The Biden Thing revealed the truth about both the pushing of battery powered vehicles and the putative reason for the pushing of them the other day – when he mumble-barked the other day that he would impose a “100 percent” tariff on battery powered devices made in China (as well as a heavy tariff on batteries for devices made in China).
Consider the implications.
We are told – we are harangued – that there is a looming “climate crisis” of apocalyptic scope that is headed our way on account of a fractional, almost unmeasurable increase in the fraction of the Earth’s naturally-existing CO2 (about 0.04 percent) and that it is absolutely necessary to reduce the fraction of a fraction generated by the driving of cars with engines by getting rid of cars with engines. These must be urgently replaced by “zero emissions” (of C02) at the tailpipe battery powered vehicles.
Because it’s a “crisis.”
Well, if it is, then why would those pushing this narrative – and pushing battery powered vehicles by pushing those that aren’t out of production – not want to encourage the distribution of inexpensive battery powered vehicles that most people could afford and never mind whether they were made in China?
If you are on a ship that is sinking, does it matter who made the lifeboats?
Of course, the “ship” is not sinking and the pushers of battery powered vehicles know that. They have just told us they know it. There is no other explanation for it. Well, there is one – but it beggars belief. It is that they are so unintelligent as to be able to believe, on the one hand, that there is a looming crisis and they know the cause of it and – at the same time – are unwilling to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it.
Put another way, they are willing to drown rather than make use of the lifeboats because the latter are made by people they don’t like and they would rather they be made by people they do like.
Unionized people, in the case of the battery powered devices they insist are the “lifeboats” that will prevent us all from drowning (literally; they insist the seas are rising on account of fractional, almost unmeasurable increases in the volume of atmospheric CO2). The Biden Thing mumble-barked about the “steps” (read: decrees being hurled) he was taking to make sure low-cost Chinese electric vehicles become much-higher-cost electric vehicles, so as assure fewer Americans will be able to afford them. So as to assure “union jobs” making electric vehicles Americans can’t afford will be sheltered from competition with China-made low-cost EVs.
Because there’s a “crisis,” you see.
It is one so alarming and imminent that everything must be done to make sure the American market is not flooded with low-cost electric vehicles. This tell you everything about the putative “crisis.”
It also ought to tell you something else.
Those pushing expensive EVs that most Americans cannot afford are doing it for a reason:
Most Americans can’t afford them.
This will price most Americans out of driving and that is the reason for both the excuse – that there is a “climate crisis” – and the pretended solution, the pushing of battery powered vehicles. It explains everything, especially things that otherwise make no sense because they are either stupid or at cross purposes.
It is stupid, for one, to push battery powered vehicles that emphasize power and performance, which is not only wasteful of resources and extra-productive of the very “emissions” the people pushing them say must be reduced to nil or as close to nil as feasible.
It is extremely expensive.
And so extremely limiting.
The entry-price point of the EVs that Americans can buy is nearly $50,000 and it’s actually much higher than that because the latter (and often-quoted) average price of a device does not include the optional “long range” battery without which these devices are very short-leashed. Which isn’t itself a problem for the same reason it’s not a problem that most motorcycles can only go about 200 miles or so on a full tank. Which isn’t a problem – for motorcycles – because the tank can be refilled in about two minutes (the time it takes to pump about 3 gallons of gas, which is about what a typical motorcycle’s tank holds).
But a short-ranged device takes much longer to recharge and when it can only go 200 or so miles on a charge, the waits are more frequent as well as long. Instead of having to wait for half an hour or more once a week, it might be twice a week. It makes long-range driving take much longer. So most people will spend several thousand dollars more for the optional “long range” battery that decreases the number of times they have to stop – and wait.
But most Americans can’t afford that.
Which is exactly what those pushing these devices know and want to protect – by keeping low-cost Chinese made EVs out or by making them as or more expensive than American-made EVs. Putatively-politically, this greases the palms of the unions that are a key support of those pushing the devices, but that is not, fundamentally, the reason for making sure low-cost EVs from China are kept out of the hands of Americans.
