bankruptcy.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they e-v-v-v-ver learn?
— Pete Seeger, Where Have All the Flowers Gone
GMAC and GECC are already what drives those companies. That they make ANY products at all is mere coincidence. That’s what happens when we allow any from a certain tribe to make decisions, which is why I’m whole-heartedly in favor of Israel and its “right of return”…provided ALL of that “Tribe” AVAIL themselves of it!
And yes, I’m aware of the saying attributed to Ben Franklin about vampires being unable to feed solely off of fellow vampires…
I firmly believe we are on the brink of Weimar level hyperinflation, so I’m not sure it matters all that much. In a year, or less, the general population may be doing quite well if they aren’t losing weight they don’t really want to lose, and living in a mostly dry and slightly warm residence. The structure is crumbling, and the Sociopaths In Charge are doing all they can to delay the process, and extract all the wealth they can before it comes crashing down. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, as we dispose of our addiction to the state.
Hi John.
I believe you are correct. If TPTB can bring home the huge dollar reserves held overseas slowly, not like chickens coming home to roost all at once, they can then allow the hyper inflation to commence. It seems like their only play left. It pulls all the savings Americans have under their mattresses out. They can then institute a global electronic currency based on obedience and social credit.
I think in the not too distant future Americans will be happy to eat things that would make a billy goat puke. One of the keys to surviving, for those of us who have prepared, will be trying to figure out how not to stand out in this brave new world
“happy to eat things that would make a billy goat puke” …such as Rambo!
You Es Eh, Let’s go Justin
Ron Paul was right.
Oh, and FJB.
Let’s go Brandon!
I’d say “EFF-JB (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap), but in this forum, that’s preaching to the choir. I see no point in displaying the “digitus impudus” unless it has a chance to OFFEND.
I use an electric push mower bc my yard is so small & I didn’t want to tote gasoline just to mow for 15 minutes. That said the corded mower is a PITA; bought it bc I’ve had terrible luck with batteries over the last 20 years. I also ended up buying a 12 ga extension cord bc the common 14 ga cord would get hot & drop voltage over distance. Until someone can channel the real Tesla & transmit usable power over the air, electric lawn equipment causes way more problems than it solves. Not that gov hairdo, the botox ho, or bug eyes care.
My Grandmother had a corded push mower many years ago. Cord was never long enough and a couple blades of grass would clog the motor and bring everything to a halt. I don’t think she had it for long.
Watching football yesterday, every second commercial was a virtue signaling performance of EVs. I also know of one major company who is all in with electric lawnmowers, if one gets a glimpse into their distribution warehouses. My question to a co-worker at the time was “Who would buy one of these? My yard would destroy the darn thing inside of 10min!” The power grids across the US are also not capable of providing enough power, esp with bloody windmills, for all this virtue.
The future is looking dim indeed.
If you meant by “footy-ball” the Negro Felons League, aka the NFL, do yourself a big, fat, favor and TURN IT OFF. Your brain cells will thank you for it. If I want to watch a Gott-Damned ape-dominated minstrel show, I’ll dig up old footage of Al Jolson singing “Mammy”, thank you very much.
If one MUST indulge one’s pigskin predilection, beyond grabbing one and tossing it about with the kiddies in the yard, which is probably a helluva lot HEALTHIER than parking it on the sofa in front of the boob tube, I suggest either college ball or the CFL. It’s kinda ironic that the game in Soviet Canuckistan is actually more wide-open and entertaining, and as those players don’t make as much as in the “Lower 48”, they’re less inclined to “showboat”.
Eric – I suspect all the financial fuckery justifying this sort of business for them is based on the assumption that used cars will hold their value in the future as they have over the past year. what are your thoughts on this?
Having said that (and I cant recall 100%) wasnt one of the reasons that GM got the TARP bailout in 08 that they had too much crap on their balance sheet in GM financial? Seems like they’ve gone full circle !!
Morning, Nasir!
I expect the value of older used cars to continue escalating. Yesterday I scanned the various classified ads (e.g., Craigs, AutoTrader) to see what it would cost me to replace my ’02 Nissan Frontier with something similar. Same year trucks with twice the mileage were advertised for $5k-$6k and I found two with about the same mileage as mine appx. 130k that were listed for $8-9k.
I bought my ’02 ten years ago for $7k.
Except that the $7K of some ten years ago now has the purchasing power that would require about $12K today, IF you take the admitted stats at face value. Just had to quibble. But even THOSE figures indicate how used rides are appreciating.
