How much money is it possible to lose “selling” electric vehicles? Ford and Rivian are trying hard to find out.
Ford expects to lose more than $4.5 billion on EVs, according to the most recent projections of company CEO Jim Farley. Such losses are incurred by “selling” EVs like the F-150 Lightning electric truck, which Ford reportedly costs Ford $60,000 per “sale.”
Rivian, which also makes an electric truck and an electric SUV (they’re both the same battery-powered devices; built on a common underlying skate with different shaped bodies placed on top) is doing much “better.”
It is only losing a reported $33,000 per “sale.”
Put another way, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal, Rivian “hopes to slash production costs by as much as $40,000 to claw back the losses it makes on each vehicle.”
Italics added.
The losses it makes.
This is how things “work” in a fascist economy.
People draw back when they hear the latter italicized word, having been taught – having been misdirected – to equate “fascist” with “right wing” (even more misdirection, as “right wing” and “left wing” are the same thing, which is authoritarian collectivism with different symbols) and more specifically, goose-stepping. But the goose-stepping is not required; it is an affectation of one variety of fascism. What all forms of fascism have in common is that government allows the formality of private property but tells everyone how they may (and may not) use what they are allowed to pretend is “their” property. Corporations become inseparable from government – and vice versa. They amount to the same thing.
We all experienced the ne plus ultra of the fascist model during the (cough) “pandemic.” Ostensibly private businesses were allowed to remain open – or not – depending on the arbitrary yes or no of the government, which then dictated who could (and could not) enter those ostensibly private businesses, irrespective of the wishes of the business owners and those who wished to patronize the businesses.
Drug corporations – the rightly styled Big Pharma – used the government to force practically everyone to buy their drugs and take them, too. The drug corporations do their own “studies” of the “safety and effectiveness” of the drugs they then push on people, using the government to do that.
And that is textbook fascism.
Prior examples – that set the precedent – including the partnering of what has become the insurance mafia and the government (the original legalized mafia). Once again, private corporations leveraging the strong-arming power of the government to make money by forcing people to hand it over.
But fascism breeds its own demise – and we’re seeing that roll out of assembly lines right now.
In a free-market economy, Ford would have stopped losing money on the Lightning and other EVs long before now. It would have done the math – as the saying goes – and recognized there is no market for models like the Lightning, except for perhaps a very small handful of them priced to reflect what they actually cost and sold at a price that results in a profit for Ford.
Rivian would never have “sold” a single battery-powered device because it would have had no capital to malinvest in such a project.
Rivian – unlike Ford – does not make anything that sells – except the faith of investors that government forcing people to buy EVs by leaving no alternative to EVs will result in a “market” for EVs. This is how Tesla makes money selling EVs. More accurately, it is how Tesla made itself into the model for selling EVs. It got in early and cashed in on the artificially created “market” for EVs engendered by government mandates and subsidies, including the greasy wealth-transfer scheme styled “carbon credits,” which Tesla used to extort money from car manufacturers that were making market-driven rather than government-mandated cars.
But it made most of its money via people buying stock in Tesla, which those who bought safely assumed would make them money because of government mandates forcing the manufacture of more and more EVs. It’s not rocket science. If you know that the government is going to favor a given industry or business – if you know the government is going to create a “market” for whatever the product or service is – then you know it’s not much of a risk to “invest” in that.
Until the money runs out, of course.
That is happening right now – to Ford. And Rivian. And to every other company that decided not only to go along to get along but two-hand-gulped the EV Kool Aid, convinced they were going to be the next Tesla. The problem being Tesla has already saturated most of the market for these hugely expensive battery-powered devices. If Ford – and Rivian – had to price their devices so as to reflect what they actually cost to make, with a profit margin on top of that, there would be no market for these devices.
In the case of Rivian, it would be necessary to price each one in the vicinity of $120,000 (that’s the sum of the $80,000-ish current transaction price plus the $33,000 that Rivian is not currently charging to cover its losses). And Ford would need to price the Lightning similarly. There is a market for $120,000-plus vehicles. But it is a very small one. Fewer than 2 percent of all new vehicles sold sell for that kind of money – because 98 percent of buyers haven’t got that kind of money.
In a fascist economy, such things don’t matter – for awhile – because the government can create the appearance of a market, by creating one and then using the power of government to prop it up.
