Welcome back to The Morning Dump. I hope you celebrated the 4th of July by hanging out with friends, grilling food, and blowing up a small part of the country. It seems like every municipality, yacht club, and restaurant along the Long Island Sound had their own fireworks show, so by the time we left our party on Friday night, the air was thick with smoke. Was this preparation for next year’s 250th celebration or a preview of the future?
I skipped the politics on Thursday as I wanted to take a few days to consider what the passage of Trump’s big tax/budget bill and the formation of a new political party from Elon Musk all meant. I hoped that lounging by the pool, eating my body weight in smoked meats, and engaging in a luxuriously extended game of Ultimate would lead to some sort of illumination. Unfortunately, my initial instinct has held. This feels very much like giving up, so now it’s on automakers not to cede more control of the future to China. I guess this is where I should mention that we have a day left in 90 days/90 deals, and so far, two deals have been made.
While I’m doing this, I should address the other elephant in the room. Or the anti-elephant? Elon Musk is forming a rival political party, and even longtime Tesla supporters are rolling their eyes. This might be an opportunity for GM, which has quietly picked up a lot of the trust that Tesla has shed.
The Repeal Of The Tax Credit Makes Most New EV And Battery Projects Unnecessary
My goal in doing this today is to cover the news and give you, dear readers, a place to talk constructively about what it all means. I might be wrong! It has been known to happen. As I’ve said many times before, there’s no removing politics from cars. Any major industry is as much a victim of politics as whatever pet social issue you might have (for me, it’s outlawing the Designated Hitter in baseball).
Some of our peers have been critical of this website for being apolitical, but I’d argue that we’re one of the most politically active car websites there is. Specifically, The Autopian has been active in encouraging the repeal of nonsensical anti-import kei laws, up to and including talking to legislators and helping state groups organize. What The Autopian is not, specifically, is partisan. Cars are an enormously powerful way to bring people of different experiences and political viewpoints together, which is something this country needs more of, not less. Can car culture save America? I think it could. If you disagree with me about the politics of the moment, but agree with me about the greatness of Škoda, you are welcome here. Or vice-versa. Honestly, just having an opinion about Škoda means this is probably a place for you.
Enough preamble. I’ve been thinking a lot about post-WWII America. Specifically, how America won the post-war period of rapid technologicalization and industrialization. The first big advantage the United States had, of course, was that most of the country hadn’t been destroyed by war. The huge investments the government made in waging the war went towards the creation of more industrial might, which, after the war, turned back into commercial endeavors. Sensing a need for an educated workforce, the “G.I. Bill” was used by roughly half of the 16 million WWII veterans for some kind of education, including the millions who went to universities.
American cars of the ’50s and early ’60s were feature-laden, big, and many times more powerful than the pre-war cars anyone was building. A lot of this is owed to another piece of legislation, which is historically probably the biggest subsidy for carmakers of all time: The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956, put forward by President Eisenhower. There are no cars without roads and, specifically, without the broad and (mostly) straight freeways the country built. I don’t want to get too much into geographic determinism, but there’s an alternative version of this where America built more trains instead of highways. Cars were the more obvious option at the time and quickly helped link cities in a way that was beneficial for industry, but it wasn’t a 100% lock that this was what the future would bring.
We got the roads, and then we got the massive land yachts to fill those roads. Having used those interstates in the last month to cross the country, it makes a sort of sense. As much as I love a 1960s Alfa, that’s not the right car for the job.
Unfortunately, this was literally not sustainable. These thirsty cars could not be a future in any country that was dependent on anyone else for cheap fuel. Nor could these vehicles be a future for any country that didn’t want its children choking on smog. The 1-2 punch of OPEC oil embargoes and environmental regulation to combat pollution led to the Malaise Era of cars. American automakers didn’t have a good plan for this particular future, and the government had to intervene. Japanese companies like Toyota and Honda were the ones who benefited, having created cars that were both smaller and more efficient.