Hell, I got an OFFER from the place that I bought my 2020 Fusion to trade it in, which, with what I still owe on it (by coincidence, exactly TWO years from when I bought it, today), and they’d either put eleven grand in my pocket, OR, credit considerably MORE towards a brand, spanking new “Furd” product. And IF I felt a NEED to buy one, like, say, a new F250 with that pushrod V8 (about $85K the way I’d want it), it might not be a bad idea. But…I don’t NEED a new ride, nor do I WANT one. I could just continue to pay off the (con)Fusion over the next two years at relatively modest payments and interest rate and “stay the course”, and soon enough, it’s all MINE…at least until it’s gets regulated or TAXED into oblivion, or President “Xiden” and his orcs don’t care for my opinions and get the Department of Homeland Security and/or the CA DMV to have Ford send a signal to the “brain” that disables it. Let alone I get a “nasty-gram” in the mail informing me that my “privilege” to operate a motor vehicle is hereby revoked until I learn to be a good, complaint white boy and shut the fuck up.
I’d love to see a comparison of the purchase plan they offer, versus a leasing plan, and what residual value they calculate.
After a three year lease, they could probably re-sell the car… but would they finance it for more than 3 years?
And if they did, what would the price be for GAP insurance? How badly screwed would a purchaser be if they opted out of GAP?
Hi Kevin,
I won’t be surprised if they “bundle” the cost of the inevitable battery replacement into the price of the loan and call it “concierge” service…
I do find this “concierge” service funny…. re-branding the good mechanic as a “concierge”… where you pay like 200 quid an hour in labour to have your car fixed all so you can get free wifi and a bimbo bring you a latte while you wait….
It might be worth 200 quid if its a ‘full body latte with extra foam.’
And if the bimbo is full bodied and luscious…
And wearing the latte.
You’ll own NOTHING and LIKE it!
Somehow I liked it better coming from the late Ted Knight in “Caddyshack”. At least, as a jerk, he was FUNNY.
Automakers have probably been looking for a way to bring back the good old days where people bought new cars much more frequently than they do today. Leases were the first way of doing this. Now the battery EVs. These might even force used car buyers into being new car buyers. On credit or as a service or some sort of monthly nut of course.
Sure, they want that…but they aren’t going to get it at the prices they have to charge for the things. And there isn’t much profit in less expensive cars. After the whole “electric cars for everyone” idea goes bust, which it will, there will be a reckoning. And I bet there will be a lot of sudden vacancies in the c suites.
I agree, Brent –
The paradox is: Emissions regs and general pressure to emulate Japanese quality/durability have resulted in excellent cars. Too excellent. They easily last 15-20 years now. Too long – for the car companies. People – smart people – can avoid being enserfed to car payments and sill have a perfectly sound car.That must end – from a certain point of view…
Meanwhile, the very watermelons caterwauling over carbon emissions completely ignore how much energy it costs to build their electric dream car again every 5-6 years. While a ten year old Toyota only uses what is contained in the fuel it burns, and may do so for another ten years. I suspect the carbon balance between the two might favor the Toyota.
Hi John,
Yup. I wish I could figure out how to calculate the total “carbon footprint” of my almost 20-year-old truck vs. a brand-new Tesla, over a 20-year span.
If the “Fee Market” were actually ALLOWED to work its inherent “magic” (as Quark of the Star Trek: DS9 once rued, “Free Enterprise” is SUPPOSED to be FREE!), you could obtain a decent remanufactured engine and/or transmission for that truck, if the truck’s overall condition warranted it, and either hire a mechanic to do the swap, or, with enough savvy, a few burly friends and a few pizzas and cases of brews expended over a few weekends, do the swap yourself. It’s become amazing how many bureaucrats and regulatory nincompoops have a pink fit at your ability and inherent RIGHT to do just that.
Hi Doug,
Yup –
I can pull the tranny out of my truck (the ’02 Nissan) in an afternoon, using a floor jack, some 2x4s and basic hand tools. I wouldn’t even try to mess with one of the new Frontiers, beyond maybe changing the oil.
Hey Eric, my neighbor who owns a tesla said ‘i can’t defrost the windshield”.
So I guessed, and was right, that when she hits the defrost button, it’s not turning on the ac compressor as all/most cars do, to save power. we live in a humid area so get this a lot.
So we messed with it a bit and found that if you hit AC and then direct the vents to the windshield, it works, however pressing the defroster button turns the AC light off again.
hahahah………………………
looks like tesla did it on purpose to save electrons, as most in drier areas probably never need the defroster, but the one that do………………….?
Tesla Motors products are designed for California. If you live in a place not like California’s most popular climates then you’ll have various issues like the bumper cover filling with water and ripping off.
Hi Chris,
Yup… expect the fun to begin when these EVs – which so far have been bought mostly in temperate CA – experience the cold and rain and snow and dark of a Midwest/East Coast winter… . I also suspect that – so far – the typical Tesla/EV buyer has been Clover-type, the sort who previously bought cars like the Prius and “hypermiled” to get the most out of the things. Wait until people who just want to go drive them. And discover what happens when you crank the heater up on a 17 degree day and burn the lights because it’s pitch dark out and run the thing at 75 on the highway for an hour or so….
