A Conservative MP is accusing the federal government of failing to include job guarantees for Canadians in its subsidy contracts with foreign electric vehicle battery manufacturers.
Tory MP Rick Perkins told the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) on Dec. 14 that he has read a confidential Volkswagen contract and “what’s not in it is a clause that protects Canadian jobs.”
As Canada continues its work towards net-zero carbon emissions, including through its mandate for at least 20 per cent of car sales to be electric vehicles (EVs) by 2026, a new report showing a declining interest in the products is raising questions whether that goal is doable.
On Monday, AutoTrader.ca released its 2023 top search data into some of the most popular vehicles searched on their marketplace this year and while it showed a rise in popularity of trucks, the number showing an intent to purchase an EV has declined from one year prior.
“Ford will cut planned production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup roughly in half next year, marking a major reversal after the automaker significantly increased plant capacity for the electric vehicle in 2023.”
That’s huge.
Auto dealers across many parts of the country say electric vehicles are becoming too hard a sell for buyers worried about the range, reliability and price of these models.
When Paul LaRochelle heard Ford Motor was coming out with an electric pickup truck, the dealer was excited about the prospects for his business.
“We thought we could build a million of them and sell them,” said LaRochelle, a vice president at Sheehy Auto Stores, which sells vehicles from a dozen brands in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
The reality has been less positive. On Sheehy’s car lots, LaRochelle says there is a six- to 12-month supply of EVs, compared with a month of gasoline-powered vehicles.
This is what happens in a Soviet style “Command Economy.”
It’s not often that a government decides to sabotage one of its nation’s leading industries. But this is precisely what Rishi Sunak’s flailing administration has just done to the UK car sector.
The power grid that took more than a century to build will have to double its capacity in just 30 years. That will cost. Who’s paying?
What would happen to your electricity bill if all your neighbours started driving electric vehicles (EVs)? This is not a hypothetical question. The federal government’s plan is for Canadians to be driving EVs en masse in a little more than a decade. Ottawa has banned the sale of new gas-powered passenger vehicles as of 2035 and the government has committed tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in grants and incentives to the makers of EV batteries.
We are a nation governed by high school students. Stupid high school students.
Economist Steve Moore recently compared EVs to the ill-fated Edsel, “one of the textbook marketing flops of all time.”
“All the automotive experts and Ford executives said it was a can’t-miss. Henry Ford (the car was named after his son) guaranteed hundreds of thousands of sales. But one big thing went wrong: Nobody ever bothered to ask car buyers what they thought of the new car,” he wrote.
“Given the all-in approach to electric vehicles at Ford and General Motors, it’s clear that Detroit never got the message.”
h/t YP
Congress at the urging of the Biden administration agreed in 2021 to spend $7.5 billion to build tens of thousands of electric vehicle chargers across the country, aiming to appease anxious drivers while tackling climate change.
Two years later, the program has yet to install a single charger.
“Sticker shock” has taken on a whole new meaning when new electric vehicle owners get their first repair bill following a simple fender bender. The Wall Street Journal reports that a San Francisco resident got in a minor accident with his electric truck. He thought that repairs would be “a couple-thousand-dollar bill from the repair shop and to be without his truck for a couple of weeks.”
Instead, the first-time EV owner was shocked to get a $22,000 bill for repairs that took 2 1/2 months.
Off on a tangent … New Class A RV Breakdown costs
The Cybertruck is here. Finally. Maybe. Sort of.
Thursday was the “Cybertruck Delivery Event,” where they finally rolled off the production line and were handed over to waiting customers. Musk served as chaperone, host and speaker, and the event was a hype-fest for fanboys. As the presentation started, it was hard to tell whether some in the crowd were shouting “Elon” or “hallelujah” (I think the latter). He presented a polished marketing video, markedly sparse on specs, but promised that the Cybertruck was one of those rare products that change how we see the world; that it is “more truck than truck,” while also being “a better sports car than a sports car” and the best product Tesla had ever made.
How is that electric vehicle promotion going? Well, the car dealers can’t sell them. They sent President Biden a letter calling for a change in strategy, as my old marketing professor used to say. This is the story:
Nearly 4,000 U.S. car dealers are asking President Biden to tap the brakes on proposed emissions regulations designed to ensure that two-thirds of new passenger cars are all-electric by 2032.
So what’s going on? The simple answer is that they can’t sell electric vehicles no matter how much the Biden administration wants you to buy one or how many commercials they run during the football games. They can’t move them, as they say in the car business. They sit on the lot.
More … Electric Vehicles Are Less Reliable Than Conventional Cars
NextStar Energy Inc. says it expects upwards of 900 foreign workers to help build its heavily subsidized electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor, Ont. The head of Canada’s Building Trades Unions calls the move “a slap in the face” and an “insult to Canadian taxpayers.”
The statement from the union comes as the use of the workers has become a political issue on Parliament Hill, raising questions and concerns over the course of the past week from federal leaders.
A more than $60-million “transformational” effort to move to electric buses in Edmonton is stalled at the curb.
Just six per cent of the Edmonton Transit System’s 1,000-bus fleet are electric buses, but those are very squeaky wheels.
Three-quarters of the city’s 60-bus electric fleet is in the garage with poor immediate prospects for parts to fix them.
h/t MW
Amid pushback over plans to use foreign workers, NextStar Energy has confirmed it wants to hire hundreds of technicians from South Korea to help set up the government-subsidized electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor, Ont.
The company said Thursday that, in total, about 1,600 equipment manufacturers from outside suppliers will be assembling, installing and testing the equipment needed to make the batteries, including a “temporary specialized global supplier staff” of around 900, largely from South Korea.
It’s the first time the company has commented on how many workers it wants in Canada to work on the project, in the wake of backlash over a social media post shared by Windsor police that suggested the city would be welcoming 1,600 people from South Korea in 2024.