A lot has happened between the Malaise Era and today, with American car companies yet again building bigger and thirstier vehicles, only to retreat to cars that were still big, but also a lot more efficient. Somewhere in there, a combination of the California Air Resources Board and a few government programs led, in fits and starts, to a genuine attempt at making an electric car. The company that took a big chunk of that money and was successful was, of course, Tesla. While a lot of what Tesla was able to accomplish is due to the genius of the various people involved in the project, it didn’t hurt that the government helped fund the project both through direct loans from the Department of Energy and climate credits. Whatever your politics, it’s hard to deny that Tesla’s creation is an example of what happens when American ingenuity is supported.
At the same time, China has, in its own way, pushed towards electrification. It’s been messy, and China’s massive overcapacity is a problem, but the country now controls the battery manufacturing, technology, and resources necessary to build electric cars.
President Biden, with the Inflation Reduction Act and other actions, pushed forward the idea that America should be the place where this kind of innovation and vehicle production happens. There was a mix of carrots (the IRA $7,500 tax credit, massive loans for new battery plants) and sticks (CARB climate credits, stricter emissions standards). Could it have worked? We’ll probably never really know.
With the passage of the combined budget/tax bill, many of those credits are going away. As CBS News reports:
The massive tax and spending cut bill that Congress passed Thursday ends federal tax incentives for electric vehicles.
Buyers have until Sept. 30 to qualify for the federal tax credits on EVs before they are terminated. But experts say there are still strong financial reasons to consider buying the vehicles even without those incentives.
Before the bill passed, new electric vehicles came with a $7,500 federal tax credit, and used EVs included up to $4,000. Those incentives were originally designed to help make the vehicles more affordable.
The counterargument to this is that America shouldn’t be picking one technology over the other. That automakers used this incentive to build expensive EV crossovers instead of smaller, more affordable cars. My response to this is, again, to look at Tesla. The company probably only exists because of these initial programs, and much of its profits have come from climate credits. Building an entirely new industry takes time, especially when so much of what you need to make these cars relies on a government we’re not always the friendliest with right now. As Patrick George wrote in his big piece on this over at InsideEVs:
The lithium-ion battery was born here. But outsourcing them, and all kinds of other consumer goods, has led China to become less of the world’s on-demand contract factory and more of a giant science lab that’s run away with this technology. And it’s not just batteries themselves but the entire supply chain of materials to make them; as the Financial Times reported in April, the U.S. relies on China for 70% of the rare earth compounds and metals it imports, and then companies like Apple and others source directly from there.
Besides the risks of getting a key piece of consumer tech from only one place—a lesson Americans learned the hard way during the semiconductor shortage of the pandemic—there’s the obvious problem of leaving the power source of the future in the hands of a country with which the U.S. has difficult relations on a good day. (Not many people in America would seriously suggest that this country import all of its petroleum from Venezuela, Iran, and Russia.)
I’m not one of those people who believe that, even if the credit stayed in place, consumers would all immediately run out and grab a new EV. That was a belief that led to too much hype and, combined with low interest rates and SPACs, probably set the industry back. I do believe, though, that most cars will be electrified in the future, with a mix of hybrids and EREVs, as well as pure BEVs.
Whether you like it or not, batteries are the future of automobiles. Consumers like the performance and efficiency of electric cars, even if they don’t currently like the price. If it is the future, then ceding that future to anyone else isn’t good for the country. President Trump’s own stated goal is to improve American manufacturing, but this is the opposite of what’s likely to happen. While more carmaking is probably coming (thanks in part to tariffs), less of it is going to be the advanced kind of manufacturing that a switchover to electric cars was likely to bring, at least according to a study from Princeton University’s REPEAT Project:
If clean vehicle tax credits are repealed, as much as 100% of planned construction and expansion of US EV assembly and half of existing capacity could be at risk of cancellation or closure. If the share of EVs manufactured in the US remains at 2024 levels, nearly three-quarters of planned projects would be unnecessary.
Currently planned construction of US battery cell manufacturing demand already exceeds requirements to supply electric vehicles assembled in the United States under a continuation of current policies.
I assume there will be a big boom in electric car purchases this quarter as companies do all they can to shove the EVs they’ve built, or are planning to build, out to market while the cars are this much cheaper. After that, I’m guessing the curve is going to flatten a lot, meaning that all these planned facilities are, as the study above points out, kind of pointless.
