I have been discovering what “electrification” costs – in terms of time lost. You can read about that, here.
It is also costing people their jobs.
Stellantis – the owner the Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler brands – just announced it will “indefinitely idle” the Belvidere, IL plant where Jeep Cherokees are made and where about 1,300 people work – and won’t be working anymore, come Feb. 28. The workers will be “idled” after that day. Leaving others to pay for the work not being done and the “idled” workers who will not be working anymore.
“This difficult but necessary action will result in indefinite layoffs,” reads the statement issued by Stellantis. These are “expected to exceed six months and may constitute a job loss under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act.”
And why are all these workers being “idled”?
It’s not because the Jeeps made at the Belvidere plant aren’t selling.
It is because electric vehicles are costing.
“Our industry has been adversely affected by a multitude of factors like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the global microchip shortage but the most impactful challenge is the increasing cost related to the electrification of the automotive market.”
Italics added.
We were told by the Biden Thing that “electrification” would create rather than destroy jobs, right? Just like the things told us that wearing a “mask” would “stop the spread.” In fact, “electrification” is very expensive – and not just in terms of the time cost. (Or rather, the time spent waiting, repeatedly, for electrified vehicles to recover electrical charge).
Even with government “incentives” of as much as $7,500 back (in tax credits) to make the cost more palatable to buyers, electrified vehicles are still much too expensive to build and sell at a profit. They are money losers for the car industry. This was just as true of non-electric cars that couldn’t be sold without offering buyers massive “incentives” to take them off of dealers’ hands. The difference is that, in the past, a car company could stop making the not-selling, not-profitable model and cut its losses. There was no government requirement that GM continue making Pontiac Azteks, for instance.
It is why there are no more new Pontiac Azteks.
But the car companies cannot just stop building today’s Aztek-equivalents.
They are required to make them.
The problem is selling them. Really selling them. As in making a profit on them sufficient to justify making more of them. That has yet to happen with any electric vehicle – including the much-lauded Teslas. The money made by Tesla has been made via stock valuation and be selling carbon credits.
Not by selling electric cars.
It’s a harder sell for the rest of the car industry because it has not been able to sell hype – to Wall Street – nor carbon credits, which it had to buy from Tesla because it had not “invested” in electric cars sufficiently, until recently. This “investment” is proving to be a terrible one, like taking out a 29 percent interest rate loan on a 20-year-old single-wide trailer.
The subsidies – styled “tax credits” – aren’t helping much, either. Because most people aren’t eligible for them. One of the many uncovered aspects of “electrification” (and the attendant subsidization) is that you have to have earned a lot of taxable income to be eligible for the $7,500 tax kickback.
Most people have not earned enough – and been taxed enough.
This means they aren’t eligible for the tax kickback. Which means they must pay the full cost of the electric vehicle. Most people cannot afford this cost – for the same reason that most people cannot afford any $50,000 (and up) vehicle. The fact is that most electric vehicles are effectively luxury vehicles, in terms of what they cost. That means there is a limited market for such vehicles, irrespective of what propels them. Irrespective of how “green” they supposedly are.
Only so many people can afford to buy a Lexus.
Or a Tesla.
Or a Ford Lightning.
It is not very many people.
But the government insists that more and more EVs be built – irrespective of what it costs to build them and irrespective of most people’s ability (let alone desire) to buy them.
Someone has got to pay for that, as someone always has to pay when there is a loss. In this case, it is the 1,300 soon-to-be-not-working workers at the Belvidere plant where non-electric Jeeps will no longer be made.
None of them will be able to afford a car, period.
According to Automotive News, Stellantis is “working to identify other opportunities to repurpose the Belvidere facility” but “has no additional details to share at this time.” Will that “repurposing” involve new “investments” in “electrification”?
And how much more is that going to cost us?
. . .
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That Belvidere plant has always seemed to struggle for some reason. It really shouldn’t, being one of Chryslers newer more modern factories. Until the Cherokee, it always seemed to get stuck with the loser cars that wouldn’t sell (most recently the Dart). So undoubtably it will get stuck with building some crappy electric thing that won’t sell.
Well, maybe recently. But, the L-Bodies were built there, my first new car was a 1982 Plymouth Turismo built at Belvedere. The L-Bodies (Omni/Horizon) sold very well till the late 80’s. The L-Bodies arguably started what later became Iacocca’s rebirth of MoPar.
They did a good job at Belvidere, too, no build quality complaints.
GM did the same thing with the Shreveport plant, new plant, recently upgraded various bits of the plant, and then closed…why?
I think, follow the money, Cui Bono, and we’ll get to the answer.
