What’s Wrong With These People?

By
eric
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43
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Honda is kind of like the guy who arrived too late for the party at Jonestown – but drank the (electric) Kool Aid anyhow. It is just now unveiling its new devices, which are called the O Series. As in zero, which actually has the right connotations.

Just unintentionally.

But that is not what this article’s about. You can read all about the new zero pretty much everywhere else. What you’ll be reading here is commentary about the coverage. Let’s begin with this, from the web site Motor1:

“The world’s cars are quickly electrifying, yet Honda has been slow to get its own EVs on the market. Until now, it’s relied on lease-only science experiments like the Fit EV or stopgaps like the GM Ultium-based Honda Prologue to satisfy customer cravings for electric vehicles.”

Italics added.

That sound you just heard? It was me hitting myself in the head with a ball-peen hammer. So as to be happily unconscious for awhile. . . . .

Ok. I’m back.

The “world’s cars are quickly electrifying”? Really? How do cars “electrify”? That’s a neat trick! Apparently, it’s just happening. No one is “electrifying” them. That is to say, no one is behind the push to “electrify” them – and never mind why.

“Cravings” for electric vehicles?

That is an interesting word to use to describe the cratering market demand for electric vehicles. There is so little demand for battery-powered devices – because the truth about their serial deficiencies has become impossible to suppress now that real-world experiences have countered all the hype – that manufacturers ranging from Mercedes-Benz on the high end to Subaru on the mass-market end have dramatically repudiated their earlier public commitments to manufacture nothing but devices by 2030 or thereabouts.

These devices are stacking up like cordwood on dealer lots all around the country. Even Tesla is having problems finding new buyers for its getting-old devices.

The F-150 Lightning is Ford’s biggest, most expensive fail since the Edsel. Lucid is bankrupt. Rivian is not far behind. Volkswagen is on life support and the Dodge, Jeep, Ram and Chrysler brands are in deep trouble. It is quite possible there will be no Chrysler, Dodge, Ram or Jeep brands by this time next year.

It is that bad. It is going to get much worse.

All because these manufacturers ignored what the market wanted and thought – hoped is perhaps the right word –  they could sell what government demands.

The problem – for them – is that as yet people are not yet having to buy these devices. There are still alternatives – both new and used. The situation for device-manufacturers is thus akin to the situation facing the purveyors of fake meat in that actual meat is still readily available and often on the same shelf at the supermarket. For less.

The choice is, as they saying goes, easy.

But the choice made by the car manufacturers to ignore the cravings of the market for vehicles rather than devices has had devastating consequences. Including for Honda, which the guy who wrote about the “cravings” for devices concedes in literally the same breath:

“Other swings, like the compact Honda E in Europe, also didn’t take off quite as expected.”

Italics added.

“Didn’t take off quite as expected?” Kind of like the Soviet Union’s N1 rocket, which was the communist attempt to emulate the Saturn V rocket back in the ’60s. It never got to the Moon. It blew up on the pad.

This kind of thing tends to happen when communists “crave” things. And maybe when useful idiots – Lenin’s apt little term for them – are paid to say such things. And to not say other things.

There was nothing in this article – written by a car journalist – about the reason why manufacturers such as Honda are “staking a lot of the brand’s future” on devices rather than vehicles. As it were all just natural, like Henry Ford staking the future of his company on the Model T.

Not mentioning the effective mandating of devices via regulations that only devices can comply with is an omission of context that amounts to dereliction of duty.

It is like writing a story about why so many small businesses went bankrupt in 2020-2023 without mentioning the manufactured “pandemic” and the mandates that forced them to close their doors for months or even years  . . . to “stop the spread.”

An even deeper dereliction is the writer’s failure to address the “climate change” hysteria that is why the regs were imposed that effectively mandate the manufacture (but not the buying, yet) of devices in order to comply with them. He – like most of the automotive press – takes the position taken by most of the press during the “pandemic.” That being to accept a mass-hysteria premise by not questioning it. By not even mentioning it, in the case of this article about Honda’s almost-certainly disastrous failure to question the “climate change” narrative that has effectively forced it to malinvest massive sums “radically reconfigur(ing) its Ohio-based U.S. manufacturing operations” to make battery powered compliance-device the market has already rejected.

Before even one device rolls off the “reconfigured” line.  

It’s like a car columnist not mentioning – back in the early ’70s – why all new cars were suddenly wearing huge, uglifying front and rear bumpers. Or why – in the early-mid 1990s – all new cars suddenly came with automated buckle-you-in seatbelts. And then air bags. As if it just kind of happened.

As it if were a good thing.

. . .

