Given the torrid pace of online retail sales the last two years, I was a bit skeptical when I saw this headline. But once I got a few sentences into the piece I saw the reason for Amazon’s stock slide.
EVs are just one industry whose lifeblood is zero percent interest. Now that we are moving in the opposite direction, investors can look forward to even more losses.
The company attributed the loss largely to a $7.6 billion loss from its investment in electric automaker Rivian Automotive. Rivian, into which Amazon led a $700 million investment in 2019, has seen its stock plummet more than 75% since its blockbuster November 2021 IPO.
The Amazon loss came the day after Ford, another early investor in Rivian, took a $5.4 billion pre-tax charge related to that investment, resulting in Ford reporting a $3.1 billion net loss for the first quarter.
And it will only get worse. All it needs is one of these with a full load of passengers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r-yN8SugWM
Yep the lawsuit potential there is near limitless.
I don’t really understand the math. Isnt a 75 percent loss on a 700 m investment only a paper loss of 500 million? That can’t be the whole story. H
Ford had to book a gain earlier ….. That meant that Ford’s initial $500 million investment in Rivian was worth $10.6 billion. And so it was that Ford reported a gain on that investment of $9.1 billion for the year. So Wednesday afternoon Ford announced it had taken a $5.4 billion pre-tax charge related to its investment in Rivian, which had lost about half of its value during the course of the first quarter.
I’m not sure how well they are going to ramp up from 1015 vehicles last year to 25,000 this year…
and the market in general has gone to shit since november 2021
I fail to see the problem. Make poor financial decisions, reap the consequences.
The problem is that the decision to make an “Amazon EV” … flows from the sham of global warming. And there are even larger investments in solar arrays and wind factories covering the landscape which will all soon stop functioning. The entire “renewable” energy “investment” will need to be … well … renewed. This is all INSANITY. It is the deliberate destruction of capital … trying to create an inferior product compared to what currently exists.
Kenji
Absolutely; but he effort is to not only create an inferior product, but ultimately an inferior world.
We must all aspire to the lifestyles of the impoverished, and short-lived citizens of the 3rd World.
I’m burning dung in my living room (as a source of heat), to signal my solidarity with the world wide movement to shorten lifespans in the civilized world.
Fentanyl? We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
And we just invested $539 million or whatever in Chrysler to convert popular gas models to electric.
The ramp up in production of electric vehicles has likely already overrun potential actual demand by a factor of 20 or 50.
Littering interstate highways with dead EVs will shortly constrain transportation in a manner never previously seen. Think the supply chain is dysfunctional now? Just wait…
Welcome to the thunder dome.
Government “investment” in the auto industry has worked so well in the past. Why not today?
Ahem… Bricklin Canada Vehicles Inc.
“Among the factors blamed for the car’s ultimate demise were ongoing quality control problems, nepotism, supplier shortages, worker absenteeism and a series of price increases that more than doubled the price of the car in two years.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricklin_SV-1
“The only test for the integrity of the parts was one suggested by Albert Bricklin, Malcolm’s father, who proposed striking each part that came out of the presses with a seven pound hammer; if the part did not delaminate it passed.”
When my Jeep is low on fuel, I pull into a gas station and fill up in about 5 minutes or less. If I were driving a Rivian, I’d be “filling up” for one hour and 12 minutes. That’s how long it takes to go from 10% charge to 90% charge in a Rivian.
“They” tell you to “read a book”. And because the EV drivers are all woke leftists … they actually BELIEVE you don’t read … that you’re an idiot living in flyover country … driving an ICE pickup truck … and never reading. That’s how they try to feel superior to you … they mock your intelligence … even as they commit a hilarious act of stupidity
There is a really good South Park episode that fiddles around with that mind set. It’s pretty good. The catch phrase when someone driving a Prius drives by another person driving a Prius is “Good for you.” It definitely nails down the mentality of a lot of do-gooders. The best part about the episode is that the people being made fun of will likely not get the joke or not recognize that it is aimed squarely between their eyes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxuwXczWQC0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnFAAdOBB1c
I’d be stunned if we learned that thoughtful, scientific tomes on Climate Change were on shelves in the homes of Progressives, and had actually been read. Print is so 20th century.