For awhile.
But not forever.
. . .
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EV startup Lucid is losing over $500,000 for every car it sells…..manufacturing EV’s…a great way to lose money….
Profit losses on electric vehicle sales are nothing new. It’s a concept that legacy car companies like Ford and GM are also grappling with as they try to transition their fleets away from ice vehicles.
And an ongoing EV price war started earlier this year by Tesla’s Elon Musk, is forcing deeper losses as companies chase volume over profits in the EV sector.
Lucid appears to have the biggest inventory problem……..only delivered about 64% of what it built.
Ford is also struggling to gin up demand for its electric Mustang Mach-E, …..NOTE….which some dealers say they are turning away.
EV sales hit a high of nearly 6% in the US last year, bringing the segment closer to a predicted 7-10% tipping point.
At this level of adoption….6%…., EV sales are expected to slow considerably….didn’t make the 7% to 10% tipping point…..now all downhill dropping back far below the 6%…..which was forced with billions of dollars of tax slave’s stolen money….real demand is just above zero….lol
https://www.businessinsider.com/lucid-stock-company-losing-500k-for-every-car-sold-2023-8?op=1
EV sales hit a high of nearly 6% in the US last year, ….after 13 years….a total failure…lol
Even with forced, fake, demand, subsidized with billions of $$$$ of tax slave’s money and a multi billion dollar marketing campaign 24/7/365….
Now they can turn it up to 11…through regulations, banning of ice vehicles and their fuels, use restrictions, etc..the sledge hammer comes out…typical of the communists running everything now….
Tesla burning underwater…lol
@ 0:44 in video tesla burning underwater….
ice cars don’t do that….lol….EV’s are unsafe….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pk2Mdrk-Cg
> “right wing” and “left wing” are the same thing, which is authoritarian collectivism with different symbols
For a long time, I have contended that “political space” is curved, with so-called “far left” and so-called “far right” meeting somewhere on the “dark side.”
You take Sally, I’ll take Sue. There ain’t much difference between the two. It *was* called the National *Socialist* German Workers Party.
If the corporations are willing to lose BILLIONS on virtue-signaling, then clearly they don’t give a flying fuck about profits. Which means there’s something even BIGGER at stake. What that something is, I pray that I never live to see.
Why in God’s name does anyone dink around with some dimwitted electric vehicle? The thing can’t go far and then the battery needs new life? Way to go!
Furthermore, you’ll be able to burn in hell before you will burn in hell for being so damned dumb. Talk about transportation as a service. Uff da!
It is National Treachery Day! Every day!
What else can it be?
You want an automobile with an engine? Forget it, can’t have one.
You can have only what we say you can have and nothing else. Nothing is the only choice you have, sucker.
The boot on your neck is there permanently. Tilted just right, you then can lick it.
Untermenschen, get a clue.
from zh comments on EV’s
Alleged bat germ bs was the lie to enable tracking, enforced drugs and lockdowns. Climate is the lie to ban private transport, raise power costs and thus enforce the lockdown in our boxes. We are being tagged, herded and penned, just like farm animals.
The plan is to price you right out of owning a vehicle, and put you back on that bicycle that you road as a child. This was started under Obama if anyone was paying attention.” During his time as president, he asked from CONgress, and got, funding for a new interstate system-For bicycles.
Thousands of miles of trek trials that are numbered just like the current interstates, and they stretch through several states. In the near future, they envision a world where only the top 5% of the wealthiest individuals will own and drive cars. The other 95% will be peddling their asses off, everywhere they go {unless you want to risk your life on public transportation}.
EV is not a new technology and flamed out 100 years ago for the same reasons they struggle today: range, charging, battery cost, initial price. Still toys for the rich.
EVs collecting on the lots no one can afford to buy.
90% of vehicle sales are ICE.
And no one is going to buy a 5 year old used one.
The only EV you’ll ever “own” is a 15 minute city bus.
hahahahaha Just wait until the rockers have to dispose of millions of toxic batteries. And when the idea dawns on the stupid public, that no one is going to buy a 5 year old EV because they won’t want to have to replace the $25,000 battery. EV will be dead in a few years.
EV is a not a comparable technology to petrol. It is an extension of climate crisis propaganda and will be nothing more than a controlling device over the populace.