My feeling is that this is America’s government giving up on the future, or assuming the future will all be ICE-powered cars and a few hybrids. It’s possible that’s true, but I don’t think so. If this all feels like a major setback to you, all is not lost. There’s still hope, but it’s going to be up to American industry and American automakers to counter it.
What does that look like? There’s Slate Auto, which looked like a great alternative to traditional manufacturing, but that took a giant hit with the passage of this legislation. Hopefully, Rivian can hold on long enough to build its smaller and more affordable vehicles. General Motors has reached a sort of profitability with its electric vehicles, though how that holds up without the tax credit isn’t clear. I’m excited about Ford’s skunkworks EV project, which hopefully exists outside of the need for the $7,500 tax credit.
The fact is that the federal government has taken a step backward both in requiring more efficient vehicles and in funding the creation of them. This means that companies will have to decide how much it’s worth it to do it with fewer carrots and fewer sticks.
’90 Deals In 90 Days’ Has One Day To Make 88 Deals
By my math, President Trump’s promise to do 90 deals in 90 days has about a day left, and only two deals have been done. The first was the United Kingdom trade deal, and the second is one with Vietnam. This is a big one, as the United States has long favored the country as a friendlier alternative to China, although Chinese manufacturers have used Vietnam’s special status to try to pass goods through to the United States at a lower cost.
The way it works is that there’s now a 20% tariff on goods from Vietnam and a 40% tariff on any trans-shipments that pass through the country. What does the United States get?
Vietnam would also provide the United States with more market access, with US exports to the country facing no tariffs, Trump said. That agreement appears to include US exporters of large-engine cars, according to Trump and Vietnamese state media.
“It is my Great Honor to announce that I have just made a Trade Deal with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” Trump said on Truth Social.
“It is my opinion that the SUV or, as it is sometimes referred to, Large Engine Vehicle, which does so well in the United States, will be a wonderful addition to the various product lines within Vietnam,” Trump said.
No one in this country refers to SUVs as “Large Engine Vehicles,” but I have a sense of where that’s coming from. There’s been an ongoing threat from China against European automakers focused on vehicles with large engines, so perhaps that’s what he’s talking about?
Elon Musk Starts A Third Party, Making Trump And Tesla Investors Unhappy
The once glowing partnership between President Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk spectacularly blew up last month, and now it’s again in the news as President Trump took to his social media platform to blast Musk’s creation of a third party (the American Party), and Musk responded on his own social media platform by mocking the President via retweet.
Like a landmine covered in armadillo crap, I ain’t touching that. My advice to you is simply: Walk away.
That’s not possible for Tesla investors, however, as Tesla investors have been begging Musk to get back to work and, to some of them, this does not feel like getting back to work. As one investor told Bloomberg:
Devoting resources and attention to a new political party runs counter to what Musk told Tesla investors during the company’s last earnings, in April — that he’d allocate “far more” of his time to the company after his work for the Trump administration ended.
“The board is going to have to get involved,” Dan Ives, an equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Bloomberg Television, saying he was frustrated as a supporter of Tesla. “There’s a line in the sand that he’s now starting to cross.”
Um, this is the line in the sand? How big is this freakin’ beach?
GM Is Ready To Pick Up Tesla Customers
I assume there will be a large run on Tesla products in the coming months as consumers, at least the ones disinterested in politics, recognize that the Model Y is still an enormous bargain for what you get. Could some of those consumers maybe be looking to buy a General Motors product? Maybe!
GM has been building market share in electric cars while Tesla has been shedding it, as the Detroit Free Press points out:
The Detroit automaker accelerated electric vehicle sales and market share in the first half of the year thanks to expanded electric offerings across three of its four brands. Meanwhile, consumer sentiment for Texas-based rival Tesla cratered this spring due to criticism over Musk’s hands-on involvement in Washington politics.
“GM is quietly building trust while Elon burns it,” said Paul Waatti, director of industry analysis for AutoPacific. “Consumers are responding to consistency, not volatility, and GM’s steady hand is starting to pay dividends.”
