Somebody hasn’t been honest about taxpayer-funded subsidies:
It will take 20 years for the federal and provincial governments to break even on massive subsidies to auto giants Volkswagen and Stellantis, not the five years that the government initially pledged, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Volkswagen, which plans a massive electric vehicle battery plant in St. Thomas, Ont., and Stellantis, which is building a plant with LG in Windsor, Ont., both received massive production subsidies from the provincial and federal government.
h/t James MacMaster
Robert, behold the mighty power of “And.”
/jk
Ideologues can’t do simple math because it doesn’t matter to them.
“It will take 20 years for the federal and provincial governments to break even…”
This is still a lie. They will NEVER break even. Ever. Those battery plants will never make a profit. Most likely they will never be built.
But Liberal consultants and construction management companies will make a killing.
Exactly right.
I’ve seen the one at Windsor.
But the whole thing stinks to high heaven no price is to big to pay (tax dollars) to be “right”.
Fraud . In twenty years, no one will be using battery powered EV’s
We’ll have all moved on to magic capacitors….or whatever the next “latest” craze is.
I’m holding out for nuclear powered vehicles…..fill up and go
EVs are remain unsold today causing massive losses to Ford et al. No one is going to buy these EVs.
I’d take that bet.
In a perfect world, there would be no EV subsidies.
But let me explain something to all you SDA readers, of which I have been since the 90s.
My model Y is the future. Brainwashing exists on both sides.
On EVs, here’s what someone who has been brainwashed will say:
1. battery explodes
2. battery will fail
3. slave labour for cobalt
4. More CO2
5. Virtue signaling
6. Not enough electricity
7. We will run out of lithium, copper, rare earth metals
Each and every one of these issues are either debunked or have free market solutions already underway.
Everyone just relax. Things will work out.
I encourage commenters to ask questions rather than level ad hominin attacks. Its more productive, and we all might learn something.
Jasper
How much was your EV?
110k. I sprung for FSD.
Your drive by comment exposed your ignorance. People here ask pointed questions, and are often frustrated by the brain dead answers they get from ideologues such as yourself.
For example, I’m really eager to relax and wait for you to work out the rare earth mineral issues – you have a plan to make them plentiful?
I did not intend to come across as a drive by comment.
In what way do you think I’m an ideologue? Should I interpret your comment that I’m a climate zealot? I assure you I am not. You may have even read some of my earlier essays on the evils of the climate change cult from the 90s and 2000s. Things are unfolding as many of us have predicted.
I don’t agree with subsidies or edicts. My message is clear: EVs are the future for many excellent reasons. They are not the 100% solution in 100% of cases. But once you own one, you never go back. Forget the Lightening, it’s a POS.
Think Tesla…no one is close to them and won’t be for 5 years.
Regarding the question of rare earth metals…they aren’t so rare, and mining them will happen or alternatives will be used. For example, electric motors with no “rare earth metals” are being manufactured/developed.
Have some faith in our own ideology: markets work. The pursuit of profit means that humans have strong incentives to find creative solutions.
And we will.
Really glad that you are able to afford a 100,000 vehicle. Most are having trouble paying the rent. How do you think the average Canadian will be able to buy one?
How about there’s no feasible battery technology to replace diesel engines. Diesel engines will continue to be used for all heavy equipment for the foreseeable future. So even if every single gasoline engine is replaced, diesel fuel will continue to be manufactured. Gasoline is a byproduct of the manufacture of diesel. What’s your plan to deal with all the useless gasoline? Flare it off like refineries did in the 1890’s?
And why should I “relax” about a technology that uses my tax dollars to be subsidized? Maybe you can relax about stealing money from the rest of us for your sanctimony-mobile.
You are probably right…diesel will continue to be used for heavy equipment for the foreseeable future. However, Teslas semi is a real world product that is saving Pepsi millions in operating costs. As production is ramped, their semi will disrupt the trucking industry in a positive way.
And I agree with you about subsidies. My hope is that they are phased out as soon as possible.
You didn’t answer the question. It’s a waste of time talking to ecofascists.