$150 per barrel oil coming?……I guess this was the only way dumb *** Joe could force people to buy EV’s: pay Iran to get Hamas to murder Israeli’s and start a ME war to drive up oil prices and make gas so unaffordable that it matches the cost of owning an EV. It’s a brilliant strategy.
You’re going to have millions of paperweights when those ****ty EV’s won’t be able to charge their batteries. Because wind and solar won’t cut it and the grid today is antiquated. These warmer cultists think windmills and solar panels will power the entire country and millions of ****ty EV’s? Not a chance in hell and even the warmer cultists know it, yes they’re insane as well as being dumb *****.
>pay Iran to get Hamas to murder Israeli’s and start a ME war
U. S. Navy has deployed its pride and joy, the Gerald R. Ford, to the Eastern Mediterranean, along with its associated battle group of one cruiser and four destroyers.
Sorry, folks, I am *not* down for the U.S. Navy fighting on behalf of the Zionist entity. Remember the USS Liberty.
no one is going to buy a 5 year old EV because they won’t want to have to replace the $25,000 battery.
…sounds like the same state as the rotary engine cars were in….they burnt too much gas and the rotor seals wore out quickly…30,000 miles?….requiring an expensive seal replacement…
I had an Mazda R100 (rotary powered)….nobody would buy it…I had to sell it back to the dealer….lol…at a 50% loss….
people aren’t completely stupid….when a product gets a bad reputation…they quit buying it….
NOTE: just recently there was a reported 25% drop in EV used values…..
Hi Drump,
There are various reasons that account for people buying EeeeeeVeees.
One, there are people who genuinely believe they are “green” – or want to signal their virtue in that regard.
Two, there are stupid people. People who do not grasp math – and believe they will “save money” by spending more of it on an EeeeeeVeeee.
Three, there are effeminate people, who dislike “smelly” and “noisy” cars with engines. This latter is not abuse; it is literally true.
EVs are VSDs (Virtue Signaling Devices) which just shift pollution from one area of the planet to another. Want to drive your ZEAT (Zero Emission At Tailpipe) device in Malibu? Great. No worries about air pollution from coal fired power plants several states away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Corners_Generating_Station
What is to be learned by the EV boondoggle? Do not trust the authorities who are part of a homosexual fudge packing gay tranny pedo cult who want to get rid of all vehicle ownership – especially when your company sells vehicles.
Pervert child sniffer Biden is a Judas goat leading the car companies to their doom – and now it is falling apart – and these car companies are going to have to desperately scramble to not go bankrupt.
The only company that didn’t completely swallow the EV koolaid is Toyota, but not sure.
Rivian and Ford remind me of Oscar Schindler. Schindler’s List is one of the best films to showcase our current economic malaise.
In short, Oscar was a maker of enamel pots that he’d contracted to sell to the German GovCo. He spent most of his time schmoozing with the local Nazi administrators plying them with liquor, cash and hookers. He made a fortune.
After the war, as noted in the closing credits, he tried his hand in several industrial ventures all of which failed miserably in the new Free Market.
This is the USSA today.
Ford has been buying back stock since at least 2008 when it became the fashionable way to prop up the stock. Had they put that money into EV R&D Wall St would have shorted them six feet under the dirt. The fact that no “legacy” car manufactuer is willing to suspend stock buybacks or go all in and risk their dividend speaks volumes. What message does that send, even subtly, to their customers? The investors? The governement?
Imagine if Farley held a product unveiling, showed it off, and said “we know this is the future and we’re so confident we’re right we are suspending the dividend and stopping buybacks to make it happen.” But no way could he convince the board, because he’s so spineless he can’t bring himself to set a big goal.
Of course we all know there’s no way EVs are feasable, but if they were we’d see CEOs doing what they need to do to electrify transportation ASAP. And if 2030 were such a big problem Wall St would be OK with no dividend and no buybacks to take care of the “climate emergency.”
Actions speak louder than words.
Business school relieves one of his 10-year-old mathematical wherewithal and teaches that Santa Clause really does exist through financialization. Financialization is perpetuated by the endless spigot of Fed bux and the banks taking vigs along the way.
Recently, the head of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has declared that she want to get people out of their cars in the next 5 to10 years.
By the way, what are “air resources”?