Now is a great time to buy a base Equinox EV is all I’m saying.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I’ll probably end up doing every song from this album, but “Good Feelings” from Violent Femmes is a chill Monday vibe that I need.
The Big Question
Am I wrong? This is a long post. I might be wrong a lot! What do you think?
Top photo: Leffler, Warren K. / Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Yes, it’s short sighted and dumb. You’re going to end up with US manufactures competing in two wildly different markets.
As the rest of world is going to move away from oil. As of this point there is nothing to indicate otherwise. Because what people forget about oil is the cost of doing business. Functionally, most of the US taxpayers dollars are going to the protection and procurement of Oil. The Empire exist because of oil. The militaries role is the protection of the global trade. Since about the Dulles Brothers, we’ve spent trillions on inferring on other sovereign nations in the name of protection and procurement.
And, if your a Finland, Thailand, even a China. For the first time since the rapid spread of internal combustion, you’re seeing a real exit towards the wild American-centric post war decades. Maybe, just trading one resource war for likely another. But, with batteries being able to be made out of possibly all sorts of stuff. And the variety of power generation. The Other Not-America and/or OPEC countries have a shot at being not dependent on a finite resource that’s prone to significant conflict around it.
Obviously, one could read the writing on the wall. And realize that a large resource dense nation-state with multiple places of higher education given some investment would likely be able to take a prominent role in the obvious near future. Instead, because god-forbid anyone in this administration have any foresight, iwe’re making an attempt to “will it into 1998″ everywhere. It’s so painfully obvious what’s going to happen. The big three are going to rest on their laurels. Look at Dodge, they kinda tried something new, then it was discovered ‘actually that’s kinda hard”. So, the moment they could go back to doing their old thing, they did. The big Three will then lose global market share. Consumer demand will shift towards the “cool stuff other people have”. Or another administration decides to make the shift back towards Evs. And you have another episode of Domestic Auto Maker rapidly trying to compete. So, let’s thank the Trump Administration when we all get to shitpost on the poor quality of the 2036 Dodge Aspen that will be inevitably rush into production costing whatever Sovereign Wealth Fun that will end up owning Dodge billions.
Every Right leaning person I know was and still is against the Reconciliation bill, and I’ve yet to see any left leaning person support it, and since there isn’t a 3rd party running Congress then how did it get voted in?
Because corrupt politicians run DC, not your average Republican or Democrat. So long as they get their piece of the pork while the public gets the Whole Hog (no lube) they don’t give a shit.
The HPA and SHORT act were really the only redeemable parts of the Reconciliation bill and they both got neutered because noone wanted to call the Parliamentarian on her bullshit.
While it seems obvious that electric vehicles are the future, it’s not quite so certain that Lithium Ion will be the form that takes. For many reasons I hope it isn’t.
I think it’s called the America party NOT American party. You know like the Gulf between musk and rump.
You get a gold star for the Violent Femmes. Saw them at The Filmore circa 1997. Still have the mini-poster they traditionally hand out there.
The EV credit never figured into my math for purchasing one. I assumed by the time I got around to it (probably in five years when current car is paid off, or maybe much sooner, we’ll see what happens) I wouldn’t get it anyway. That said, hopefully this doesn’t screw Rivian because an R3X would have been at the top of my wishlist for an EV.
I love my Mazda3, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve been going through a rough patch since late April and have spent a lot of those days driving to work without music and just wanting silence. I nearly impulse bought a 500e knowing it could charge during work since there are at least a dozen chargers within a five minute walk and they’re deserted overnight. My fiancée wants the new Maverick and it will likely be her next purchase. I’d rather have hybrids/EVs for daily use and save the loud ICE cars for fun.
The EV credits needed to eventually go away, but I would have rather seen a reduction over time and would have been OK with elimination of any credits over a certain MSRP that is much lower than it currently is (something like $45,000 to encourage development at the low end of the market). The used EV credits have always seemed a little silly to me. Used EV’s are usually pretty cheap already and those credits always seemed to inflate the costs of the used EV’s, but many buyers couldn’t take advantage of them due to the many restrictions.