Hi Crusty
Its not just money. Its a horrible anti human ideology as well. The money is what those behind this use to purchase politicians and other useful idiots. They are using various front groups to cripple cheap effective power sources. Promote civil and racial hatred. They are also behind the entire global debt based system. The WEF is just the tip of a corrupt anti human ideology.
And then we have light bulbs. I like LED bulbs; they are great for a lot of applications. But I still like incandescent bulbs for some uses, too. Sometimes you want the heat they generate, in winter. They are great to keep pipes from freezing. But now, it’s getting harder to find them, and they are more expensive, because Clowngress has banned their sale. Totally ridiculous, IMO.
I’m not sure if some “specialty” incandescents are still allowed. But beware of “rough service” bulbs, especially around poultry. They have a Teflon coating that can offgas, and can kill birds.
European countries have outlawed the use of incandescent bulbs for lighting. However, they are still available being sold as “heaters”.
LED bulbs burn for months on end. Incandescent last for 750 hours, are better than LED in a few applications. Incandescent will dim, LED won’t. When you multiply 24 times 30, it equals 720, so you have another day of incandescent light.
For 7.99 at Target you can buy GE soft white incandescent light bulbs. Whether you want to pay the price or not, the price is worth it, you have an incandescent bulb, a more comfortable luminescence, provides some heat when it is beneficial.
You can wi-fi lights with LED too. The LED bulbs will change colors if you want.
Basically sucks, all I want to do is flip the switch.
Lulu Lemon, an athletic sportswear company, products are expensive, is down 50 dollars per share, the high was at 389 per share.
I remember Lulu Lemon at $3.48 per share back when Lulu was a nascent shoot 22 years ago.
Another Dark Winter and what looks like a blacker than black Black Christmas in store for the poor helpless humans subjected to more suffering and misery just so the Satanistas can work overtime making life pure hell on earth.
You’d think they’d know better.
They don’t.
The human life form is important, don’t you forget it.
A lot of foam and froth in those equities.
The only thing I really like about LED bulbs is that they run cooler, so you can get 100 watt equivalent light out of a 60 watt rated fixture.
I’ve got a lamp with a 60 watt incandescent on the table next to this chair I’m sitting in. It puts out a much warmer light than LEDs, and raises the perceived temperature a few degrees, making you feel warmer than you are. A good thing in winter.
The central “planners” are always years behind in what they want, and what’s available. How many years were we coerced into using compact fluorescents, very toxic and dangerous, before any alternative was available? Same with EVs. Battery tech is at least a generation behind what’s needed to make them work, if ever, and the generating capacity and grid capacity is trillions of dollars behind what’s needed to charge them. Apparently the Psychopaths In Charge prefer PUSHING the cart with the horse.
Besides gas powered vehicles, now the Biden Thing is going after refrigerators and air conditioners, citing, once again, CLIMATE CRISIS!
https://www.wnd.com/2022/12/bidens-epa-prepares-crack-home-appliances/
Here’s a scary though for you:
Suppose the gov’t (state or federal) decrees that you cannot sell your home unless it is brought up to “modern” energy efficiency standards, at your expense.
Feds could do this via changing the rules for FHA 203b & VA mortgages.
They could also issue rules which decreed that HA/VA appraisers be required to discount the value based on “energy efficiency deficiency.”
So, they could bust you two ways, coming and going.
That would be “FHA/VA.”
The only reason R-12 was banned was because the patent protection ran out.
R-12 is still the most efficient non-toxic refrigerant for small systems such as automotive and consumer-sized refrigeration equipment. Bar NONE.
The “ozone hole” scam blaming R-12 for getting into the upper atmosphere is a “big lie” not unlike our current “globull warming” (oops, I mean “climate change”) scam.
In fact, the chlorine molecule in R-12 is “too heavy” to make it to the upper atmosphere.
Today’s less efficient refrigerants are now flammable, something that we never worried about with R-12.
Follow the money…
“None of them will be able to afford a car, period.”
That is one of the MAIN GOALS. Remove access to cars for the majority of the modern moron slaves.
And for those that can still afford them they will move into this.
“Oxford Council Plans 100-Day Limit for Motorists
Oxfordshire County Council is proposing a scheme whereby motorists can only drive for 100 days of the year with a special permit or risk a fine in order to “reduce the need to travel in private cars.”
A council scheme in Oxfordshire, South East England, wants to divide the city of Oxford into six districts from next August with strict rules on how often motorists can drive and where they can go in the town centre.
The proposals were announced in August and the council has this month just wrapped up a public consultation.
Traffic filters will be used to stop drivers without permits from using busy routes at peak times, operating seven days a week from 7 am to 7 pm.
