Category: Alternative Subsidy

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors

As go the subsidies, so go the subsidized.

Massive layoffs, production cuts, project delays and cancellations. As China’s world-leading solar manufacturers grapple with excess capacity and a fierce price war, the industry looks poised to enter a period of brutal consolidation.

There have been no reports of major bankruptcies yet. But Longi Green Energy Technology Co.’s warning in May that more than half the nation’s solar companies could go under no longer seems far-fetched.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

They ran out of stupid rich people faster than forecast.

A new study is claiming that automakers lose an average of $6,000 for every $50,000 electric vehicle they sell. Boston Consulting Group, an American-based global management consulting firm that issued the report, said the figure accounts for customer tax credits — painting a rather bleak picture for the future of EVs.

However, this was attributed largely to the fact that automakers had spent so much upfront developing electrification. Assuming production continues and the public ends up buying them in meaningful numbers, EV profitability should improve over time. Of course, we’ve been hearing that for well over a decade at this point.

While segment growth has improved, it’s not happening at the pace industry leaders expected. Five years ago, automakers assumed electric vehicles would reach parity with combustion vehicles by roughly 2025. But none of the major markets are on pace to hit those targets.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Vancouver’s all-electric vehicle was unveiled Dec. 4, with VFRS Chief Karen Fry referring to it as a “reinvention of the fire truck.”

The department said the truck is smaller and more maneuverable than a traditional truck, and can go 100 kilometres on a single charge.

At a cost of $1.8 million, it’s $300,000 to $500,000 more than a new diesel engine, but Fry said there are huge environmental and health benefits to an electric truck, as diesel fumes are a known carcinogen.

Trudeau did not say when the truck will return to service.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Hertz swaps out its CEO as it looks to revitalize business after failed EV push.

Hertz’s stock has struggled recently, falling 27% to start the year and 53% over a 12-month basis. The rental-car company recently made a pivot, saying it would downside its electric-vehicle fleet by about a third as customer demand didn’t live up to expectations and the vehicles were proving too costly to repair. Hertz emerged from bankruptcy in 2021.

Shares were down about 3% in Friday’s late trading.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords

Amid the EV’s, AI and Bitcoins, Puff The Magical Thinking Dragon comes home to roost: America Is Running Out Of Power

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.

In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades.

Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction. Texas, where electricity shortages are already routine on hot summer days, faces the same dilemma.

This may be behind the WaPo paywall, so I’ve dropped more in the extended entry.

Related: Canada’s declining electricity abundance
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We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Fisker may not make it through 2024;

Fisker said that there is “substantial doubt” that it will have enough money to make it through the year, the company said in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. As such, it’s embarked on a cost-cutting spree, laying off 15 percent of employees, while casting around for more investment. Fisker said it’s “in discussions with an existing noteholder about potentially making an additional investment in the company.”

“We are aware that the industry has entered a turbulent, and unpredictable period,” Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker said in a statement. “With that understanding and taking the lessons learned from 2023, we have put a plan in place to streamline the company as we prepare for another difficult year.”

Y2Kyoto: State Of Anorexia Envirosa

Bloomberg;

Using crops to make diesel involves an inherent trade-off between the fuel’s climate-friendly benefits and preserving enough supplies to keep food prices in check.

Finding the balance can be tricky. That’s the challenge facing California as it debates a potential revamp of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

The frenzy to cash in on credits for lower emissions has triggered a surge in renewable diesel, with state supplies reaching records every quarter since 2020.

The escalation has led environmentalists to call for a limit on crop-based fuels, arguing it’s necessary to ensure the program doesn’t worsen hunger. The biofuel is often made from soybean oil, a staple for cooking.

“California is diverting soybean oil from food markets into its fuel market, and that’s surprising and troubling,” said Jeremy Martin, a senior scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists who studies the impacts of fuel policy.

And there’s a weird domino effect of using soy oil to make renewable diesel, which some critics say blunts the climate benefits.

As more soy oil goes into diesel, demand climbs for palm oil, a controversial commodity. The European Union wants to phase out its use in fuel production to curb deforestation.

California’s regulatory board recently postponed a March 21 hearing on the fuel standard.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

WSMB4;

When a Tesla crashed and burst into flames in Scottsdale, it reignited on the tow truck. On a California highway, it took firefighters three hours and 6,000 gallons of water to stop an Electric Vehicle (EV) from burning. “Electric vehicle fires have become really a pain for us,” said Dave Folio of the Scottsdale Fire Department.

EV fires are dangerous, costly, and full of unknowns. “We’re still figuring out ways to deal with them; Everything from putting them in a dumpster and loading sand on top of them and possibly even burying them in some cases,” Folio said. “Right now, we’re all scrambling to come up with a better way.”

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Sooner or later, you run out of other peoples’ money.

Ford Motor Co. cut the price of its electric Mustang Mach-E by as much as $8,100 after its sales tumbled 51% in January when the automaker had to stop offering tax incentives on the plug-in model.

The automaker lowered prices on multiple versions of the 2023 model Mach-E by a range of $3,100 to $8,100, according to an emailed statement Tuesday. The battery-powered crossover SUV that Ford makes in Mexico now starts at $39,895, down from $42,995. The biggest discount is offered on several versions, including the high-end premium model with an extended range battery, which now starts at $45,895.

Related.

Y2Kyoto: Schadenfrozen

Schnell! Schnell! Zey must build more wind farms!

Amid the flickering of flares and torches, many of the 1,600 people losing their jobs stood stone-faced as the glowing metal of the plant’s last product — a steel pipe — was smoothed to a perfect cylinder on a rolling mill. The ceremony ended a 124-year run that began in the heyday of German industrialization and weathered two world wars, but couldn’t survive the aftermath of the energy crisis. […]

The underpinnings of Germany’s industrial machine have fallen like dominoes. The US is drifting away from Europe and is seeking to compete with its transatlantic allies for climate investment. China is becoming a bigger rival and is no longer an insatiable buyer of German goods. The final blow for some heavy manufacturers was the end of huge volumes of cheap Russian natural gas.

Enjoy the decline.

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