The number one thing that manufacturers need to do to increase acceptance and resale value for EV’s is to bring the battery replacement cost down and commit to supporting battery replacements for much longer periods of time. My Gen 1 Volt ownership did nothing but reinforce my thoughts that GM doesn’t support the vehicles after they get 8-10 years old, and the battery costs aren’t going to come down. New batteries for the Gen 1 Volt haven’t been available for quite a few years now, and used packs are only going to last so long. I didn’t keep it past the 8 year warranty period because of this, even though the car had been flawless and I really liked it.
If the average car in the US is 12.6 years old now, we need to be able to get parts for a reasonable cost for at least 15 years. This lack of support drives the resale value of EV’s and PHEV’s way down.
I think auto culture can bring people together, but won’t, for the same reason I think US car companies could be more competitive but won’t. It takes active effort and empathy.
The most important part of selling a product is it has to be something your customer wants. You can engineer wants and desire to an extent with marketing, but that doesn’t eliminate the need to figure out what people want from a thing. I don’t think the US automakers have the grit to get it done in the time they have available to do so, before getting into the structural difficulties of supporting that kind of change.
In the same way, I think car culture can be a bridge for bridging a partisan divide. But it needs effort and people have to want that. I love cars, and motorcycles, and auto culture, and that’s why I have four projects in the driveway right now. I’ll talk shop all day about why manuals are more fun to drive, why sunroofs are underrated, or how the mach-e captures the original spirit of the mustang better than any of it’s recent interpretations.
But none of that means anything if the other person shuts down as soon as I mention how eminent domain impoverished my dad’s family, or how pollution makes crime worse. If people ignore the hard or uncomfortable parts of how the primacy of cars in life affect us, it doesn’t actually matter how much we both like or dislike them. People are very good at compartmentalization when they want to be.
So in both cases, things will get better if people want them to enough to do the work.
I think the roll back of technology is the real problem here, not just the tax credits. I think the Japanese and the Koreans will now eat US EV company’s lunches, and yet again, it will be America’s fault. I can see this shaping up to be very much like the 70’s. This bill is shifting energy production back to coal and oil, rolling back all the technological advances made or exploited in America 20 years. Meanwhile putting the cost of energy back into the cartel’s hands. The idea this will lower energy costs is laughable, so I don’t see the demand for EVs dropping, since I believe the cost of fuel will increase. (even if electricity increases, I don’t think it will match pace with gasoline). So just like in the 70’s when a “compact car” from Detroit was heavier and less fuel efficient than a Toyota, this is the US driving us back into the arms of imports. Of course the natural reaction will be to tariff them.. So happy 4th of July, 1963!!
I quite agree. The very concept is horrifying. Baseball absolutely should not have a designated Hitle- wait, no…
I read it that way the first time I read the sentence, too.
Must be something nagging the back of my mind that I haven’t quite put my finger on yet…
I think we’re overdue. Marge Schott died a while ago now.
“Good Feeling” is my second favorite song off the Femmes debut, right behind “Add It Up.”
Coming more from a rock/prog background, Vincent Delorenzo’s ultra-minimalistic drumming was quite a revelation and he became quite the influence on my own playing, to the point that I’ve coined my playing style as ‘complicated minimalism.’ Although I’m sure I’m not the first person to come up with that term, it has spilled over into how I generally live my life.
I’m of two minds on the cancellation of the EV tax credit. On the one hand, it will almost certainly negatively affect EV adoption, which I think is bad. On the other hand, manufacturers went totally cray-cray on pricing out of the gate, knowing that the credit would make the actual price more palatable to the buying public. For the hell of it, I ordered a Mach E GT in August 2022 to replace our ’21 Premium. When it arrived, it carried an MSRP of $78K*. I could buy the same car today for $60K.
I’m far from the political science major I earned decades ago, but Musk creating a splinter party perhaps reflects the cracks starting to show in the Republican Party. Without getting too political…I’ll allow it.
*after seeing the payments for that car, I laughed out loud and told them to put it back in stock
What a marvelous description of the best game man has ever created, ever. I hope by ‘luxuriously extended’ that mean several hours and hours of nonstop thumber, scoober, and chickenwing throws. Sounds like bliss
I’m so tired this morning.