Just as the putative “climate crisis” is not the reason for the pushing of devices on Americans.
. . .
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“The Economics Just Don’t Work”: Demand For Electric Semis Plunges Due To High Costs
the trucking industry, once expected to eventually make the shift to all electric as well, is seeing tepid demand for new rigs,
Battery-electric trucks are about three times more expensive than diesel rigs,
Ryder launched a service a year ago to assist companies in setting up and maintaining battery-powered fleets. So far, it has sold only 60 vehicles, mostly light-duty trucks. Three companies use five battery-electric heavy-duty trucks, but only within yards for shuttling trailers.
Operating battery-electric big rigs costs about twice as much annually as diesel trucks.
Truckers find these electric trucks difficult and costly to run, with installation of on-site charging facilities taking years. These trucks travel less than half the distance of diesel rigs per charge and require several hours to recharge.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/economics-just-dont-work-demand-electric-semis-plunges-due-high-costs
Cue Eric: “Most Americans can’t afford them”…
Because it all makes sense when you understand (((they))) want to kill you….
As I understand it, if the tariffs didn’t keep affordable Chinese EVs out of the US market, surely the NHTSA’s safety regs would; most of the inexpensive Chinese EVs are very small, and they lack the safety equipment cars sold here must have.
This looks like posturing. Think about it – why would anyone want to buy Chinese-made cars? It’s rather pointless to restrict the supply of low-quality products for which there is no demand in the first place.
This is also proof that the Democrats are a coalition of the fringes that, aside from a pervasive sense of victimization and the belief that only the force of Big Government can right the wrongs they supposedly suffer, have little in common, are often at cross-purposes, and just don’t get along.
In this case, it’s the environmental activists and the labor unions.
The slaves don’t want 4 cylinder hybrid Mercedes cars…so Mercedes is making the V8 available again…
The Porsche V6 Cayenne that replaced the V8 didn’t sell…so Porsche bought back the V8 for the base model….
VW EV’s are nor selling so VW is pushing the hybrids….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0ddJjuu2qo
The unions are getting played for fools. They’ll endorse Biden as we always expected and get nothing. This tariff scheme is for Chinese EVs imported from China. But BYD, Chery and others are building EV factories in Mexico, and can import them to the US under USMCA. Those $10k Seagulls will make it here anyway.
Is anyone surprised at the cognitive dissonance at work here? “We must transition to EVs, but we can’t have affordable EVs brought into the country.” The real intention of propaganda isn’t to persuade or even brainwash; it is to humiliate. You will be fed a lie and repeat it knowing it’s a lie, then you’ll be fed another lie.
Such as “EVs for everyone.” Big effing lie.
Exactly, KTL –
It’s of a piece with “safe and effective” vaccines. Even now that’s it’s clear these drugs don’t immunize – which is what the common understanding of “vaccine” is – and and so now undeniable they aren’t effective at preventing infection or transmission – and even though it’s know they are not safe by dint of the serious and far-from-uncommon side effects – they continue to insist these drugs are “vaccines” and that they are “safe and effective.”
Proof by vigorous assertion.
The real intention of propaganda isn’t to persuade or even brainwash; it is to humiliate. You will be fed a lie and repeat it knowing it’s a lie […]
Exhibit A: Fast chargers. They don’t exist, but people are humiliated into claiming that the outrageously slow level III chargers are fast chargers. Some people end up believing it, though…
In fairness they might not be fast but they are faster, or if you prefer less slow
Well, “faster” is the comparative of “fast”, so the idea that level III chargers are “faster” implies that there are at least two types of chargers that are fast, when in reality there are no types of chargers that are fast. So “less slow” it is.
The Thing’s latest plea for support for the campaign for his presidency is another obscene gesture by the political class ass faces.