Hi anarchyst,
There is an Air Resource Laboratory run by the NOAA. You can guess the intent…”Climate Change.”
https://www.arl.noaa.gov/
I think most of know they do not want us to drive. They want to keep us in one spot with our bicycles, 15 minutes cities, and tiny houses. These people are starting to get on my freaking nerves.
What are “air resources”? I had this very though the other day.
They can’t even get people to ride the bus in Los Angles. How are they going to get people in Needles to wait in 110º heat for the bus?
Now you can get your $7500 EV tax credit at the point of sale.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/us-treasury-department-allow-7500-electric-vehicle-tax-credit-point-sale-rebate-starting-january
Fox left out a few sentences. The EV tax dealership credit of $7500 has been ongoing for a year now for those that make over $150K (single) and $300K (married). It was a workaround for those with income higher than the established thresholds. Of course, this upset many consumers who did meet the threshold requirements because they had to wait a year (or longer) to apply for the credit while someone who made $280K a year could reduce the purchase price of their EV by $7500 new, $4K used, then and there. The “little people” ended up financing and paying interest on an extra $7500 while they wait for their the IRS to complete the 2023 tax forms (which won’t be ready until late January) meanwhile, the rich put the additional $7500 in the bank and have been making 5% interest on it for the last 9 months.
It only took our government 10 months to figure this out.
Intravenous fascism. Why do they even bother with the ruse of a tax credit? It insults the intelligence.
I give up Funk. You win. I am going to enjoy my Sunday.
“Selling” EVs like the F-150 Lightning electric truck reportedly costs Ford $60,000 per “sale.” — eric
Given how popular ICE pickups are, sales of their EeeVee versions are a total bust. Evidently, supersizing pickups into Freightliner wannabes over the past decade now has tripped on its own shoelaces.
Adding a nearly one-ton battery to these lumbering behemoths almost breaks the scales: Rivian’s R1T weighs 7,148 lbs.
The R1T’s four electric motors suck 623 kilowatts at peak power. For comparison, a 200-amp single-phase panel in a home is capable of providing 48,000 watts (48 KW) of power.
So your R1T monster truck can demand as much electrical power as thirteen (13) houses, each running flat out with the HVAC and all the appliances on.
Reckon that could get expensive? (Not to mention depleting your raaaaaaaange.)
Sure don’t sound green. Buy an EeeVee, feed a coal miner. Joe Manchin thanks you.
Thanks for putting that in perspective, Jim H. A Rivian’s max power draw is astonishingly obnoxious. Clearly this has nothing to do with energy conservation.
It’s downright laughable (And NOT in a “Ha ha!” way) when someone says we have to reelect Joe Biden to “Stop fascism!” or “Stop authoritarianism!” We’ve been living a combination of BOTH under the Biden Thing since it got into office in 2021, from its attempts to FORCE millions of Americans who have a job to be part of the massive vaccination experiment (which they’re now trying to deny having done) to declaring millions of Americans “Enemies of the State” to censoring speech it doesn’t like to trying to shove EVs down everyone’s throats. And now left wing special interest groups are even trying to keep Donald Trump AND Robert F Kennedy Jr from getting on ballots in next year’s Presidential (s)election. So much for demoooooooooooocracy.
‘In the case of Rivian, it would be necessary to price each one in the vicinity of $120,000.’ — eric
Above $80,000, the US fedgov’s $7,500 ‘clean vehicle tax credit’ no longer applies.
The average new vehicle sales price is now $47,717, according to Cox Automotive. That’s for all vehicles, more than 90% of which are ICE-powered. For EeeVees alone, the average is higher.
Nevertheless, the fedgov’s egregious $7,500 market-wrecking subsidy — forcibly extracted from our pockets and ‘redistributed’ to well-heeled buyers — amounts to 16 percent of the average vehicle price.
The ‘Biden’ regime is not content merely to dictate automotive envelope design, mileage, saaaaafety features, et al. No, Big Gov goes on to recklessly tilt the playing field, favoring one propulsion technology over another … and then subsidizing battery plants, EeeVee infrastructure, and even the sex workers strutting their stuff at charging sites.
Okay, I made up that last bit. But how else are you gonna spend an enjoyable half hour cooling your heels at some seedy lay-by?
Big Gov’s electrophilia effectively turns us all into unwilling sex workers, forced at gunpoint to cater to others’ costly, destructive whims despite the ensuing social pathology. Mister ‘Biden’ — bend over!