Much of the world is at least starting to wake up to the fact that EVs are not the answer to anything. The only real scenarios are:
1. We push ahead with this technology anyway, but there isn’t enough critical materials for many people to own or afford a car as the cost of these materials rise exponentially. Therefore we will never break even
2. By some miracle a new technology will be developed for a viable EV industry, but that would make these battery plants redundant. Therefore we will never break even
3. The world comes to its senses and abandons the push for EVs. Therefore we will never break even
Related:
// The history of new sectors teaches us that private investments tend to wait for the early high-risk investments to be made first by the State. Indeed, it has often been State spending that has absorbed most of the real risk and uncertainty in the emergence of new sectors, as well as in particular areas of old sectors (e.g. radical new medicines today). Yet the returns from these ‘revolutionary’ State investments have been almost totally privatized. While this is especially obvious in the pharmaceutical industry, where medicines that are funded from taxpayer money are often too expensive for the taxpayers to buy , it is also true in other high-tech areas, with companies like Apple, which have received major benefits from public funds, both direct and indirect, managing to avoid paying their taxes. //
On the one hand:
// the flexibility of the State is an important asset, which should be allowed to make its ‘foolish’ investments in technology in a targeted and purposeful manner.
Who would ever have guessed that technology created to preserve communication abilities during a nuclear war would become the world’s go-to platform for knowledge, communication and commerce? //
On the other hand:
// While the State needs to take risks, it should not be simply absorbing (or even ‘mitigating’) the risk of the private sector, but taking the kind of risks that the private sector is not willing to take, and also reaping returns from that risk taking.
Reaping the returns is crucial, because the innovation cycle can thus be sustained over time //
Why the state must be entrepreneurial
By Mariana Mazzucato
What a good little marxist you are.
Dude, our state is most certainly NOT entrepreneurial:
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/jeftovic-canadas-multi-generational-gold-gaffe
Stuff we can harvest and refine and innovate on is left in the ground.
RNrn
… “both received massive production subsidies from the provincial and federal government.”
AND provided nice thank you notes of appreciation for the gifts.
Obviously the gangsters know that the subsidies do not redound to the benefit of taxpayers, so there can only be one rational reason for their continuation no matter where the gang in power falls on the ideological spectrum.
And we all know that there will be no break-even point. EVER.
Here in TN they gave Ford 850 million dollars to build an pick up an EV truck plant near Memphis. You know because nobody is moving their business or their lives to TN without subsidies/s.It is all grift all the way down.And as Canadians you may not know that people from CA etc are literally pouring into TN faster than people over the southern border. It feels absolutely insane here They are Just buying houses off the internet for cash and have so much money.
Hopefully they are all red voting refugees and not communists bringing their filthiness with them.
[My best Mr. Rogers voice] “Can you say ‘Fascism’? …I knew you could.”
it’s not $20 Billion, it’s $20 billion plus 5% per year in interest, and there is no chance of this ever being paid off, it’ll just be rolled over for eternity, because any “repayments” will just be spent on new government shinys
My prediction is that one of those subsidized “plants” will go under and the remaining one will be back to the trough for more (unborn) taxpayer-looted grift all within 5 to 10 years.
When has fleecing the taxpayer ever stopped a government from policy that garners them postive headlines and the ability to virtue signal? The Liberals are just better than most.
And as was pointed out, this will never pay for itself, not even in 20 years.
Scott Moe and his windmills is amateur hour compared to this.
According to an article by Brian Lilley the government is not giving money to automakers. It is giving them a tax break instead. That’s more like foregone revenue.
How about an across the board income tax break to level the playing field?
In my opinion neither. It’s the same old Liberal playbook they have been using for years. Take money from Alberta/Saskatchewan, give money to Ontario/Atlantic Canada, win elections. They truly don’t care if these projects make money or even get built, it’s all about buying votes.
BTW any Canadian that buys a fully electric vehicle as their primary car deserves their unavoidable fate.
“massive subsidies to auto giants Volkswagen….”
Of course Trudeau gives them subsidies! It’s “the Peoples Car” company.
“The “People’s Car” and the Nazi State ”
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/volkswagen-1
never met a civil servant yet who could count money
Where’s Option “C”: “All of the above?”