As you know, a simple investment of time reading some of the extant literature on “Climate Change,”and “Global Warming,” quickly reveals that this is the biggest scam in the history of humankind.
Modern Progressives needn’t however, read. Their “science” is procured and curated for them, and delivered electronically and absorbed by osmosis from the Tube and the Interthing. No effort necessary, no intellectual curiosity required. Alternative explanations are not permitted; scientific curiosity is actively discouraged, and any dissenting science is quickly purged from the Tube and the Interthing. Politically acceptable mainstream views are reinforced with advertisements contracted and paid for by the government, thereby doubly hammering home the acceptable set of beliefs. (I’m still reeling from today’s inundation with radio advertisements still singinging the praises of the dubious 3rd or 4th booster.)
Well said dawg!
The ‘shift’ in Ontario to EV seems to me to be shaping up as a massive FAIL. It just isn’t going to happen. It’s going to be a boondoggle that will see much of the auto manufacturing capacity in Ontario gone, for good. And perhaps, good riddance.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/feds-ontario-invest-1b-to-retool-stellantis-plants-to-make-electric-vehicles-1.5885021
Billion taxpayer dollars thanks to Ford and Trudeau down the drain…
“Rivian, into which Amazon led a $700 million investment in 2019, has seen its stock plummet more than 75% since its blockbuster November 2021 IPO.”
Baaah! It’s nothing that more taxpayer billions won’t cure.
What was Biden’s cut?
Amazing how many tax payers dollars one can steal with these virtue signalling schemes.
What are we going to call the “Canadian Electric Car,the one fully subsidized by the taxpayer and which will come on street 3 weeks after people realize Electric Cars cause even more pollution than 1970s diesels..
What was that Tax funded clunker out East?
The Bricklen..?
Yup time for another set of new clothes for the Emperor.
Amazon is the ultimate bubble. I can’t believe it hasn’t already popped.
I worked at an amazon warehouse for two years. They piss away money like there is no tomorrow.
Hydrogen fuel cell powered forklifts were cool the first day. Not so cool when 3/4 of them are down waiting maintenance because you ran them below half a tank or ran over a scrap of wood .
Sure, you can fill them up in 5 minutes, but only good for about 2 hrs of hard driving. if it’s over 80F outside the pumps shut down and you’re out of luck. Accidentally hit the red button that says “off” and it ain’t starting again til the expensive outside company comes to reset it.
Hot and noisy, they would boil off all their coolant, requiring that outside technician to fill it back up. Since hydrogen rises, all the light fixtures had to be explosion proof. But hey, we care about the environment
Good old fashioned batteries or propane are much better
Virtue signalling will kill us all.
And solve nothing.
All bullshit.
All electric vehicles are a dead end on the evolutionary automotive tree.
Useful for limited urban transport, but not mid west 8 hour drives,
Agenda 21 stipulates move people from rural to cities, you know, to save the planet.
So buying a usable vehicle in rural areas will become illegal, denying mobility.
The plan is to price gas so it cannot be affordable. All fake, not market driven.
You will need permission to buy a vehicle.
That will not go well for the pearl clutchers.
When the cost of money, artificially depressed for 15 + years by central banks, starts to return to normalcy, expect massive write-downs on the unprecedented malinvestment.
Buying a car is a financial decision, not an ideological one. With gas over $2 and climbing, EV’s have to be considered. Against that, there is the initial cost, the range factor, the shortage of charging stations, the time spent charging factor, the long wait between order and delivery, the sparky car factor, the battery cost and disposal cost factor, and the fact that a lot of people need a pickup for hauling and off-road travel. The price of gas weighs heavily on the decision but it’s not decisive. Yet.
I don t really hate(*) electric cars
but I hate WHY they are imposed on us ( global warming scam )
and I hate the people imposing them on us out of malice or imbecility.
(*) but I do prefer a good ol’gasoline car !
I was originally in your camp, Friend.
If someone wants an electric vehicle, fine. Pay for it yourself. Have fun.
I came to hate them when I realized the electricity grid will fail without trillions of dollars of transmission, generation, and building wiring upgrades to support these vehicles.