I know the place ain’t much but
I sure don’t pay no rent
I get the check the first of each month
From this big Federal Government
Course, every Wednesday, I get commodities
Why, sometimes, four or five sacks
Pick ’em up down at the welfare office
Of course, driving muh EeeVee Cadillac
— Guy Drake, Welfare Cadillac
Fuck Joe Biden? No thanks!
Bunghole Biden has been bent over for more than 50 years now.
Jew Biden can’t take anymore.
Alright then … let Lindsey and Mitch take turns, bonking the old boodler till he croaks.
I guess anymore has to be two words. Jew Biden can’t take any more or, in other words, Jew Biden can take many more.
Yuval would be there standing line, guaranteed.
Hamas is on the hunt for that no good useless eater.
Israel has jumped the shark, the ratings are going lower.
The Wandering Jew is a plant named for a reason.
I can only conclude that Fascism is not a political ideology, it’s a mental disease. A delusional one. How else to explain Ford’s acceptance of such losses, and continue making the products that are incurring them? It’s been a long time, but I think I had the mathematical wherewithal to figure this out by the time I was about 10 years old. Or less. They cannot stay in business incurring this kind of loss. They cannot depend on the same size market being maintained while FedGov forces the market into EVs. It’s going to get smaller. Much smaller. Which is the goal of the FedGov fascists.
By this time next year, the CAFE regulations for the 2025 model year will make new IC vehicles prohibitively expensive, and, at that point, the manufacturers’ “pipelines” will need to be filled with only EV models casting eye to mandates regarding vehicle sale restrictions in blue states which will start in 2030.
Nothing short of a Republican win in the Presidential contest will stop the agenda. And even then, the manufacturers will still be wary about 2026 returning a strong Dem majority to Congress with Impeachment on their minds as a means to deal with a non-Dem White House, Orange Man or not.
I have pictures of a new Crown Vic prototype rolling around the streets of Chicago in March 2019. As soon as Impeachment started rolling, the prototype development probably stopped cold.
@Eric – The upside of ubiquitous sail phones — I was at lunch in a restaurant, spotted the shrouded-yet-familiar shape at the stoplight, and immediately got busy with my phone’s camera.
These companies had to know they would incur losses. Makes me wonder why any competent management would give the go ahead.
Even if they thought uncle sam would bail them out or mandate an EV only market eventually, that day was a long ways off to lose this much money.
Doesn’t make sense to me, so I suspect there is more to it that hasn’t come to light yet.
Hi Dan,
At this point, the only thing I can think of that automobile manufacturers would seemingly have NO problem losing money on EVs is the promise of bailouts from the government or perhaps even asset management companies like BlackRock. They may also be aiming for HIGH ESG scores from the likes of the WEF.
Hi Dan,
Yep. I see a number of possible explanations:
First, the expectation that competition will be eliminated – and so people forced to buy these battery powered devices.
Second, that rather than sell cars, they will sell “mobility.” That is, you pay to ride rather than own and drive.
Third, it’s just the greed (and poltroonery) of the CEOs, who are paid tens of millions for one year’s “work” – and so don’t care what happens because they assume it won’t happen to them, being so rich as to be immune from the consequences of that which they are enabling.
TAAS (travel as a service) is the plausable option. No one wants a one-time sale. The upfront cost is too high. It’s impossible to have a Chevy-Olds-Buick-Cadillac lineup when there’s no difference between models. And monthly recurring revenue is much more predicitable than constant one-time purchases.
Reason being is once people get on automatic monthly payments the won’t change services unless you really, really piss them off.
I agree, RK –
The question is whether enough people will buy in, so to speak. The answer is – many already have. How many people never stop paying a payment? Go from one vehicle to the next – but never actually pay the off? People – lots of people – have been habituated to debt to a degree that most Americans from say 50 years ago would have found appalling.
Think of it: People who earn less than $70,000 annually signing up to make payments on a $50,000 vehicle for the next six years. It’s something that doesn’t add up – literally.
Back when I worked in ad sales the sales staff all leased their vehicles. That way they could “afford” a nicer car to impress clients. Even the GM, who got a company car, managed to lease a BMW 750iL with some trade in kind too.
Pretend to be better off than you really are. Just don’t lose your job or you’ll be in big trouble.
All part of the “you’ll own nothing” plan.