Rivian stock fell more than 27% in midday trading on Thursday.
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.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
One bump wonders: The price tag of EVs and higher costs for repairs are likely to be key factors that could drive Canadian auto insurance higher in the coming years, similar to a trend seen in the U.K., the report published by Morningstar DBRS on Monday shows.
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.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
EV Pricing Could Go The Way Of Gasoline Pricing: According to Automotive News, combined net losses for three of the biggest charging companies (ChargePoint, EVgo, and Blink) exceeded $600 million last year. Something’s gotta give – and it’s likely to be reflected in the cost of public charging.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
We aren’t in on the grift, that’s why: Sometimes the balance for this “cheap Green energy” is so ridiculously out of whack, even a governor raping his own citizens’ tax credits isn’t enough payola to keep turbines going up. Shouldn’t that be telling someone something? You’d think. Why are we the only ones who see the obvious?
We Don’t Need No Gasping Heat Pumps
Related! Federal climate program to phase out oil furnaces has seen only 80 homeowners convert to greener energy nationwide. Cabinet cited program as justification for a billion-dollar #carbontax break for Atlantic voters.
O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas
The government they voted for.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
Documents filed by Xcel Energy for it’s Nobles Wind facility, 134 turbines. The wind turbines lasted 12 years. Cost to decommission $85,533,609. Cost to refurbish $204,000,000. But wait, let me show you how this scam works.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
Stellantis CEO Says Rush to Affordable EVs Will End in Disaster
Stellantis NV’s Carlos Tavares is gearing up for an era of auto-industry consolidation, predicting the rush to offer more affordable electric vehicles will end in a “bloodbath.” He’s paid particularly close attention to one company he perceives as vulnerable: Renault SA.
The 65-year-old chief executive isn’t taking formal steps to pursue Renault, which is virtually off-limits due to the French state’s ownership and influence over the two manufacturers. What he has done is upstage his archrival at every turn, and ready his company to capitalize on any setbacks.
Financial Times: Renault cancels planned IPO of EV unit Ampere
Renault has cancelled plans to list shares in its new electric vehicle and software business, a pivotal part of chief executive Luca de Meo’s turnaround plans for the French carmaker.
The company had planned to hold an initial public offering of its new Ampere business, which combines its EV skills and software into a new unit. The aborted flotation is the latest casualty of slowing growth in EV sales worldwide, as mainstream car buyers balk at higher prices of battery-powered cars.
De Meo had described the unit as a European rival to “Tesla and the Chinese”, and told the Financial Times last year it should be worth “up to €10bn”.
But on Monday, Renault said that “market conditions” and the rising profitability of the wider company meant it would cancel the plans to float shares.
De Meo added that the Europe-wide slowdown in EV growth was “one of the elements” behind the decision, but stressed that the electric market was still going to be “dominant” in Europe because of the region’s decarbonisation regulations.
“EV is a train that has already left the station. Ampere will be one of the drivers of Renault to be one of the champions of decarbonisation,” he said.
But the decision may mean that alliance partners Nissan and Mitsubishi may now not invest in the unit, finance chief Thierry Piéton said. Both Japanese carmakers still have the option to invest, but “whether they come in or not is something we need to discuss”, Piéton said on Monday evening.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Trucks
Depopulation Agenda: “Truckers need proven technology, because if technology fails, the entire supply chain will be dead in the water. Failure is not merely inconvenient, it’s catastrophic. And this is not an option, especially for the food supply chain of America.”
History agrees.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
Ouch: “I couldn’t wait to get out of it.”
Universal Basic Insolvency
If our experience with pandemic “emergency benefits” is any guide, when you pay people not to work, then lo and behold they are unlikely to…work. It will be no different if the magical non-concept of Universal Basic Income ever sees the light of day.
As for the notion that under UBI people will be free to become “care givers” to loved ones, I can foresee a whole lot of youngsters becoming “care givers” to their PlayStation instead.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer produced an analysis in 2021 that concluded that a national guaranteed basic income using parameters of Ontario’s 2017 pilot project could cut Canada’s poverty rate by half in just one year, but at a hefty cost of $91 billion in 2024–25 and $93 billion in 2025–26. That’s nearly double what Ottawa spends, for example, on health transfers to the provinces.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
Judge Orders Wind Farm Dismantled In Win For Tribal Sovereignty
By ordering the scuttling of 84 turbines spread over 8,400 acres of land, along with the removal of underground lines, overhead transmission lines, and meteorological towers, U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves essentially ruled that the renewable energy project, known as Osage Wind, should never have been constructed in the first place because the developers – Osage Wind LLC, Enel Kansas LLC, and Enel Green Power North America – did not have the required lease from the Osage Minerals Council.
“The developers failed to acquire a mining lease during or after construction, as well as after issuance of the 10th Court of Appeals’ decision hold that a mining lease was required,” Choe-Groves ruled, according to Tulsa World (Dec. 22).
“On the record before the Court, it is clear that Defendants are actively avoiding the leasing requirement,” Choe-Groves said. “Permitting such behavior would create the prospect for further interference with the Osage Mineral Council’s authority by Defendants or others wishing to develop the minerals lease. […]
The reference to minerals is key to understanding the case. Wind turbines not only soar into the air from the surface of the land. Their construction also requires the subsurface smashing of rocks and other excavation necessary to ground the turbines. The Osage Nation and its Minerals Council have claimed for years that this subsurface excavation activity constitutes mining and is covered by the tribe’s mineral rights. And for that the developers needed a lease from the Osage Mining Council which they never sought. The developers began leasing the surface rights in 2013 but never bothered to acquire the subsurface mineral rights. In the end, that was their undoing.
Interesting angle.
Now Is The Time At SDA When We Juxtapose!
And this is a sweet one.
January 16, 2023: Trudeau snubs Moe at Saskatoon photo-op
On Monday, Trudeau and Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark toured the Vital Metals facility in Saskatoon, speaking with workers and getting an inside look at the process. […] Moe released a statement earlier in the day saying his Saskatchewan Party government was not aware of the prime minister’s visit to the facility.
January 18, 2024: Saskatoon’s Vital Metals liquidates assets amid bankruptcy
Degagne [McDougall’s Auction] said most of the equipment for auction was brand new and sold for pennies on the dollar. Successful bidders have until the end of January to claim their purchases.
Aloha, Electricity
On January 8, 2024, a confluence of factors forced the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) to initiate rolling blackouts that affected about 120,000 electricity customers in two dozen communities on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
The blackouts, which lasted from about 7:50 pm until 10:30 pm, were caused by a multitude of factors that we can put into two main categories: the immediate factors that caused blackouts and the long-term factors that made Oahu’s electric grid more vulnerable to blackouts in the first place.
Long story short, the state’s so-called “energy transition” set up the dominos for the power outages, ushering in the first rolling blackouts of 2024.[…]
We Don’t Need No Frosty Sparky Cars
Recurrent analyzed the cold-weather behavior of 18 different EVs and found that these batteries performed at about 70% capacity in temperatures below freezing. Obviously, each vehicle is different, but an average of 70% means that some vehicles did much worse. The worst offenders were the Volkswagen 1D4, which lost 46% of its capacity, and the Chevy Bolt, which saw a 42% drop.
What’s the main culprit? It’s drivers and passengers trying to keep warm.
Doomberg: That which can’t go on forever usually doesn’t.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
We Don’t Need No Frozen Sparky Cars
A rare sighting: Global News reports on the renewable freeze-up in Alberta
Meanwhile, they’re idling in Washington…
Another brick sighted.