She’s not the clover type, but I agree most probably are. She just loves all things tech. And she was giddy about the tesla tech, for about 3 months, not so much now. For as long as I’ve known them, they own high end vehicles like Escalades, S-class, etc….. The tesla is just way to inconvenient for them, she won’t be getting another one.
The good news, is she usually asks my opinion when she gets a new car, about every 3 years. “give me the pluses and minus on X, etc…” I told her no on the tesla, but she did it anyway.
We’ve had some fun with it though. My rural road does not have cell service so many park before our road if they are on a call, and I always pull up next to her “Do ya need me to go get a generator?, haha”
I can guaren-damn-tee-ya that it wasn’t some cute little 22 y.o. secretary that bought that Tesla on the measly wages she gets paid here in once “Golden” State…no, it’s some “woke” politician, attorney, lobbyist, or someone that made some dinero in the Tech sector, with enough money to burn to buy one of these virtue-signaling toys. Of course, he’ll have a $125K Mercedes AMG or a $100K “Cowboy Cadillac” in the driveway as well.
The irony is that the overpriced purchase cost is offset by TAX CREDITS from Uncle Sam and “Uncle Gavin”, in spite of their pledges to “get” these rich fuckers. Yeah…right…
Amen, Douglas –
No one who isn’t at least affluent can afford to buy any electric car, the least costly of which costs around $35k – not counting the cost of the home wiring upgrade and charging equipment. Teslas are $50k-plus cars. We live in economically delusional times – as well as delusional times, generally. The cost of living has gone up by probably 20 percent for most people over the past ten months; millions have been devastated by the economic effects of the “lockdowns” (I am friends with several small business owners; some of them lost their businesses – the others are struggling to hang on). Most people can’t afford a $35k anything – electric or not.
The AC coming on when you select defrost venting is one of the first “latest and greatest” new car technologies that really pissed me off, as if I were not smart enough to hit the AC button when I actually needed it. It REALLY becomes a pain when you need every BTU of heat you can get on your windshield to keep it from icing up.
I’ve noticed even mowers are going electric now. The majority of the ones in my Lowe’s are anyway. A family member bought one recently and found not only is it much slower than the regular ones and more difficult to operate but the charger it came with for the battery didn’t work so the company had to ship one (which took like 2 weeks). Major disappointment. These things are hailed as “the future” but will be the end of convivence.
… the end of convivence,… & the end of practicality, and …durability, dependability, reliability, true efficiency, … and the weeds still won’t get cut!
Might as well get goats or sheep.
Or both, since goats prefer NOT to eat grass, but weeds instead.
Personally, I’ve never had good luck with electric string trimmers and as a result of that I don’t trust electric mowers (I also don’t trust myself not to run over the extension cord or wrap it around a tree).
Might be OK for a small yard, but not something I’d ever buy even though my yard is small. I’d buy a reel mower if I were forced to, but never an electric one.
As always, YMMV.
I agree – I had a tiny patch of lawn at my old place, probably 3mx7M, and had an electric. Was so slow to do even that, and the annoyance of managing the cable.
At my new place found an old petrol mower in the shed – took it out, fixed it and use it now…. its brilliant. I have to say the new lawn (12mx40m) takes about the same cutting time as the old one, despite the size! I cant imagine how an “electric lawnmower” will work especially in the gardens I see in the US…
> I agree – I had a tiny patch of lawn at my old place, probably 3mx7M, and had an electric. Was so slow to do even that, and the annoyance of managing the cable.
The last time I had a lawn that small, I used a reel mower. No gas, no batteries, no cord. I could make two passes over the lawn with it in maybe 10-15 minutes.
I used a corded electric mower over in England and Germany. It got the job done, though it probably helped that it ran on 240V instead of 120V.
(This was in the mid-’80s…cordless electric was definitely not a thing.) Its 12″ cutting width would’ve been suboptimal for the average American yard size, though. Even my reel mower cut a wider path.
Hi npc,
It might be very good policy to buy a spare mower, etc. now – while you still can. I expect them to become scarce – and pricey – soon. The creatures behind this are going for broke. By rendering us broke. We must break them.
An electric mower is OK, IF you CHOOSE it (for a small lawn, it’s easier than the traditional rig with a Briggs and Stratton on top). But here in the once “Golden” State of Calipornia, Governor “Gabbin Nonsense”, flush and DRUNK with power now that he and his supporting cast managed to FIX even the recent recall election, hath issued a “Fatwa” to OUTLAW gas-powered mowers, edgers, and leaf blowers. Fuck that. Soon comes the move OUT of this “woke” shithole…but BEFORE I go, a little “Eff you’ to the “Pretty Boy” governor…taking an old Mopar 318 “Poly” engine, and mounting it on an old “Trimmer” rig!