Neither.
It’s graft.
In 20 years Canada may well be a much smaller and different country.
Just another example of us poor little buggers with no political capital enriching the big rotten bastards who have it.
You would think? they would invest in cheap energy so people would want to drive EVs.. Make it a no brainer :)..
No, wheeling and dealing for those green jobs so they can pat themselves on the back.. Like all things government (free money) with political strings.. They will dig half a hole and leave a big eyesore project that needs retrofit after retrofit..
The only reason government appears to work is it floats on our money.. Anybody who gets involved with them plays the same game.. Nothing is ever on budget and on time.. Boondoggle..
Crony Capitalism
There is a lot to unpack with these subsidies. Just dismissing EVs as useless and temporary is probably unwise. They will solve a major problem – air pollution in large cities. But they won’t replace diesel engines for a long time, if ever. Nor will you see electric airplanes or helicopters due to the low energy density of battery technology.
There aren’t many “rare earth elements” in EVs. These are more common in wind turbine motors. EVs are packed with lithium, cobalt, nickel (the battery) and aluminum (the case) and these metals are very common although not easily available to the western world (most of the nickel comes from Indonesia, Philippines and Russia, for example).
The problem with subsidies is how they are applied. Most of the money is going to the production facilities and little to no money is being spent on the overall supply chain. When these facilities are ready for production they won’t open because there are no “excess” raw materials to produce these new batteries. No batteries, no EVs. In Canada it takes about 15 years to open a mine. But there aren’t many voters in the mining regions anymore while places like Windsor, Hamilton and St. Thomas are packed with voters. And why would a politician approve a subsidy without a benefit to them?
Also, there was a time when private capital took the risk. Thinking back to the early days of the US oil industry, the steel industry, the railroads, even the early subway system in New York. Today, however, people do not understand the negative effects of debt. In 4-5 years the USA will pay more to service its debt than it spends on health care and its military combined. That will wake up a few people, and by then it will be too late. Remember the people who said it was a good time to borrow money while interest rates were low. Well they got their money. Now it’s our turn to pay it back with interest. The peddlers of Modern Monetary Theory say printing money is fine as long as it doesn’t trigger inflation. But that is exactly the problem with MMT. If you don’t print enough money to make a difference you don’t trigger inflation. As soon as you turn on all the printing presses inflation increases rapidly. Governments wonder why inflation is still persistently high – all the while they continue printing money.
In large cities (Beijing, Mexico City, LA, Milan, Toronto) you could legislate Evs with a maximum weight of 1,500 kg. You would need a special permit to drive any other vehicle in one of these cities. It would get people out of their Hummers, pickup trucks and giant SUVs and into a decent sized commuter vehicle while solving the air pollution problem. But we are not doing that because the politicians know cities have a lot of voters and voters get cranky when you try and tell them what’s best. So politicians play around the margins increasing taxes (like the carbon tax) and subsidizing factories that may never produce a vehicle (can’t get the nickel, cobalt, lithium to build the battery, can’t make an EV without a battery, yet the production facility to make the EV stands ready and the politicians remain in power).
I’m feeling a bit ranty today.
Just dismissing EVs as useless and temporary is probably unwise.
Yer right. They should also be called stupid and virtue signalling.
There aren’t many “rare earth elements” in EVs.
Battery production.
The problem with subsidies is how they are applied.
Nope. the problem w/ subsidies is…subsidies.
Today, however, people do not understand the negative effects of debt.
[Spit] Progs can’t do math. And they don’t give a shit, ’cause all [Spit] Prog gov’ts keep telling their fawning, single digit IQ [Spit] Prog followers that everything’s gonna be OK.
It would get people out of their Hummers, pickup trucks and giant SUVs and into a decent sized commuter vehicle while solving the air pollution problem.
Don’t GAF about big city pollution or big city stupidity.
Rare earth elements (REEs) are not used in EV batteries. They are used to make DC motors. The original Tesla used AC induction motors and had no need for REEs. They switched to DC motors with the Model 3 and are moving back to motors with no RREs in the future. I appreciate your other points.