The Biden administration is getting significant pushback from auto industry representatives over its anticipated tightening of EPA rules governing tailpipe emissions. In a draft memo leaked this week, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI) refers to the proposed standards as being “neither reasonable nor achievable in the timeframe provided.”
Northvolt Is Near Deal With Canada on $5.3 Billion Battery Plant
Swedish manufacturer Northvolt AB is close to a deal to build an electric-vehicle battery plant near Montreal, a project that’s expected to be worth about C$7 billion ($5.3 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.
The Canadian and Quebec governments are preparing to give financial aid to Northvolt that may be worth billions, following a similar agreement with Volkswagen AG to build an EV battery plant in Ontario, the people said. An announcement is likely to be made in the coming weeks, though negotiators are still working on final details, they said, speaking on condition they not be identified because the matter is private.
German car maker to pause work at major factory and lay off 300 staff
Volkswagen is to cut electric car production at one of its biggest factories after “strong customer reluctance” led to far lower sales than expected.
The business is pausing work on electric models for six weeks at its plant in Emden, northwest Germany, and will lay off 300 of the 1,500 workers involved in making them.
The company blamed lower subsidies for buyers of the cars across Europe and higher inflation for a drop in consumer interest.
So VW is doing a Stellantis and halting construction of a manufacturing plant and laying off staff because they can’t sell EV’s without consumers being offered significant bribes of their own money.
Bribe people to buy a second rate product. That sounds like the sort of genius level business model Justin would buy into.
EV’s are the Wunderwaffe of the Green-Scam.
VW says EV Market has TANKED.
h/t Shasta
The scope of the fire risk posed by electric vehicles (EVs) is not well-understood, says a National Research Council of Canada report.
“Electric vehicles present a greener solution to internal combustion vehicle engines, however they may pose a different fire hazard due to their propulsion system, the lithium ion battery,” said the report, Literature Review on Parking of Electric Vehicles, viewed by Blacklock’s Reporter.
Electric cars damage roads twice as much as their petrol equivalents, analysis has shown, as the pothole crisis grows on Britain’s roads.
Analysis by The Telegraph has found that the average electric car more than doubles the wear on road surfaces, which in turn could increase the number of potholes.
The country is suffering from a pothole crisis, with half as many filled last year compared to a decade ago amid an estimated £12 billion price tag to fill them all.
Feds and provinces need to offer more EV incentives to consumers to compete with U.S.: GM
The president of General Motors Canada says she’d like to see the provincial and federal governments offer more consistent incentives to people hoping to purchase electric vehicles to compete with the options in the United States, and to increase the adoption rate for those types of vehicles.
Marissa West told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, in an interview airing Sunday, that while the different levels of government have been very collaborative with electric vehicle manufacturers, there needs to be a consistent mechanism in place so Canada can “keep pace” with the United States.
Tragedies like this week’s e-bike repair shop fire highlight the hidden dangers that personal vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries pose to urban environments.
It was just after midnight on Tuesday, June 20, when a Lower East Side deli worker saw smoke pouring from the shuttered HQ E-Bike Repair shop at 80 Madison Street. The worker called 911, and the fire department arrived within four minutes. Firefighters began pulling residents, some unconscious, from the smoke-filled apartment building above the shop. But they couldn’t stop the intense fire from burning through to the apartments above and into the building next door. It even blasted through the shop’s metal security gate. Four people died in the blaze, and two others were critically injured.
This is, of course, an acknowledgment that plug-in electric cars are inferior to regular cars, which run on gasoline.
The Biden administration is making a massive, unprecedented corporate welfare loan to a private company making car batteries, the Energy Department announced on Thursday.
“The U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office today announced a conditional commitment for a loan of up to $9.2 billion to BlueOval for the construction of three manufacturing plants to produce batteries for Ford Motor Company’s future Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles.”
His girlfriend told him not to buy the electric scooter.
But Alfonso Villa Muñoz was intrigued. He was working in a Brooklyn bodega last August when a delivery man said he knew someone selling one for $700. Mr. Muñoz said yes.
The scooter was cherry red with the number 7 on the front. Under the seat was an extra-large lithium ion battery. When it needed charging, Mr. Muñoz would remove the battery from the scooter and use both hands to lug it up to the couple’s third-floor apartment in College Point, Queens.
E-Bikes are a menace.
… Plans by Norway and other countries to dig up the seabed are more grim evidence that automotive utopia is a myth – there is no such thing as an environmentally friendly car, no matter the propulsion system, and EVs are certainly dirtier than advertised. Manufacturing them may result in wrecking entire ecosystems that had gone largely untouched.
Once again, batteries just aren’t living up to hopes and dreams. Only a year ago Rolls Royce were excited about the nine-seater P-Volt electric plane — forecasting that it would be carrying customers on ninety mile hops in 2025 and 250 miles by 2030. Alas, it must have been a sobering year. The developers of the P-Volt have pulled the pin indefinitely and decided to wait until battery capacity and weight improvements make it realistic.
h/t Mauser
We have been swimming upstream for years here at American Thinker, arguing that conversion of the automobile fleet to electric vehicles is a mistake, harming the environment more than helping it, and utterly impractical for a variety of reasons, including charging time and an entirely inadequate electrical grid, already at the breaking point.
Software glitches, inaccurate range estimates and clunky charging options all limit adoption
The adoption of electric vehicles represents the biggest shift in our energy and transportation systems in more than a century—but it’s also the biggest shift in consumer electronics since the debut of the iPhone.
On both counts, progress is accelerating in the U.S. And on both counts, we are far from where we need to be.A recent 1,000 mile road-trip in the longest-range electric vehicle you can buy brought this home for me. That journey was as worrisome as it was thrilling, and it clarified how much more needs to be done for drivers to have a consistent and satisfying experience on par with buying a gasoline vehicle.
Electric Vehicles: The Toyoda War
Akio Toyoda is the grandson of Kiichiro Toyoda, a man who started an auto division within his family’s business. That division, it must be said, came to enjoy a fair degree of success (those who want to know why the company is called Toyota, not Toyoda, can find out here). Akio Toyoda joined Toyota in the 1980s, eventually becoming its CEO in 2009. He knows a bit about cars. He also speaks his mind.
A growing number of Canadians are finding it increasingly challenging to maintain their standard of living, with more and more people struggling just to afford basic necessities.
Even though a range of contributing factors — such as rising commodity prices, or supply disruptions due to the war in Ukraine — are beyond our government’s control, Canadians nonetheless hold the belief and expectation that any actions or interventions taken by the government will lessen the burdens we face. Unfortunately, too often government policies often have the opposite effect and financially burden Canadians further.
It’s a war designed to impoverish us.
Over a decade ago, fans of BBC’s Top Gear will remember when it was Rowan Atkinson’s turn to have a go at the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment.
This is back when Jeremy Clarkson’s running gag centred around the BBC’s shoestring budget, meaning they had to torture their guests with various crap cars and see which of them could get around the (airport) track fastest without any tyres falling off. In Atkinson’s case, the car in question was a Kia Cee’d.