Why should anybody give any money or any support for what they do?
They’re murdering thieves, obvious by now.
We’re all Canadian truckers and then some, even Gazans.
Beam me up.
Doesn’t matter what it is, it is always a war on you. Get used to it.
They are murderous thieves murdering thieves. That too, works for me!
There is no honor among thieves.
Time to mow the lawn said the IDF.
The wife and I spoke of this yesterday as well. Orange Man would be no different in effect, though it would be in the name of MAGA and there would be no mention of unintentional climate modification.
But exactly this. If we’re all killing our grandchildren with our SUVs, would you not democratize the EV in any way possible, unions be damned?
OT: Biden Agrees To A Debate Between Kamala Harris And Trump’s VP Pick
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-agrees-debate-between-kamala-harris-and-trumps-vp-pick
Previously, I joked that Trump should pick Ron Paul as his running mate for the ultimate life insurance. But for comedy’s sake a debate between Heels-up Harris and Ron Paul must must must happen. MAKE. IT. SO. TRUMP.
That would kick ass, Horst. The principled libertarian stalwart vs. the random word generator. Unfortunately, I expect that Ron Paul is on the heavily verboten list as far as Trump’s handlers are concerned.
My kindergarten aged neighbor kid could out-intellect the vice-skank.
One sign of a declining nation is the fact that the worst get promoted, e.g. the Vice Skank.
I would be very happy to vote for a Trump/Rand Paul or Trump/Masie ticket. I think the press would have a field day with Ron Paul, constantly looking for any minor issue or stumble to make him into a doddering old codger. We’d all know better, but the public wouldn’t.
He who controls the final edit controls the message.
I bet the average American doesn’t even realize that THEY are the ones paying the tariffs, not the evil Chinese. Hey, if the Chicom government wants to subsidize stuff that we buy let’s take advantage of it and make them bankrupt first.
The Tesla Cybertruck debacle should really put a dagger in the heart of Elon Musk’s empire…..his stock will sink along with the U.S. economy because both are based on smoke and mirrors….IMO. Scam markets controlled by scam governments.
The issue is never the issue. Then issue is always the revolution. Control. Power. Money. The commies want it all and say it out loud.
“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Capitalism is already long dead. What the climate-ecology nazis are destroying now is the bastardized crony-capitalist-fascist system which has replaced free-market capitalism. This is proof that it is not about money to the elites, who are destroying the golden goose of a worldwide tax-addled slave labor force which acts as the host for the parasites which are those elites. It is proof that it is about a class of people who have long believed that they are the heirs to the entire earth and it’s people, and that they are entitled to dictate how that world should be run. Their lackeys who carry out their orders are ultimately destroying civilization for their own offspring, and any chance of independence from the Tribe, in exchange for short-term financial rewards now, which will be of little real value in the new world (order) they are helping to create for their masters.
Fuck “Israel”! [My signature I’ll be using on all of my posts, if Eric doesn’t mind).
(Eric, you’re welcome to limit my speech on your website if you choose. I’m just expressing my opinion and protesting the new law, but of course I understand if you don’t care for the profanity)
Hi Arthur,
Well-said, sir!
I have no issue with profanity when used intelligently. And you have done just that. Fuck Israel, indeed!
The wait on charging an EV may be a lot longer in some areas of the country. Some news outets have reported that copper thieves have hit charging stations in California and Texas. No cord, no charge!
İmagine you’re on a road trip and need to charge. You find the only charging station within your remaining range and pull in, only to find the chargers are nonfunctional because they’ve been stripped for their copper.
I don’t want either a cheap chicom eeeveee built by slave labor or an ‘merican eeveee built by unionized bedwetters. All the components are chicom anyhow…
Besides, I watched “Convoy” for the umpteenth time again last night and decided in addition to the ’71 Hemicuda, I want a ’78 Chevelle hardtop with that exact paint scheme.