Regarding the EV tax credits… I’m fine with that as long as the credits for hydrogen as well as oil industry subsidies get cut as well. But we all know that the oil-industry-owned Republicans won’t cut oil-related credits.
But hopefully the hydrogen vehicle credits died.
“Elon Musk Starts A Third Party, Making Trump And Tesla Investors Unhappy”
Musk starting a 3rd party is a good thing. The USA needs more diversity when it comes to political parties. And I hope it results in splitting the “nutjob conservative” vote resulting in the Republicans perpetually getting screwed and not getting elected well into the future.
And anything that makes Trump unhappy is probably a good thing for society.
As for Tesla investors, hey if you’re STILL an investor after Musk antics over the past year, that’s on you and I have no sympathy for your whining.
And I say that as a former TSLA investor and sold when it became clear that Musk would do the politics thing while also retaining his position as being the boss of Tesla… which I knew would be unworkable and would lead to bad results and political blowback.
And I was right.
Wait you’re telling me the government subsidizes oil companies, and allows drilling on federal land, and collects a tax on gasoline and oil products? Thanks
Biden,Obama, Woodrow Wilson!Is there a way to promote sanity in decision making? Keeping the insane, obfuscating, fear and hate mongering out of the process would be a start.
Any unbiased reasonable evaluation of the efficiency of electric drive shows a clear advantage. How you generate and store that electricity, however, is not as clear cut. SWG’s mindset of returning a neglected, serviceable, already spent carbon to manufacture, car, has a greater overall environmental benefit as long as it is not a gross pig in consumption. My biggest complaint with ALL new vehicles is that they force likely privacy violating, soon outdated tech interface. I suspect a much lower rate of rehabbing these, and therefore greater waste.
“Can car culture save America? I think it could.”
Lol, no. Cars are both what made America great and shit. Get them out of the cities.
The sunsetting of the EV credit will hurt but it’s just a piece of the bigger picture. The technology and charging infrastructure is still not up to par with ICE and I think that’s a bigger driver than the EV credit.
“Some of our peers have been critical of this website for being apolitical…”
Hmm, that doesn’t quite seem right, let me fix that:
“Some of our peers have been critical of this website for being
apoliticalprofessional…”Ah, That’s better! The responsibility of the news and media is to deliver me the facts and facts alone. If I wanted opinions and hot takes baked into my articles, I’d just read editorials and letters from the readers. But maybe I’m old fashioned, but that’s how I always understood it.
America (noun)
A country where innovation is deprioritized in favor of profits now, safe in the knowledge we can just apply tariffs on all the countries that left us behind, with their “unfair” innovation, later.
I’m not confident that American car companies are going to innovate if they don’t have to. Say what you will about EVs (within reason of course) but pretty much all other first world countries are adopting them at a rapid rate. The US produced a handful of electric vehicles that were fairly competitive (insert Tesla of your choice here, the Mach E, the Ultium stuff, etc) but China is wiping the floor with everyone price wise and is so far ahead they may never be caught.
The US either needs to compete or be willing to cede those markets. To a certain extent their home market is pretty ironclad due to protectionist policies that are about to swing even further in their favor with the current administration…but at the end of the day I don’t think it’ll encourage innovation, and this is one of the many reasons why I’m critical of crony capitalism.
This idea that corporations and the people that pull the levers are just going to decide to do the right thing rather than do what’s best for making money as efficiently as possible every single time is a bit silly to me. Anyway, with that in mind it seems likely to me that all the American marquees are going to do what they’ve always done best-quadruple down on their own bullshit and then wind up in front of Congress with their tails between their legs saying “UwU we’re so sohwy we didn’t innovate pls bail us out daddy UwU”.
Stellantis’ big play here is MOAR V8S BABY and a decent amount of the automotive press is hailing it as a stroke of genius. There are multiple classes of car that Ford and GM have just thrown up their hands at and said “we can’t lose if we never play”. Most of the current American CUVs are utter shit and Japan/Korea are more than happy to take their sales. Hell the best American compact cars right now are *checks notes* made in Korea….