Hi Douglas,
It amazes me that more ordinary people in CA aren’t infuriated to the point of pitchforks in the street as regards Newsom. This effete tax-feeding tick, bloated with money and power, will have no worries keeping the lawn in front of his mansion neat and trim as cost is no object for such tax-feeding ticks. The unfeeling haughtiness and deliberate cruelty masquerading as “caring” (never for people) makes me want to smash something.
GM had a finance operation which ended up as a ward of the Fed and merged with Chrysler’s finance operation to form Ally. What will keep history from repeating?
Indeed, Roscoe –
I opposed the bailouts back in ’08-’09 in principle and otherwise. No company is “too big too fail.” In fact, that doctrine begets not only failure but something worse – arrogance, corruption and (worst of all) co-option. GM became a virtue signaling company, an adjunct of the government; a thing almost indistinguishable from government – excepting the fig leaf of electoral accountability.
If market forces had been allowed to work, the hulk would have been scrapped and disassembled; the viable pieces sold off and reconstituted. We’d now have some smaller and probably fewer new car brands – but they’d likely be more interested in selling cars than virtue.
Off topic, but I’m reminded of an annoying letter to the editor that I wrote in 2009.
‘Grandma was right. You don’t miss something until it’s gone. Grandma loved Dinah Shore. Do you remember enjoying, “See the USA in your Chevrolet, America’s the greatest land of all”? The year was 1952. Ah, pride in America, affordable travel for families, and Chevrolets. Just think. Obama killed all three in less than a year.’
Indeed, Montana –
As an Xer, I can remember that America, which largely still existed in the ’70s and ’80s and even into the ’90s. It all began to go wrong – seriously, badly wrong – after Nahhnlevven and the ascendance of The Chimp. I will hate that creep forever.
That “Chimp” and his partying twin daughters endorsed Xiden over Trump. An indicator that truly we’ve ONE political party with TWO faces, so that it exhibits “two-faced” behavior shouldn’t suprise.
What “too big to fail” really means is “us politicians have too much money in it to let it fail”. That and all the votes they can purchase from those who do as well.
RE: “Would you buy a second-hand EV that you knew had already lost a third of its originally advertised range – ”
Like I would buy a used Duracell or Energizer battery. Psft!
Perhaps used lithium battery Dewalt power tools have a market value which is similar? Every time I see them for sale at auctions they get Pennies on the Dollar & I often don’t understand why they even paid Pennies! Hopeful to resell? Idk.
In Winter – – when it’s freaking COLD – – I fail to see how these used battery powered crap cars can hold much of any value.
They are toys for idiot children.
Apparently some people are trying to push battery-operated snowblowers. Seriously. A coworker recently recommended one to me. I have my doubts.
Hi Publius,
These battery operated small appliances work ok in suburbia, for people who have driveways that are ten yards long and lawns that are 20×20. And – for them – the higher cost is perhaps offset by not having to get/store gas and oil, etc. But it is absurd for people who have more work to do – and who do not want to spend twice as much on something that is only capable of doing a third (or less) the work.
I’ve gotcher snow thrower right here
…pulls out shovel…
I reached into my battery drawer to find my last 8-pack of AAAs had all their ends blown off and their insides full of white crystals. They was 4 years old, so I took Duracell up on their 10-year guaranty. It took a lot of time to get them to honor it.
Pretty much hits it. Product few can afford that won’t outlast the time to pay it off before a major overhaul is needed.
Where’s the market for that?
Cadillac won’t be alone.
Where does leave the lower classes? Overpriced, low range go karts? Who will pay $10,000 for a car that may stop going after 2 or 3 years?
I think this whole thing will fall apart once reality sets in.
But hey, if they can force you to take a med you don’t want, why can’t they force you to buy an EV?
That’s just it, Dan…
The underlying purpose of the EV Juggernaut is not electrification. It is to use electrification to control mobility. Specifically, to herd most of the cattle into cities where they will live in hive apartment complexes. Where they will be allowed to use transportation as a service – the actual term – provided they have a good social credit score and keep up with their revolving payment schedule.
Sadly Eric, I think you’re 100% right on this…I wish it weren’t so. Live in a pod, eat the bugs, own nothing and be happy…the powers that be can’t be any more transparent.
Or actually live in the Matrix, where you ARE the battery.
Given the combination of electronic, computerized control of even cars with ICEs, and cellular and networking technology, that ability to control mobility ALREADY exists. It’s just a matter of HOW to do it, and the “causus belli” to justify it.
More financialization…until they find out about subscription services. Since a lot of people cannot afford the prices of an EV, they might come up with the idea of offering the right to use those cars for a determined time. Similar to leasing, but without the option to buy.
And on top of that, a bunch of insurance stuff.
Hopefully I’m wrong, as that would be another step to the “You’ll Own Nothing and You’ll Be Happy” thing.