The council says that they are designed to “reduce traffic levels across the city, making bus journeys quicker and more reliable and walking and cycling safer and more attractive.”
Private cars will not be allowed without a permit. But all other vehicles including buses, coaches, taxis, vans, mopeds, motorbikes and HGVs will be allowed at all times.
The scheme will be enforced during operating hours using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras.”
And we, herds of modern moron slaves, WON’T DO SHIT TO AVOID IT!
Geez voza, seems like the Brits are more along the path to full commie-ism than the USSA, but we’re catching up fast. You guys should follow the French and spray paint the lenses on those cameras, I intend to do that when they put them up in my area.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act.
Learn to code! Sillycon Valley can’t import programmers from Calcutta because they need to be vaxxed to get their H1B.
So does that mean they’re cancelling the Cherokee? The Jeep Cherokee is the last crossover in this class that you can get with a V6, I think. Certainly the last port injected, naturally aspirated V6.
An unexpected downside of EeeVeeeees:
‘An increasing number of electric models have dropped AM radio. Carmakers say that electric vehicles generate more electromagnetic interference than gas-powered cars, which can disrupt the reception of AM signals and cause static, noise and a high-frequency hum. (FM signals are more resistant to such interference.)
“Rather than frustrate customers with inferior reception and noise, the decision was made to leave it off vehicles that feature eDrive technology,” BMW said in a statement, referring to the system that powers its electric vehicles.
‘Tesla, Audi, Porsche and Volvo have also removed AM radio from their electric vehicles, as has Volkswagen from its electric S.U.V., the ID.4. Ford said that the 2023 F-150 Lightning, its popular electric pickup truck, would also drop AM radio.’
https://dnyuz.com/2022/12/10/in-a-future-filled-with-electric-cars-am-radio-may-be-left-behind/
If a battery fire don’t gitcha, the EMFs will.
Wrapping yourself in tinfoil while driving your EeeVee is one defense. Stay safe!
“None of them will be able to afford a car, period.”
Which was the beauty of Henry Ford’s model T. The people who made it could afford to buy it. Which had rarely occurred before in history, and is fast disappearing now. That one could afford what they were making or building. Carpenters and masons could not typically afford the houses they built, etc.
I’ll repeat myself: if not for subsidy and regulatory destruction of their competition, there would not be enough market for EVs to justify mass production.
The TRUTHS that Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Father Charles Coughlin, and others espoused are still TRUTHS today…
Hi Anarchyst.
The truth about them is part of real history. Which is why it isn’t taught. All of them also had insights into who our real enemies are. So much of our (and world) history is rather different from the self serving propaganda, that’s being pushed by the Usual Suspects that control most of our lives.
Identifying a problem isn’t enough. One has to also identify how it happened, and after that a practical solution.
What one finds at the roots of many of the major problems is an anti human perspective. Energy is the very life blood of modern civilization. Who benefits by attacking the most cost effective and available base load sources of energy? The same groups that fund the WEF and other such anti human organizations. One must first know who the real enemy is. In order to understand their agenda and methods.
Only then, can a practical counter action be formulated.
What puzzles me is that auto parts companies like Autozone and O’Reilly have high share prices while auto companies do not.
2488 USD for Autozone, 847 USD for O’Reilly, Advanced Auto Parts in 146 USD per share.
The number of outstanding share makes a difference, I know.
Blackrock and Vanguard own some Autozone. State Street owns some too.
Dollar Tree is 143 USD. Blackrock and Vanguard own Dollar Tree.
Dollar General is 246. Blackrock and Vanruard own Dollar General stock too.
GM is 35, Nissan is 6.76, Ford is 13 dollars.
Blackrock and Vanguard own 590 million shares combined of Ford. A 60 cent dividend from Ford, Blackrock and Vanguard are pulling in 354 million each year in dividend income from Ford.
They also own 240 million shares of GM. Making about a liitle more than 80 million in dividends.
Less than 100,000 shares of Nissan are owned by institutional holders.
The laid off workers can go to Autozone or Dollar General to land a new job.
Sell all of the manufacturing equipment to some Chinaman.
The plant can be a new warehouse for Dollar Tree and Dollar General.
Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street own 175 million shares of Marathon Oil.
They’re the Vampire Squid,
Market caps (shares outstanding x price per share):
Tesla ……………….. $565 billion
GM ………………….. $54 billion
Ford ………………… $53 billion
O’Reilly …………….. $52 billion
Autozone ………….. $46 billion
Advance Auto Parts … $8 billion
All these companies are in the Consumer Discretionary sector. “Consumer Discretionary” means “luxuries people buy when they’re feeling flush (and don’t buy when they aren’t).”