Ford and GM don’t even make regular sedans anymore and yet I see double digit Camrys, Accords, Civics, etc. every time I commute. It sure seems like the Traverse/Acadia/etc. have finally become pretty decent cars but why would you choose one and deal with the potential long term ownership headaches and 20ish MPG when you can get a Highlander or Sienna that doesn’t come with those concerns and gets 35 MPG?
So what do they do really well? Trucks and comparatively affordable sports cars. They’re great at making trucks. If for some reason I suddenly needed a BOF truck or family hauler I’d go directly to GM and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the same to a family member or friend. The C8 Corvette, Blackwings, etc. are marvels of modern performance engineering.
This is a comparatively weak generation of Mustang but where else can you get off a lot in a 500ish horsepower, V8, manual, RWD coupe for 50 grand ish? No where. But when the economy crashes (it sure feels inevitable at this point but even as someone who’s vocally left wing I’d never hope for such a thing) people aren’t going to be buying massive trucks and sports cars anymore.
They’re going to want stuff that’s cheaper and more efficient, and the American companies don’t make that in significant numbers anymore. Even if the government is giving them carte blanche to emit and burn as much fuel as they want it won’t matter if doing that becomes prohibitively expensive again…which it inevitably will, because contrary to what the median voter seems to think the president doesn’t have a magic “gas prices go DOWN” lever.
I’d love to be wrong, but things sure feel bleak for the American automotive industry right now, and if they aren’t forced to innovate and consider a future beyond their next earnings report I don’t feel confident that they’ll choose to do that. Like or not electrification is the future, and while huge quantities of Americans think climate change is liberal propaganda and refuse to be bothered by anyone else’s needs but their own things are going to change (pun grimly intended) when the consequences start showing up in their front yards.
That’s how it was for Covid. It was all a dumb woke joke until memaw died. Unfortunately I fear it’s the same with climate change….John or Jane in Oklahoma or Texas or whatever can’t be bothered by it and want to drive their lifted trucks that get 12 MPG now but they’re sure as hell going to feel differently when gas costs $7 a gallon or their truck gets totaled by an offseason tornado….
Unfortunately I fear it’s the same with climate change….John or Jane in Oklahoma or Texas or whatever can’t be bothered by it and want to drive their lifted trucks that get 12 MPG now but they’re sure as hell going to feel differently when gas costs $7 a gallon or their truck gets totaled by an offseason tornado….
I doubt it. High gas prices are caused by liberals and off season tornadoes are God’s wrath for the gays.
Fellas, is it gay to be killed by a freak weather event?!?
Only if it’s raining men?
Forgot to indicate sarcasm? lol
Do I REALLY need to?
I think the Violent Femmes have a few better songs than Good Feeling. Also I feel like this might be a good thing for manufacturers of electric stuff. Without the free ride of tax credits, and even green credit offset money, those that have invested enough to not fully back out will likely have to really look at innovation and removing waste to make the Electric systems cheaper, easier to live with and last longer.
Gone Daddy Gone will always be my favorite….and it was spectacular live
Boy there’s been a lot of handwringing over a $7500 credit that only applied to new vehicles and was subject to an ever-increasing host of conditions. I don’t think it’ll make much of an impact for product planning or sales. In fact, I bet most companies will just drop the price by the former amount of the tax credit. No one at the big 3 are saying “Damn! That extra $7500 per car was the difference between us pouring billions into R&D and just cranking out the same models forever!”
That being said, we’re coming now to the realization that different countries are going to have different priorities and the same product mix isn’t going to work. The US has large oil and gas reserves, and energy independence is tantamount to actual independence in the modern era. Just ask Europe. We’re not going to cede that to China nor should we. Likewise, China imports almost all their oil so it behooves them to switch to EVs since they can generate nearly unlimited electricity with all the coal they have.
For the USA, just keep the strong pollution controls and force innovation in internal combustion. We’ll have a mix of ICE, hybrids, and EVs for the foreseeable future and that’s ok.