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Related posts:
  1. EV Fever Cooling . . . in California
  2. Death on the Slow
  3. The “Honda” That Isn’t
  4. Paying People to Not Buy What Sells
  5. But Why Aren’t People Buying Electric Cars?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

43 COMMENTS

  2. Well the ‘good news’ (/sarc) is that in communist societies there is no ‘market’.
    Therefore, you can freely choose between a Trabant or a Lada – as long as you register your interest in time for your new-born to be able to collect the car on his 18th birthday.
    Further good news is that even such difficult choice will be obsolete soon.
    No cars will be needed – or indeed allowed – to get about your 15-minute city.
    And then the planet will have been saved!

  4. Radical leftism and its government funded propagandists have infested every nook and cranny of our society. Sometimes one must give credit on a job well done by his enemies. Good job, leftists. You got to our kids 20 years ago, and are now reaping the rewards.

  5. “There was nothing in this article – written by a car journalist ”

    Ah . . . But there is the fatal error. This guy is a propagandist . . . Not an automotive journalist. Not a a real car guy of yore like say Brock Yates, Peter Egan or the likes of our very own Eric Peters. (S)He is a modern soy boi pushing EV’s because that’s what she’s paid to do.

    We know this because he writes for Jalopnik.

      • I captured this a year or so ago from a G/O Media Linked-in job post for an “automotive journalist” position.

        You’ll be writing multiple stories a day, while budgeting time for enterprise work. But where else can you write about
        old junk, EVs, tailgating and off-roading-in a single day?
        Qualifications
        • Have 1-3 years of writing experience.
        It’s not necessary to have worked as an automotive journalist, some of our best staffers have come from non-traditional backgrounds
        • Have strong news judgment and the ability to respond quickly to cultural and current events with appropriate stories but also possess the humility to accept feedback and learn from it
        • Be prolific, balancing daily news with larger breakout features

  6. Consider this possibility:
    If the US government goes to war with Iran (Bibi Netanyahu’s wet dream) oil prices will rise due to supply disruption. If Americans suddenly start having to pay $8.00 per gallon for 87 octane unleaded, the shit will definitely hit the fan in this country, and no American President is willing to deal with that, because it would be political suicide.

    But, if you can shift the production cost to oil fired electric generating stations by forcing people to drive electric powered motor vehicles, then when the price of electricity rises due to increase in the price of oil to power the generating stations, people will blame the electric utility company, not the government, or God forbid, whoever is pulling strings to get the US government involved in foreign wars which are not in the interest of the American people..

    Clever, eh?

    • Because electric rate hikes have to be reviewed and approved by state utility commissions, they are ‘sticky’ — once every two or three years, at best.

      Whereas fuel prices quickly, continuously respond to market conditions — no central planner intervention required.

      Changing the power source of vehicles from market-responsive [gasoline] to semi-responsive with a long lag [electric] obviously reduces economic efficiency.

      While oil prices typically plunge during recession (which happens fast), electric power prices won’t respond at all. They’ll stay high at the worst possible moment, when customers can least afford them.

      Kackala can start a new fedgov welfare program to ‘help’ folks with their utility bills. It will combine the efficiency of FEMA with the compassion of the Israeli Defense Forces. 🙂

  7. But Eric, there must be “Cravings” for electric vehicles”, since all others are being banned or simply destroyed. Never mind there is no market for electric vehicles.

  8. Perhaps if the “Legacy’ automakers were smart they would brag about building vehicles for a century or so and explain how if you dent your Chevy’s pickup box it won’t cost $47,000 to get it out, how they wouldn’t build a car with a cast aluminum frame that snaps if you back it off of a trailer hard or how their cars don’t drive themselves into stationary objects. I guess not.

    Sadly we are told people want these kinds of cars. Apparently I’m not one of those people as I’ve got the winter beast in the shop to fix some rust holes, for all it’s flaws it still runs like new and unlike an EV it won’t burst into flames or rat me out.

    • “Sadly we are told people want these kinds of cars”, at gunpoint. Like every other thing governments “ask” us to do.

  9. My theory is Honda Engineers and Management know the truth, but their marketing dept. is saying “if we don’t do something the greenies will not like us”
    Honda was very smart to ‘buy’ an EV.
    Lots of fake shit going on in the world. Lies usually don’t end well.

  10. Eric, I loved that photo of the front end of that 1973 Chevelle SS in this article. That is the exact same car and color of the one that my parents purchased in ‘73. My mother ended up trading it in for a used Monte Carlo several years later because of fuel economy. I’d love to have that car back! But the first thing I would do to it, if I had it, would be to shave those gaudy bumpers down to fit the body lines.

  11. All the lugenpresse seems to do is editorialize and lie and they stopped trying to hide it. I never hear anyone talking about wanting to buy an electric car. In 2019 yes, of course it was usually Teslas because they were thought of as cool but no more. I know a lot of people who don’t ever want an electric car and my boss traded in her Audi ETron for a subaru outback. And never looked back!