Autos and homebuilders are the classic boom-and-bust cyclicals. Both are sucking wind now, as the MOAR (Mother Of All Recessions) tightens its icy grip … and Owl Gore, perched on the limb of a dead tree, scans the forest for prey.
There is always more money in the parts business than new vehicles. About twenty years ago I interviewed for what turned out the be two separate jobs with was than International Trucks (Navistar). One was with the new vehicle division, the other with the replacement parts division. The parts division was more than double the size of the new vehicle division, and even more so wise the revenue it earned. Granted there is probably more money in truck parts vis personal car parts since trucks last longer and need more (and expensive) replacement parts. But I remember being surprised how much bigger that was compared with the new truck division, because you think of the new most of the time with a manufacturer.
There are those who would LOVE to do to us what one city is planning in the story below. Imagine not being able to drive wherever you want, whenever you want, because “CARBON!” & “CLIMATE CHANGE!” If you do drive, you’ll have to sign in with THEM, and you’ll be tracked, and if you “Drive too much” or drive outside “approved areas too much”, you could be FINED…..
https://www.technocracy.news/coming-soon-climate-lockdowns-and-the-15-minute-city/
Another Owl Gore / Joe Biden policy that’s gonna bring us a banquet of consequences next year:
“US **total** crude oil inventories (both commercial and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) have fallen to a 36-year low, dropping below the previous bottom set in 2001.” — Javier Blas, Bloomberg. Chart:
https://ibb.co/jRWTK8R
How are ‘our’ mechanized divisions gonna clank across the Ukrainian steppes without fuel, comrades? Buy EeeVees … for the troops! /sarc
Yeah, I’m still waiting to see an electric tank; when that happens then I might believe an EV is viable. Not holding my breath.
Damn, Jim, you sure have a way with words. 🙂
Owl Gore, indeed.
Thanks for the chuckles. 🙂
You ask what it will cost???
Quite simple, says the NWO/WEF/UN, etc…
Unfortunately for us, it will be EVERYTHING…your life, livelihood, children, house, spouse, all material possessions, even your very existence must be totally erased.
May as well fight back, what do you have to lose???
PS, Orange Man Bad Extraordinaire, Donald Trump, asks if you miss him yet…LOL
Saxons Wrath,
“May as well fight back, what do you have to lose???”
Indeed, far more have died under tyrants than have resisting them.
‘Someone has got to pay for that.’ — eric
‘Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree,’ as folksy Senator Russell Long of Louisiana used to say in our yoof.
But eventually the costs just can’t be hidden no more, as Vanguard Group announced this week:
‘Vanguard Group’s decision to leave the world’s largest climate-finance coalition was slammed by former US Vice President Al Gore. Vanguard, the second-largest US fund manager with about $7.1 trillion of assets, said Wednesday it was quitting the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.
‘Vanguard, which generates much of its fees from index-tracking funds, suggested that it was no longer feasible to curtail its investment model in a way compatible with net-zero goals. For example, the $511 billion Vanguard 500 Index Fund, which mimics the S&P 500, has about 5.1% of its assets in energy companies and another 3.3% in utilities.’
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/al-gore-rips-vanguard-defection-192436748.html
This year the Energy sector (ExxonMobil, Chevron, et al) has been in a world of its own, vastly outperforming the other ten. Ideology-driven investment mismanagers like ‘Owl Gore’ who shunned it got vaporized. That’s why Envious Owl is saying mean things about Vanguard.
Fifty years from now the Energy sector still will exist, though some of its members may have to decamp to Russia, China or elsewhere in Asia where the lights remain on. Whereas the Owl Gorians will be combing the forest for roots, berries and edible mushrooms.
“ This year the Energy sector (ExxonMobil, Chevron, et al) has been in a world of its own, vastly outperforming the other ten” – Jim H.
Back a year or so ago when oil futures went negative I bought some ExxonMobil stock in my IRA. It’s more than doubled since then, greatly aiding my retirement; I wish I had bought more.
I’ve noticed that the local Ford dealer has finally gotten inventory back on their lot. The cheapest being around $34k before the fees, taxes,etc. I’ve got a feeling that they will sitting on it for a longer time because of inflation on basic necessities and the cost of borrowing money. This year, I had to work more overtime in order to maintain my standard of living that was cheaper to maintain before the regime ran the economy into the ground. My newest vehicle, a 2014 F-150 has over 100,000 miles on it now and I’m hoping it will continue to have good service for many more years to come. I make above average wages and it takes all I make to stay afloat. There will be no new or recent used vehicle in my future plans. I cannot afford it!