Universal DH should be a federal issue. If it wasn’t for the National League, the world would’ve never seen Bartolo Colon hit a home run. Idk what the MLB is doing anymore #notmybaseball #hardigree2028
This guy gets it.
While I don’t like the DH, you are tilting at windmills if you think it will ever change back. For one, the players’ union is all for it – and why wouldn’t they, as it makes more jobs for their members. The will never agree to give it up.
I am glad it’s the same rules for both leagues. It was blatantly unfair to AL teams to play in NL parks with no DH when the AL had it. I don’t like it, but at least everyone should play by the same rules.
Of course, I’m also no fan of interleague play – because of it, we see our own division rivals so much less.
I still can’t get over the fact that DH is in both leagues. Tom Glavine could hit.
Pretty sure I saw every one of Steve Avery’s home runs for the Braves growing up!
True, we are deprived of seeing the few pitchers who can hit do so. Loved watching Mad Bum hit homers for the SF Giants. But not that thrilled by watching yet another another attempt at a sac bunt laid down. Will admit there’s amusement value in watch AL relief pitchers in interleague games trying to do something in a game they haven’t done since school days (and with a real wood bat, aluminum bats are another topic of travesty). Mostly been to American League games, so that’s my personal bias.
(tangent) But then I’m also still quite bitter about John Fisher moving the Athletics out of Oakland. Wonder if there’s still folks in the NY area grumbling over losing the Dodgers and Giants. Only really following the SF Giants now.
Don’t the Dodgers already have enough advantages? Shohei would probably outpace the hitting production of every other pitcher in the NL combined on days when he pitches.
Car makers don’t care. They make whatever has significant market demand to warrant its investment, and can pass whatever regulations exist for that market.
The difference between the US, Europe and China is energy independence. The US has it, the other two don’t. In both Europe and China, the decision for governments to prop up both the supply of EVs and the demand for them comes from their inability to control their energy supply. It’s a risk reduction strategy (and in the case of Chinese), allows for competition in a new industry.
Per MIT, China sold 6.8 million EVs in 2022, and the US sold 600k.
And now we take away those incentives to build/buy them? Outside of a consumer demand revolution, EV adoption is not happening.
China has roughly 1.4 billion people, while the U.S. has around 342 million….and the ratio of those living in a city where the EV’s shine is certainly not the same.
They are also a developing country (leader of BRICS, global south and so forth), and much poorer per capita.
And yet, nearly 50% of all cars sold there in 2024 were EVs. Here, EVs just recently started outselling manuals.
I have drastically cut back on two of my psych meds and kept forgetting to pick up the third over a period of about six months, so I’m going to limit my comments to the following:
Statements like number 3 have grown to a frequency in our culture that saddens me. I do not believe our country is improved upon by a loss of patriotism. Once, that was something shared by most, regardless of politics. We had that in common at least. I’m proud of what this country has been. I’m proud of what she could be. I’m proud of the ideals that “the American Way” sets out. The USofA may not meet those ideals right now, but her destruction is not a resolution of that failure, any more than suicide makes anyone’s life better. I am not MAGA, I do not believe in Trump, but this idea, that America is not what she once was, and that she can grow to represent those ideals again, THAT is what Trump was selling. His version is snake oil, but I appreciate that there are so many who believe we fall short of an old mark and truly desire to grow our country back to that point. I remain a proud American, despite recognizing we are not in our glory days.
Nationalism is easily confused for patriotism. That’s why you are hearing more anti-patriotic sentiment, nationalists ruined it.
America is a melting pot. Almost everyone in this country had an ancestor that decided to come here for a better opportunity. America no longer represents that possibility for most. My ancestors were smart enough to move to greener pastures, why should I or anyone else here be shackled to this empire in decline?
I just came back from Mexico and I stopped at the BYD dealership in my hometown, my god these cars are amazing, the one I drove felt so solid with a good infotainment system and decent pricing. The fact they have a strong lineup and vehicles on segments some brands do not have, they are ready to come to the US. BYD should just buy Stellantis but the US government will never allow that.
Unfortunately the next 4 years will not be good for the auto industry in this country, GM will probably go back to start sourcing parts from China or other countries in order to absorb the tax credit and remain competitive.