Category: Alternative Subsidy

We Don’t Need No Flaming Racin’ Cars

Alternative Subsidy More Money Than Brains Roadkill 11 Comments

Racer.com: Special ONE hits out at FIA, World RX over rallycross fire investigation

Special ONE Racing pointed out the cause of the fire in a statement issued Thursday, saying, “Various testimonies, surveillance camera footage, telemetry data, and expertise based on samples taken from the debris have definitively established the origin of the blaze: a thermal runaway of the lithium-ion battery onboard the car.

“Kreisel Electric, the supplier of this equipment, which is common to all RX1e category models, could not guarantee that such an incident would not recur in the future. Therefore, the FIA has decided not to allow these cars to compete until further notice,” the statement continued. “If this situation persists, it will have the consequence of jeopardizing the future of the discipline, as it undermines the well-being of all its stakeholders.”

While the FIA and World RX began an investigation into the cause of the fire in its immediate aftermath, there hasn’t been a significant update since it began.

h/t @arlasko

End Of Oil

Alternative Subsidy Drill, Baby, Drill 10 Comments

From today’s Energy Daily newsletter (Bloomberg);

Look out, shale. Competition from the deep sea is roaring back.

The Big Three oilfield service providers — SLB, Baker Hughes Co. and Halliburton Co. — have said for months the hottest new spots to drill are shifting from the West Texas Plains to the waters off South America and elsewhere. Now this week, Chevron Corp. made a $53 billion bet on the deep-sea oil deposits off Guyana by agreeing to buy Hess Corp.

Meanwhile, Noble Corp., the biggest offshore drilling contractor by market value, is gearing up for explorers to put as many as 10 deep-water rigs back to work next year. Compare that with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ latest survey of shale executives, who said the number of US onshore rigs is apt to remain flat for the next six months.

Guyana and South America, eh? Further down the page…

Siemens Energy AG is in talks with the German government about securing state guarantees as it struggles to shore up its troubled wind-turbine unit. The company is seeking about €16 billion ($16.9 billion) in backstops over two years, according to people familiar with the matter.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Racin’ Cars

Alternative Subsidy More Money Than Brains Roadkill 11 Comments

It’s a Hot Wheels track!

The second day of Formula E testing has been canceled after a fire brought the first day of running at Valencia’s Circuit Ricardo Tormo to an early halt.

After Robert Shwartzman’s DS Penske stopped on track in the morning session, the car’s battery was removed by supplier Williams Advanced Engineering. It subsequently caught fire, resulting in a paddock evacuation and one WAE staff member being taken to a local hospital as a precaution. […]

The fire is the first incident of its kind in Formula E’s 10-season history, but follows one at July’s World Rallycross event at Lydden Hill in the UK which destroyed Special ONE Racing’s cars and equipment, ruling it out for the remainder of the season.

h/t Allan

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 28 Comments

Vroom Vroom, Fizz Fizz;

The Ford Mustang Mach-E has had some weird recalls in its short time on sale, including one for the glass roof, which could separate and fly off while driving. Its most recent recall is also weird, but it’s also a little embarrassing: The electric SUV could experience a component failure in its battery pack that occurs while DC fast charging or romping on the accelerator.

Ford recalled almost 35,000 2021 and 2022 Mustang Mach-Es equipped with the extended-range battery for the issue. Recall documentation states that DC fast charging and “repeated wide open pedal events” could overheat the high-voltage battery main contactors, causing them to deform and arc. That could cause a loss of power and increase the risk of a crash.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy More Money Than Brains 45 Comments

Via The Truth About Cars;

A Mercedes store operator said he has a more than six-month supply of EVs compared with about a 50-day supply of gasoline-powered vehicles.

“The EVs are coming whether or not you asked for them or earned them,” he said. “There is too much of a price premium — especially at the top end of the EQ lineup — and almost no [lease] support.”

The executive said the EVs lack the “lust factor” of Mercedes’ gasoline-powered flagship models, such as the S-Class sedan and AMG-GT coupe.

“Our cars need to be ‘want’ cars,” he said. “The S-Class has maintained good loyalty because it’s aspirational. An EQS is not something that most people aspire to own.”

The rest goes onto explain how they’re running out of stupid rich people.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy 47 Comments

They’re running out of stupid rich people.