  12. Remember Me Too? A wholesale cleanup of every man who ever misbehaved. Well, that opened the door to a bunch of gelded yes-men and soy boys.

    I’d like to think the remaining rank-and-file writers at these mainstream blogs are just going along to get along, perhaps because they also have some drunken frat party experience they’d rather keep in the past. But the reality is much more group-think in nature. You’re surrounded by people who are all too afraid to say anything, so they think they’re the odd ones. “Everyone else is fine with waiting for a recharge, so what’s wrong with me?” says the thoughtful critic.

    I used to tell people griping about work, “If it were always fun they’d call it a hobby and you’d have to pay to do it.” Depending on how much BS you’re willing to put up with, that’s true. But at some point pretty much any organization that’s evolving will go beyond what you’re willing to accept. The organization won’t dissolve without you. It will find people who are willing to go along with the plan. Maybe it will work out. The only certain death of a company is if they abandon their customers. There used to be a saying “Take care of the customer or someone else will.” We’re seeing this play out both in the automobile industry and legacy media outlets.

  13. ‘to satisfy customer cravings for electric vehicles.’ — some bozo journo

    This riiiiiiisible dupery belongs in a book-length treatment — provisional title: Electric Moments of the Lügenpresse. Other chapters will cover Russian election interference, the vast success of covid ‘vaccinations,’ and … well, you get the idea.

    In this brain-dead stenographer’s bizarro world, Bad Santa makes his rounds, his black bag bulging with toxic presents to satisfy ‘cravings’ for bedbugs, STDs, EeeVees.

    As ol’ Andrew Anglin quipped about someone else [but it perfectly fits this EV stenographer], ‘You can tell by looking at ***** ********’s face that when he was a kid, you could pay him twenty dollars to eat a pile of dog shit.’

    Bon appetit! 🙂

  14. And then there’s this from the Florida Fire Marshall:

    https://myfloridacfo.com/news/pressreleases/press-release-details/2024/10/07/fire-safety-alert-cfo—state-fire-marshal-jimmy-patronis-calls-on-ev-manufacturers-to-take-steps-to-protect-lives-for-milton?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=RET_CON_ENG_RES_Milton+Electric+Vehicle+Safety+Alert_D000_V01_GEC0677&utm_id=278300&utm_batchid=18691&sfmc_id=616578274&soa=45466&utm_content=https%3a%2f%2fmyfloridacfo.com%2fnews%2fpressreleases%2fpress-release-details%2f2024%2f10%2f07%2ffire-safety-alert-cfo—state-fire-marshal-jimmy-patronis-calls-on-ev-manufacturers-to-take-steps-to-protect-lives-for-milton

    • From your GovCo PR link, Mr. Liberty, “be pro-active by alerting consumers to place their EVs to higher ground.”

      What are they gonna do? Are all the EV’s going to park on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge until the storm passes? There’s no such thing as “higher ground” in Florida.

      Maybe they’ll wash into Tampa Bay and fry the fish in the water. Then, after Milton leaves, we can all have a great big fish feast.

      Hey, if Jesus can do it, so can GovCo.

      • ‘Hey, if Jesus can do it, so can GovCo.’ — Mark in BC

        Loaves ‘n fishes, no problema. And water to wine (merlot? tempranillo?).

        But the man from Galilee never tried his dab hand at creating fiat greenbacks, much less digital keystroke currency.

        Only Govco can perform this tainted ‘miracle.’ So it jealously demands our worship.

        • “But the man from Galilee never tried his dab hand at creating fiat greenbacks, much less digital keystroke currency.”

          God has got to know His limitations…GovCo doesn’t…

  15. I remember when Honda was a real innovator when it came to cars that were fuel efficient and clean, like the CVCC that met emissions standards without catalytic converters, the CRX which could get an honest 50+ MPG with port EFI and a 5 speed stick shift, the Insight hybrid, and CNG fueled engines—which arguably reduced emissions of all kinds with relatively cheap and simple technologies.

    And I thought Honda would resist Elektrifikatsiya to the bitter end.

    • Honda certainly could produce a vehicle that produces less CO2 than an EV connected to the power grid. Renewable sources are still not producing a majority of the electricity on the grid, and won’t likely be doing so for another decade (at least if Germany is any indication), and that’s IF everything works out -which anyone who’s seriously looking at the so-called problem says it will not.

      But that’s not what the regulator decided. It has to be nothing out the back, full stop. Produce power somewhere else (away from view of the glorious skyline), transport it to the cities, store it in batteries, and dribble it out at a high margin. Part of the reason goes back to diesel engines and NOx. Gasoline engines, as they get closer to the ideal combustion temperature (as shown by Mazda’s Skyactiv engine) the ignition point is lower, which leads to incomplete burning of NOx, so the regulator says no.