It was truly amazing how in the face of high inflation across the board Brandon would get up and bark about how he was “protecting” Americans from low prices on Chinese EVs because the Chinese gov’t subsidizes them. The pot calling the kettle black.
Parsed out, does anything Fed Gov does make any sense whatsoever?
Only when you realize that the people (lizards?) calling the shots are EVIL.
Ever since the Biden Thing got into the White House in 2021, it has become painfully obvious that the Thing is doing the bidding of the global elite, technocrats, the billionaire class, or whatever one wants to call these sociopaths hell bent on radically transforming humanity. Hell, we already had the WEF calling for restricting private ownership of automobiles, but of course, THEY get to continue flying around in private jets to their yearly meetings in Davos.
And with the World Health Organization voting on a “Global pandemic treaty” in days and the Biden regime ALL IN with that, if the WHO gets its wet dream, unelected bureaucrats at the WHO could conceivably declare ANYTHING a “Public Health Emergency” and decree MANDATES for people to take the next experimental “vaccine” made by Big Pharma, give up driving a gas vehicle, give up eating meat, give up any guns they own, or whatever else they wish to decree under guise of “Protecting ________”.
Hi John,
Reason for pushing electric cars is artifical scarcity and “saving” retarded ponzie economy thats collapsing by making ever difficult to aquire. Be it apartments be it cars be it food.
Point was never about co2 with npcs it doesnt matter they could say it was due to rats being depressed.
Point is to limit the range of products and only allow megacorps colluding with the goverment to sell anything at huge markup. It will never be safe enough, green enough, compliant enough while Elon and similar members of a guild can make whatever they want.
Thats why we urgently need direct democracy because you can at least count on common sense off population to not vote for artifical scarcity.
The funny thing is that most “affordable” EVs if one could call them that is that they look like sub-compacts, they are not a family size car. Good luck getting much use out of them other than driving to work or a few groceries from Winco.
Maybe that’s why older and larger cars are being held onto.
From what I’ve seen over the years the union officials are Dems and the union workers are more likely to be Republicans.
Union bosses Dems and union members Repubs? That certainly hasn’t been my experience! Unions are majority leftist, they are the most common example of “the ends justify the means”. Their whole raison d’etre is power.
Probably depends on the union.
AFSCME is probably mostly Democrats all up & down the line.
IBEW maybe not so much.
‘Everything must be done to make sure the American market is not flooded with low-cost electric vehicles.’ — eric
First they push EeeVees. Then they say we can’t have cheap ones. This is Big Gov working at cross purposes with itself, ensnared in its own irresolvable contradictions. Fred Hayek warned them this would happen. But THEY wouldn’t listen. Or like the Smirking Chimp, they held the book upside down, and pawed through it looking for pictures.
Sixty years ago, auto makers could build what they wanted. Here’s an old veteran 1963 Corvair van I came across yesterday, sitting in front of the Hippie Dippie Holistic Market in Llano, Texas. Its interior is stripped out. But the air-cooled flat six is still there behind the rear wheels.
https://ibb.co/6vV62yQ
Why can’t we have cheap hippie vans any more? Cuz self-hating leftists say they ain’t saaaaaaaafe.
The O’Biden administration has to keep the unions happy. Not because they need the union vote, they’ve got that pretty well tied down (although I imagine a fair number of the rank and file outside of government might be red hats). No, they need to keep the union happy because the unions run the bureaucracy. No bureaucracy, no power.
I really doubt thats the reason. Unions lost power long time ago. It would make no sense to kiss their ass now. Also electric cars are not some huge employer.
Also buerocrats dont give a fuck abiut workers even if they were workers themselves some time ago.
Hi Pupet,
Yup. The union leadership is one thing; the rank and file membership another. The latter is more pro Trump than is commonly reported, probably in part because an autoworker earning $70k knows he can’t afford a $50k battery powered device and neither can anyone else he knows. Not to mention groceries.