The first wave of buyers willing to pay a premium for a battery-powered car has already made the purchase, dealers and executives say, and automakers are now dealing with a more hesitant group, just as a barrage of new EV models are expected to hit dealerships in the coming years.

“The curve isn’t accelerating as quickly as I think a lot of people expected,” said John Lawler, Ford Motor’s chief financial officer at a conference in September, on the EV adoption rate. “We’re seeing it flatten a bit.”

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy CreepyJoeBiden 9 Comments

Don’t feed the crocodiles.

The demands by the left that we ‘fundamentally transform’ our society (do those words sound familiar?) into a carbon-neutral economy steps on a lot of rakes. There is Biden’s EPA chief, Joseph Goffman, who doesn’t know how much electricity the United States needs each year, the politicians who don’t realize that charging EVs requires about 90% of traditional grid electricity, and, of course, everyone’s favorite giggling vice president, who famously can’t even figure out how to charge an EV.

But maybe the biggest rake of all so far came recently from Kansas, where a coal-fired power plant that was slated for closure will now remain open because … it is needed to supply power to a brand new, $4 billion Panasonic EV battery factory just outside of Kansas City.

h/t Greg

Milking consumers

Alternative Subsidy Cronies entitlement generation nannystate 35 Comments

I suggest we go one step further: simply close down supply mismanagement and end the marketing boards altogether.

Corporate Welfare Fraud or Abject Stupidity?

Alternative Subsidy Baiting The Left Baiting the Right 42 Comments

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

Soviet food systems

Alternative Subsidy Democrats nannystate 14 Comments

With rampant crime infesting so many inner cities in North America, is it really any wonder that large retailers are exiting those environs? Responding with a proposal for state-owned food stores is about as far from a solution as you could possibly get, but these days it seems to be par for the course.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said he wants to open city-owned grocery stores to serve neighborhoods that have become “food deserts” after four Walmart stores and a Whole Foods closed.

Johnson announced last week that his administration would partner with the nonprofit advocacy group Economic Security Project to put stores in underserved areas of the city — a proposal Republicans called something out of “Soviet-style central planning.“

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Cronies Democrats 13 Comments

The wheels of the Clown Bus go bump, bump, bump;

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Thursday addressed her now-infamous electric vehicle charging fiasco, saying her “young” staffers showed “poor judgment” when they used a gas-powered car to hoard a spot for Granholm at a crowded public station. …

Granholm’s charging fiasco occurred during the energy secretary’s June 27 drive from South Carolina to Athens, Ga., which included a stop at a public station outside Augusta to recharge Granholm’s electric vehicle fleet. But before Granholm’s arrival, the energy secretary’s advance staff determined the station would not be able to accommodate the caravan, as one charger was broken and others were in use. A Granholm staffer subsequently used a gas-powered car to hoard the station’s only available charger until Granholm’s arrival, prompting one angry family to call the police.

The ethics of emergencies

Alternative Subsidy Cronies It's Probably Nothing nannystate Subsidy Fraud Boy 10 Comments

The misappropriation of millions of dollars is a feature, not a bug, of systems guided by short-term, “emergency” thinking. Or rather, a complete lack of thinking.

Rai led a “fraudulent scheme” targeting the hotel and PHAC officials, according to the statement of claim, telling the other owners the government was taking over the entire hotel but only paying for 100 rooms — when he had actually negotiated government payment for all 247 rooms.

It’s alleged he misappropriated the revenue difference of those 147 rooms: at least $15.7 million.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy 14 Comments

FP;

Volkswagen AG is cutting temporary workers at its main electric-vehicle factory in Germany after the phaseout of a subsidy in the country caused demand for its EVs to drop.

The manufacturer is letting go 269 people at the Zwickau plant when their 12-month contracts expire in the near future, VW said Thursday. The company expects it will have to adjust the shift schedule at the facility near the Czech border.

The fate of around 2,000 additional temporary staff remains uncertain, according to people familiar with the matter, who declined to be named because a final decision hasn’t been made yet. Corporate orders that accounted for some 70 per cent of VW-branded EVs made in Zwickau have been plummeting since aid for electric company cars expired this month, one of the people said.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 32 Comments

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm …

… recently took 4-day EV caravan trip across the southeast to “draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars.”

What happened next is like a scene out of VEEP…

Steve from Rockwood – The irony is not lost that a politician is in an Armada of high-priced vehicles to make a point on Earth sustainability and a young family with children appear to be in the way.

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