      Cause someone did a study and found that poor black kids are exposed to more air pollution than white middle class kids. Ignore the old man is smoking Newports over the baby’s crib… it has to be the freeway.

      • ‘Renewable’ sources will NEVER produce enough electricity, due to the fact they rely on highly intermittent, unpredictable and diffuse sources.
        Which is also why thousands of square miles have to be covered by the wind and solar ‘farms’ to collect any appreciable amount of energy, and why there is still a need for an entire ‘conventional’ backup system – which will then no longer be able to run efficiently.
        If the entire lifespan of a wind turbine/solar panel is taken into account, they produce more CO2 (not that it makes any difference to the weather) than conventional sources.
        And the disposal of fiberglass blades and PV panels is yet another rather smelly kettle of fish, too.
        The whole ‘renewable revolution’ is just another utter and total government-pushed clusterf**k.
        Mind you, there’s a lot of well-connected insiders who do very, very well out of it, of course

  16. The first stage failed to ignite, the rocket engines had no thrust without ignition.

    The launch commanders walked to the rocket to examine a possible problem, while at ground zero, the second stage did ignite and it was all over after that.

    An uncontrolled lift-off, so to speak, didn’t go well. The thought was everything was done right, so what went wrong. Something like that.

    What I remember reading about the tragedy.

    Once those solid-fueled rockets ignite, they burn every drop of solid rocket fuel.

    Similar to a thermal runaway in an electric vehicle’s lithium battery.

    There is something wrong with those people.

    • Then KGB Chief Yuri Andrpov suspected “die-ah-boll-lick-all…Sabb-boh-tah-jee” (as Bugs Bunny would mispronounce it). Trouble was, all the suspects were instantly cremated to nothing but fly ash. There’s footage, both smuggled out of the Baikanur Cosmodrome and later made public after the USSR collapse showing a few hapless victims, by then walking torches, aimlessly stumbling away until they collapsed.

  17. “regs were imposed that effectively mandate the manufacture (but not the buying, yet) of devices in order to comply with them.”

    devices that comply with them….comply with net zero…..CEV’s…. coal electric vehicles comply….implying they are net zero…..no coal was burnt to generate the electricity….an EV complies by burning more fuel then an ice car to move down the road….and burns far more fuel in it’s manufacturing process…..

    EV’s comply with net zero…the biggest lie ever told…..

    That is a similar lie to some other lies….

    the injecting poison improves health lie…

    or that so called green energy production is green lie…that solar and wind turbines are not dirty energy….they actually are dirty… and very destructive, expensive energy production tech….

    Non stop lies spewed 24/7 by the slave owners…the control group…gas lighting…mind f…king the slaves….they are satanists…they invert everything….like dirty is clean…

    dirty technology…like EV’s are clean lie…some stupid slaves believe it….

    Ask EV owners and mask wearers….have you always been a stupid slave?….swallowing the bullshit….Do you get injected with poison too?……really stupid f…ks….

  18. Don’t worry, Eric. Komrade Kamala, the “First Woman of Color” in the White House, will fix everything, starting next January…

  19. Willful ignorance of this sort cannot exist in nature, it must devolve to dust. The writer for Motor1 probably thinks if he covers his eyes he’s invisible.

  20. Also notice that established automakers that have been around for decades building real cars that are not dEVices, are now routinely derided by media outlets and EV propagandists as “legacy” automakers, as though they now make products that are now somehow obsolete. Another propaganda term, used for ICE-powered cars, is “fossil cars”, which implies not only that ICE-powered cars run on so-called “fossil” fuels, but also that they are based on extremely outdated technology (unlike BEVs, apparently, which, although they were outcompeted by ICE-powered cars a century ago and still haven’t caught up with them, are nevertheless considered to represent technological progress, believe it or not).

    • Indeed, Stufo –

      “Legacy” is a psychological synonym for “old-fashioned” and “out of date.” The Left excels at this etymological jujitsu. Perhaps the best example of it being the way they describe Leftism as “progressive.” You know, as opposed to those outdated ideas about individual liberty.

    • The only time I’ve seen “legacy” or a similar term applied is to “old space” i.e Boeing and Lockheed Martin (now ULA), Orbital ATK (now Northrop Grumman), etc.

      They are joined at the hip with the fedgov, take considerable sums of money from fedgov, and take direction from fedgov.

      They don’t really innovate. They won’t take risk with their own money. if it ain’t a cost plus fee contract, they ain’t doing it.

      SpaceX was truly a disrupter. They apply the Silicon Valley test-fix-test mindset to spaceflight.

      • SpaceX may be a disrupter of something. But disrupting anything without taxpayer dollars it’s definitely not.

        “The Elon Musk-led company entered into a $1.8 billion classified contract with the U.S. government in 2021, according to company documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. SpaceX said in the documents that funds from the contract were expected to become an important part of its revenue mix in the coming years.”

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